English

Experimental demonstration of reconstructing quantum states with generative models

Quantum Physics 2026-03-24 v1

Abstract

Quantum state tomography, a process that reconstructs a quantum state from measurements on an ensemble of identically prepared copies, plays a crucial role in benchmarking quantum devices. However, brute-force approaches to quantum state tomography would become impractical for large systems, as the required resources scale exponentially with the system size. Here, we explore a machine learning approach and report an experimental demonstration of reconstructing quantum states based on neural network generative models with an array of programmable superconducting transmon qubits. In particular, we experimentally prepare the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states and random states up to five qubits and demonstrate that the machine learning approach can efficiently reconstruct these states with the number of required experimental samples scaling linearly with system size. Our results experimentally showcase the intriguing potential for exploiting machine learning techniques in validating and characterizing complex quantum devices, offering a valuable guide for the future development of quantum technologies.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2407.15102,
  title  = {Experimental demonstration of reconstructing quantum states with generative models},
  author = {Xuegang Li and Wenjie Jiang and Ziyue Hua and Weiting Wang and Xiaoxuan Pan and Weizhou Cai and Zhide Lu and Jiaxiu Han and Rebing Wu and Chang-Ling Zou and Dong-Ling Deng and Luyan Sun},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2407.15102},
  year   = {2026}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T17:48:39.728Z