English

Benchmarking the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm

Quantum Physics 2020-06-08 v2

Abstract

The performance of the quantum approximate optimization algorithm is evaluated by using three different measures: the probability of finding the ground state, the energy expectation value, and a ratio closely related to the approximation ratio. The set of problem instances studied consists of weighted MaxCut problems and 2-satisfiability problems. The Ising model representations of the latter possess unique ground states and highly-degenerate first excited states. The quantum approximate optimization algorithm is executed on quantum computer simulators and on the IBM Q Experience. Additionally, data obtained from the D-Wave 2000Q quantum annealer is used for comparison, and it is found that the D-Wave machine outperforms the quantum approximate optimization algorithm executed on a simulator. The overall performance of the quantum approximate optimization algorithm is found to strongly depend on the problem instance.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1907.02359,
  title  = {Benchmarking the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm},
  author = {Madita Willsch and Dennis Willsch and Fengping Jin and Hans De Raedt and Kristel Michielsen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1907.02359},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

Version after the referee process. Published in Quantum Information Processing