Quantum Physics (quant-ph)

Abstract: The work considers an open qutrit system whose density matrix $\rho(t)$ evolution is governed by the Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad master equation with simultaneous coherent (in the Hamiltonian) and incoherent (in the superoperator of dissipation) controls. Incoherent control makes the decoherence rates depending on time in a specific controlled manner and within clear physical mechanics. We consider the problem of maximizing the Hilbert-Schmidt overlap between the system's final state $\rho(T)$ and a given target state $\rho_{\rm target}$ and the problem of minimizing the squared Hilbert-Schmidt distance between these states. For the both problems, we perform their realifications, derive the corresponding Pontryagin function, adjount system (with the two cases of transversality conditions in view of the two terminal objectives), and gradients of the objectives, adapt the one-, two-, three-step gradient projection methods. For the problem of maximizing the overlap, we also adapt the regularized first-order Krotov method. In the numerical experiments, we analyze, first, the methods' operation and, second, the obtained control processes, in respect to considering the environment as a resource via incoherent control.

Abstract: Analyzing the point spectrum, i.e. bound state energy eigenvalue, of the Dirac delta function in two and three dimensions is notoriously difficult without recourse to regularization or renormalization, typically both. The reason for this in two dimensions is two fold; 1) the coupling constant, together with the mass and Planck's constant form an unitless quantity. This causes there to be a missing anomalous length scale. 2) The immediately obvious L$^2$ solution is divergent at the origin, where the Dirac Delta potential has its important point of support as a measure. Due to the uniqueness of the solution presented here, it is immediate that the linear operator (the two dimensional Laplace operator on all of $\mathbb{R}^2$), with the specialized domain constructed here, ensures that the point spectrum has exactly one element. This element is determined precisely, and a natural mathematically rigorous resolution to the anomalous length scale arises. In this work, there is no recourse to renormalization or regularization of any kind.

Abstract: Quantum algorithms have the ability to reduce runtime for executing tasks beyond the capabilities of classical algorithms. Therefore, identifying the resources responsible for quantum advantages is an interesting endeavour. We prove that nonvanishing quantum correlations, both bipartite and genuine multipartite entanglement, are required for solving nontrivial linear systems of equations in the Harrow-Hassidim-Lloyd (HHL) algorithm. Moreover, we find a nonvanishing l1-norm quantum coherence of the entire system and the register qubit which turns out to be related to the success probability of the algorithm. Quantitative analysis of the quantum resources reveals that while a significant amount of bipartite entanglement is generated in each step and required for this algorithm, multipartite entanglement content is inversely proportional to the performance indicator. In addition, we report that when imperfections chosen from Gaussian distribution are incorporated in controlled rotations, multipartite entanglement increases with the strength of the disorder, albeit error also increases while bipartite entanglement and coherence decreases, confirming the beneficial role of bipartite entanglement and coherence in this algorithm.

Abstract: Atomic nonlinear interferometry has wide applications in quantum metrology and quantum information science. Here we propose a nonlinear time-reversal interferometry scheme with high robustness and metrological gain based on the spin squeezing generated by arbitrary quadratic collective-spin interaction, which could be described by the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick (LMG) model. We optimize the squeezing process, encoding process, and anti-squeezing process, finding that the two particular cases of the LMG model, one-axis twisting and two-axis twisting outperform in robustness and precision, respectively. Moreover, we propose a Floquet driving method to realize equivalent time reverse in the atomic system, which leads to high performance in precision, robustness, and operability. Our study sets a benchmark in achieving high precision and robustness in atomic nonlinear interferometry.

Abstract: Quantum superposition is normally sustained in a microscopic regime governed by Heisenberg uncertainty principle applicable to a single particle. Quantum correlation between paired particles implies the violation of local realism governed by classical physics. Over the last decades, quantum features have been implemented in various quantum technologies including quantum computing, communications, and sensing. Such quantum features are generally known to be impossible by any classical means. Here, a macroscopic quantum correlation is presented for coherence manipulations of polarization-path correlations of a continuous wave laser, satisfying the joint-parameter relation in an inseparable product-basis form. For the coherence control of the polarization-path correlation, a pair of electro-optic modulators is used in a noninterfering Mach-Zehnder interferometer for deterministic switching between paired polarization bases, resulting in the polarization product-basis superposition in a selective product-basis choice manner by a followed pair of acousto-optic modulators. This unprecedented macroscopic quantum feature opens the door to a new understanding of quantum mechanics beyond the microscopic regime for future classical optics-compatible quantum information.

Abstract: Benchmarking of quantum machine learning (QML) algorithms is challenging due to the complexity and variability of QML systems, e.g., regarding model ansatzes, data sets, training techniques, and hyper-parameters selection. The QUantum computing Application benchmaRK (QUARK) framework simplifies and standardizes benchmarking studies for quantum computing applications. Here, we propose several extensions of QUARK to include the ability to evaluate the training and deployment of quantum generative models. We describe the updated software architecture and illustrate its flexibility through several example applications: (1) We trained different quantum generative models using several circuit ansatzes, data sets, and data transformations. (2) We evaluated our models on GPU and real quantum hardware. (3) We assessed the generalization capabilities of our generative models using a broad set of metrics that capture, e.g., the novelty and validity of the generated data.

Abstract: Molecular docking plays a pivotal role in drug discovery and precision medicine, enabling us to understand protein functions and advance novel therapeutics. Here, we introduce a potential alternative solution to this problem, the digitized-counterdiabatic quantum approximate optimization algorithm (DC-QAOA), which utilizes counterdiabatic driving and QAOA on a quantum computer. Our method was applied to analyze diverse biological systems, including the SARS-CoV-2 Mpro complex with PM-2-020B, the DPP-4 complex with piperidine fused imidazopyridine 34, and the HIV-1 gp120 complex with JP-III-048. The DC-QAOA exhibits superior performance, providing more accurate and biologically relevant docking results, especially for larger molecular docking problems. Moreover, QAOA-based algorithms demonstrate enhanced hardware compatibility in the noisy intermediate-scale quantum era, indicating their potential for efficient implementation under practical docking scenarios. Our findings underscore quantum computing's potential in drug discovery and offer valuable insights for optimizing protein-ligand docking processes.

Abstract: Obtaining information from a quantum system through a measurement typically disturbs its state. The post-measurement states for a given measurement, however, are not unique and highly rely on the chosen measurement model, complicating the puzzle of information-disturbance. Two distinct questions are then in order. Firstly, what is the minimum disturbance a measurement may induce? Secondly, when a fixed disturbance occurs, how informative is the possible measurement in the best-case scenario? Here, we propose various approaches to tackle these questions and provide explicit solutions for the set of unbiased binary qubit measurements and post-measurement state spaces that are equivalent to the image of a unital qubit channel. In particular, we show there are different trade-off relations between the sharpness of this measurement and the average fidelity of the pre-measurement and post-measurement state spaces as well as the sharpness and quantum resources preserved in the post-measurement states in terms of coherence and discord-like correlation once the measurement is applied locally.

Abstract: Quantum entanglement and quantum squeezing are two most typical approaches to beat the standard quantum limit (SQL) of the sensitive phase estimations in quantum metrology. Each of them has already been utilized individually to improve the sensitivity of electric field sensing with the trapped ion platform, but the upper bound of the demonstrated sensitivity gain is very limited, i.e., the experimental 3dB and theoretical 6dB, over the SQL. Here, by simultaneously using the internal (spin)-external (oscillator) state entanglements and the oscillator squeezings to effectively amplify the accumulation phase and compress the mean excited phonon number at the same time, we show that these sensitivity gains can be effectively surpassed, once the relevant parameters can be properly set. Hopefully, the proposal provides a novel approach to the stronger beaten of the SQL for the sensitive sensings of the desired electric field and also the other metrologies.

Abstract: We propose a hybrid feed-forward receiver (HFFRE) for the discrimination of binary phase-shift-keyed coherent states based on the appropriate combination of the displacement feed-forward receiver (DFFRE) and a homodyne-like setup employing a low-intensity local oscillator and photon-number-resolving detectors. We investigate the performance of the proposed scheme addressing also realistic scenarios in the presence of non-unit quantum detection efficiency, dark counts and a visibility reduction. The present HFFRE outperforms the DFFRE in all conditions, beating the standard quantum limit in particular regimes.

Abstract: Chern number is a crucial invariant for characterizing topological feature of two-dimensional quantum systems. Real-space Chern number allows us to extract topological properties of systems without involving translational symmetry, and hence plays an important role in investigating topological systems with disorder or impurity. On the other hand, the twisted boundary condition (TBC) can also be used to define the Chern number in the absence of translational symmetry. Here we study the relation between these different definitions of Chern number. Through analyzing the TBC formula and two real-space formulae (the non-commutative Chern number and the Bott index formula), we show that these approaches are equivalent in the thermodynamic limit. The equivalence is also numerically confirmed via the Haldane model.

Abstract: In this work we study quantum position verification with continuous-variable quantum states. In contrast to existing discrete protocols, we present and analyze a protocol that utilizes coherent states and its properties. Compared to discrete-variable photonic states, coherent states offer practical advantages since they can be efficiently prepared and manipulated with current technology. We prove security of the protocol against any unentangled attackers via entropic uncertainty relations, showing that the adversary has more uncertainty than the honest prover about the correct response as long as the noise in the quantum channel is below a certain threshold. Additionally, we show that attackers who pre-share one continuous-variable EPR pair can break the protocol.

Abstract: The paper analyzes the entropy of a system composed by an arbitrary number of indistinguishable particles at the equilibrium, defining entropy as a function of the quantum state of the system, not of its phase space representation. Our crucial observation is that the entropy of the system is the Shannon entropy of the random occupancy numbers of the quantum states allowed to system's particles. We consider the information-theoretic approach, which is based on Jaynes' maximum entropy principle, and the empirical approach, which leads to canonical typicality in modern quantum thermodynamics. In the information-theoretic approach, the occupancy numbers of particles' quantum states are multinomially distributed, while in the empirical approach their distribution is multivariate hypergeometric. As the number of samples of the empirical probability tends to infinity, the multivariate hypergeometric distribution tends to the multinomial distribution. This reconciles, at least in the limit, the two approaches. When regarded from the perspective of quantum measurement, our analysis suggests the existence of another kind of subjectivism than the well-known subjectivism that characterizes the maximum entropy approach. This form of subjectivity is responsible for the collapse of entropy to zero after the quantum measurement, both in the information-theoretic and in the empirical approaches.

Abstract: We have found the special dark state solutions of the anisotropic two-qubit quantum Rabi model (QRM), which has at most one photon, and constant eigenenergy in the whole coupling regime. Accordingly, we propose a scheme to deterministically generate two kinds of the two-qubit Bell states through adiabatic evolution along the dark states. With the assistance of the Stark shift, the generation time can be reduced to subnanosecond scales, proportional to the reverse of the resonator frequency, with fidelity reaching 99%. Furthermore, the other two kinds of Bell states can also be ultrafast generated.

Abstract: We propose fault-tolerant architectures based on performing projective measurements in the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) basis on constant-sized, entangled resource states. We present linear-optical constructions of the architectures, where the GHZ-state measurements are encoded to suppress the errors induced by photon loss and the probabilistic nature of linear optics. Simulations of our constructions demonstrate high single-photon loss thresholds compared to the state-of-the-art linear-optical architecture realized with encoded two-qubit fusion measurements performed on constant-sized resource states. We believe this result shows a resource-efficient path to achieving photonic fault-tolerant quantum computing.

Abstract: Heisenberg's breakthrough in his July 1925 paper that set in motion the development of Quantum Mechanics through subsequent papers by Born, Jordan, Heisenberg and also Dirac (from 1925 to 1927) is reexamined through a modern lens. In this paper, we shall discuss some new perspectives on (i) what could be the guiding intuitions for his discoveries and (ii) the origin of the Born-Jordan-Heisenberg canonical quantization rule. From this vantage point we may get an insight into Einstein's Quantum Riddle (Lande1974,Sommerfeld1918,Born1926) and a possible glimpse of what might come next after the last 100 years of Heisenberg's quantum mechanics.

Abstract: Standard architecture of quantum information processing is based on bottom-up design: One begins with a one-digit one-particle system, while multi-digit quantum registers demand multi-particle configurations, mathematically modeled by tensor products of single quantum digits. Here we show that any single quantum system is automatically equipped with hidden tensor structures that allow for single-particle top-down designs of quantum information processing. Hidden tensor structures imply that any quantum system, even as simple as a single one-dimensional harmonic oscillator, can be decomposed into an arbitrary number of subsystems. The resulting structure is rich enough to enable quantum computation, violation of Bell's inequalities, and formulation of universal quantum gates. In principle, a single-particle quantum computer is possible. Moreover, it is shown that these hidden structures are at the roots of some well known theoretical constructions, such as the Brandt-Greenberg multi-boson representation of creation-annihilation operators, intensively investigated in the context of higher-order or fractional-order squeezing. In effect, certain rather tedious standard proofs known from the literature can be simplified to literally one line. The general construction is illustrated by concrete examples.

Abstract: Strong dissipation of plasmonic resonances is detrimental to quantum manipulation. To enhance the quantum coherence, we propose to tailor the local density of states (LDOS) of plasmonic resonances by integrating with a photonic cavity operating at a chiral exceptional point (CEP), where the phase of light field can offer a new degree of freedom to flexibly manipulate the quantum states. A quantized few-mode theory is employed to reveal that the LDOS of the proposed hybrid cavity can evolve into sub-Lorentzian lineshape, with order-of-magnitude linewidth narrowing and additionally a maximum of eightfold enhancement compared to the usual plasmonic-photonic cavity without CEP. This results in the enhanced coherent light-matter interaction accompanied by the reduced dissipation of polaritonic states. Furthermore, a scattering theory based on eigenmode decomposition is present to elucidate two mechanisms responsible for the significant improvement of quantum yield at CEP, the reduction of plasmonic absorption by the Fano interference and the enhancement of cavity radiation through the superscattering. Importantly, we find the latter allows achieving a near-unity quantum yield at room temperature; in return, high quantum yield is beneficial to experimentally verify the enhanced LDOS at CEP by measuring the fluorescence lifetime of a quantum emitter. Therefore, our work demonstrates that the plasmonic resonances in CEP-engineered environment can serve as a promising platform for exploring the quantum states control by virtue of the non-Hermiticity of open optical resonators and building the high-performance quantum devices for sensing, spectroscopy, quantum information processing and quantum computing.

Abstract: Cavity polaritons derived from the strong light-matter interaction at the quantum level provide a basis for efficient manipulation of quantum states via cavity field. Polaritons with narrow linewidth and long lifetime are appealing in applications such as quantum sensing and storage. Here, we propose a prototypical arrangement to implement a whispering-gallery-mode resonator with topological mirror moulded by one-dimensional atom array, which allows to boost the lifetime of cavity polaritons over an order of magnitude. This considerable enhancement attributes to the coupling of polaritonic states to dissipationless edge states protected by the topological bandgap of atom array that suppresses the leakage of cavity modes. When exceeding the width of Rabi splitting, topological bandgap can further reduce the dissipation from polaritonic states to bulk states of atom array, giving arise to subradiant cavity polaritons with extremely sharp linewidth. The resultant Rabi oscillation decays with a rate even below the free-space decay of a single quantum emitter. Inheriting from the topologically protected properties of edge states, the subradiance of cavity polaritons can be preserved in the disordered atom mirror with moderate perturbations involving the atomic frequency, interaction strengths and location. Our work opens up a new paradigm of topology-engineered quantum states with robust quantum coherence for future applications in quantum computing and network.

Abstract: In the out-of-equilibrium evolution induced by a quench, fast degrees of freedom generate long-range entanglement that is hard to encode with standard tensor networks. However, local observables only sense such long-range correlations through their contribution to the reduced local state as a mixture. We present a tensor network method that identifies such long-range entanglement and efficiently transforms it into mixture, much easier to represent. In this way, we obtain an effective description of the time-evolved state as a density matrix that captures the long-time behavior of local operators with finite computational resources.

Abstract: To investigate the fundamental limit to far-field incoherent imaging, the prequels to this work [M. Tsang, Phys. Rev. A 99, 012305 (2019); 104, 052411 (2021)] have studied a quantum lower bound on the error of estimating an object moment and proved a scaling law for the bound with respect to the object size. As the scaling law was proved only in the asymptotic limit of vanishing object size, this work performs a numerical analysis of the quantum bound to verify that the law works well for nonzero object sizes in reality. We also use the numerical bounds to study the optimality of a measurement called spatial-mode demultiplexing or SPADE, showing that SPADE not only follows the scaling but is also numerically close to being optimal, at least for low-order moments.

Abstract: In conventional quantum mechanics (QM), time is treated as a parameter, $t$, and the evolution of the quantum state with respect to time is described by ${\hat {H}}|\psi(t)\rangle=i\hbar \frac{d}{dt}|\psi(t)\rangle$. In a recently proposed space-time-symmetric (STS) extension of QM, position becomes the parameter and a new quantum state, $|\phi(x)\rangle$, is introduced. This state describes the particle's arrival time at position $x$, and the way the arrival time changes with respect to $x$ is governed by ${\hat {P}}|\phi(x)\rangle=-i\hbar \frac{d}{dx} |\phi(x)\rangle$. In this work, we generalize the STS extension to a particle moving in three-dimensional space. By combining the conventional QM with the three-dimensional STS extension, we have a ``full'' STS QM given by the dynamic equation ${\hat { P}}^{\mu}|{\phi }^\mu(x^{\mu})\rangle=- i \hbar~\eta^{\mu\nu}\frac{d}{dx^{\nu}}|{\phi}^\mu (x^{\mu})\rangle$, where $x^{\mu}$ is the coordinate chosen as the parameter of the state. Depending on the choice of $x^\mu$, we can recover either the Schr\"odinger equation (with $x^\mu=x^0=t$) or the three-dimensional STS extension (with $x^\mu=x^i=$ either $x$, $y$, or $z$). By selecting $x^\mu=x$, we solve the dynamic equation of the STS QM for a free particle and calculate the wave function $\langle t,y,z|\phi^1(x)\rangle$. This wave function represents the probability amplitude of the particle arriving at position ($y$,$z$) at instant $t$, given that the detector occupies the entire $yz$-plane located at position $x$. Remarkably, we find that the integral of $|\langle t,y,z|\phi (x)\rangle|^2$ in $y$ and $z$ takes the form of the three-dimensional version of the axiomatic Kijowski distribution.

Abstract: Spontaneous collapse models are modifications of standard quantum mechanics in which a physical mechanism is responsible for the collapse of the wavefunction, thus providing a way to solve the so-called "measurement problem". However, they present great challenges when one tries to make them relativistic. Here, we propose a new kind of non-relativistic spontaneous collapse model whose relativistic version could be easier to obtain. In the non-relativistic regime, we show that this model can lead to a dynamics quite similar to that of the Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber model, by also naturally solving the problem of indistinguishable particles. Moreover, we can also obtain the same master equation of the well-known Continuous Spontaneous Localization models. Finally, we show how our proposed model solves the measurement problem in a manner conceptually similar to the Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber model.

Abstract: High-dimensional entanglement has shown to have significant advantages in quantum communication. It is available in many degrees of freedom and in particular in the time-domain routinely produced in down-conversion (SPDC). While advantageous in the sense that only a single detector channel is needed locally, it is notoriously hard to analyze, especially in an assumption-free manner that is required for quantum key distribution applications. We develop the first complete analysis of high-dimensional entanglement in the polarization-time-domain and show how to efficiently certify relevant density matrix elements and security parameters for Quantum Key Distribution (QKD). In addition to putting past experiments on rigorous footing, we also develop physical noise models and propose a novel setup that can further enhance the noise resistance of free-space quantum communication.

Abstract: The vacuum of the lattice Schwinger model is prepared on up to 100 qubits of IBM's Eagle-processor quantum computers. A new algorithm to prepare the ground state of a gapped translationally-invariant system on a quantum computer is presented, which we call Scalable Circuits ADAPT-VQE (SC-ADAPT-VQE). This algorithm uses the exponential decay of correlations between distant regions of the ground state, together with ADAPT-VQE, to construct quantum circuits for state preparation that can be scaled to arbitrarily large systems. SC-ADAPT-VQE is applied to the Schwinger model, and shown to be systematically improvable, with an accuracy that converges exponentially with circuit depth. Both the structure of the circuits and the deviations of prepared wavefunctions are found to become independent of the number of spatial sites, $L$. This allows for a controlled extrapolation of the circuits, determined using small or modest-sized systems, to arbitrarily large $L$. The circuits for the Schwinger model are determined on lattices up to $L=14$ (28 qubits) with the qiskit classical simulator, and subsequently scaled up to prepare the $L=50$ (100 qubits) vacuum on IBM's 127 superconducting-qubit quantum computers ibm_brisbane and ibm_cusco. After applying an improved error-mitigation technique, which we call Operator Decoherence Renormalization, the chiral condensate and charge-charge correlators obtained from the quantum computers are found to be in good agreement with classical Matrix Product State simulations.

Abstract: In the modern financial industry system, the structure of products has become more and more complex, and the bottleneck constraint of classical computing power has already restricted the development of the financial industry. Here, we present a photonic chip that implements the unary approach to European option pricing, in combination with the quantum amplitude estimation algorithm, to achieve a quadratic speedup compared to classical Monte Carlo methods. The circuit consists of three modules: a module loading the distribution of asset prices, a module computing the expected payoff, and a module performing the quantum amplitude estimation algorithm to introduce speed-ups. In the distribution module, a generative adversarial network is embedded for efficient learning and loading of asset distributions, which precisely capture the market trends. This work is a step forward in the development of specialized photonic processors for applications in finance, with the potential to improve the efficiency and quality of financial services.

Abstract: We propose a definition of wavefunction "branchings": quantum superpositions which can't be feasibly distinguished from the corresponding mixed state, even under time evolution. Our definition is largely independent of interpretations, requiring only that it takes many more local gates to swap branches than to distinguish them. We give several examples of states admitting such branch decompositions. Under our definition, we show that attempts to get relative-phase information between branches will fail without frequent active error correction, that branches are effectively the opposite of good error-correcting codes, that branches effectively only grow further apart in time under natural evolution, that branches tend to absorb spatial entanglement, that branching is stronger in the presence of conserved quantities, and that branching implies effective irreversibility. Identifying these branch decompositions in many-body quantum states could shed light on the emergence of classicality, provide a metric for experimental tests at the quantum/ classical boundary, and allow for longer numerical time evolution simulations. We see this work as a generalization of the basic ideas of environmentally-induced decoherence to situations with no clear system/ environment split.

Abstract: Non-interacting particles in non-Hermitian quasi crystals display localization-delocalization and spectral phase transitions in complex energy plane, that can be characterized by point-gap topology. Here we investigate the spectral and dynamical features of two interacting particles in a non-Hermitian quasi crystal, described by an effective Hubbard model in an incommensurate sinusoidal potential with a complex phase, and unravel some intriguing effects without any Hermitian counterpart. Owing to the effective decrease of correlated hopping introduced by particle interaction, doublon states, i.e. bound particle states, display a much lower threshold for spectral and localization-delocalization transitions than single-particle states, leading to the emergence of mobility edges. Remarkably, since doublons display longer lifetimes, two particles initially placed in distant sites tend to bunch and stick together, forming a doublon state in the long time limit of evolution, a phenomenon that can be dubbed {\em non-Hermitian particle bunching}.

Abstract: The Partial Information Decomposition (PID) takes one step beyond Shannon's theory in decomposing the information two variables $A,B$ possess about a third variable $T$ into distinct parts: unique, shared (or redundant) and synergistic information. Here we show how these concepts can be defined in a quantum setting. We apply a quantum PID to scrambling in quantum many-body systems, for which a quantum-theoretic description has been proven productive. Unique information in particular provides a finer description of scrambling than does the so-called tri-information.

Abstract: Color centers in Si could serve as both efficient quantum emitters and quantum memories with long coherence times in an all-silicon platform. Of the various known color centers, the T center holds particular promise because it possesses a spin ground state that has long coherence times. But this color center exhibits a long excited state lifetime which results in a low photon emission rate, requiring methods to extract photon emission with high efficiency. We demonstrate high-efficiency single photon emission from a single T center using a nanobeam. The nanobeam efficiently radiates light in a mode that is well-matched to a lensed fiber, enabling us to collect over 70% of the T center emission directly into a single mode fiber. This efficiency enables us to directly demonstrate single photon emission from the zero phonon line, which represents the coherent emission from the T center. Our results represent an important step towards silicon-integrated spin-photon interfaces for quantum computing and quantum networks.

Abstract: Recent developments have led to the possibility of embedding machine learning tools into experimental platforms to address key problems, including the characterization of the properties of quantum states. Leveraging on this, we implement a quantum extreme learning machine in a photonic platform to achieve resource-efficient and accurate characterization of the polarization state of a photon. The underlying reservoir dynamics through which such input state evolves is implemented using the coined quantum walk of high-dimensional photonic orbital angular momentum, and performing projective measurements over a fixed basis. We demonstrate how the reconstruction of an unknown polarization state does not need a careful characterization of the measurement apparatus and is robust to experimental imperfections, thus representing a promising route for resource-economic state characterisation.

Abstract: Finding optimal pathways in chemical reaction networks is essential for elucidating and designing chemical processes, with significant applications such as synthesis planning and metabolic pathway analysis. Such a chemical pathway-finding problem can be formulated as a constrained combinatorial optimization problem, aiming to find an optimal combination of chemical reactions connecting starting materials to target materials in a given network. Due to combinatorial explosion, the computation time required to find an optimal pathway increases exponentially with the network size. Ising machines, including quantum and simulated annealing devices, are promising novel computers dedicated to such hard combinatorial optimization. However, to the best of our knowledge, there has yet to be an attempt to apply Ising machines to chemical pathway-finding problems. In this article, we present the first Ising/quantum computing application for chemical pathway-finding problems. The Ising model, translated from a chemical pathway-finding problem, involves several types of penalty terms for violating constraints. It is not obvious how to set appropriate penalty strengths of different types. To address this challenge, we employ Bayesian optimization for parameter tuning. Furthermore, we introduce a novel technique that enhances tuning performance by grouping penalty terms according to the underlying problem structure. The performance evaluation and analysis of the proposed algorithm were conducted using a D-Wave Advantage system and simulated annealing. The benchmark results reveal challenges in finding exact optimal pathways. Concurrently, the results indicate the feasibility of finding approximate optimal pathways, provided that a certain degree of relative error in cost value is acceptable.