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Variational Quantum Algorithms have emerged as a leading paradigm for near-term quantum computation. In such algorithms, a parameterized quantum circuit is controlled via a classical optimization method that seeks to minimize a…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2021-10-19 Javier Rivera-Dean , Patrick Huembeli , Antonio Acín , Joseph Bowles

Variational Quantum Algorithms (VQAs) have emerged as pivotal strategies for attaining quantum advantage in diverse scientific and technological domains, notably within Quantum Neural Networks. However, despite their potential, VQAs…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-04-22 Lucas Friedrich , Tiago de Souza Farias , Jonas Maziero

Variational quantum algorithms are promising candidates for near-term quantum computing but can be hindered by barren plateaus, where gradients vanish exponentially and optimization becomes intractable. Noise-Induced Barren Plateaus (NIBP)…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-03-10 Sebastian Schmitt , Linus Ekstrøm , Alberto Bottarelli , Xavier Bonet-Monroig

Variational quantum algorithms rely on the optimization of parameterized quantum circuits in noisy settings. The commonly used back-propagation procedure in classical machine learning is not directly applicable in this setting due to the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-08-27 Zhiyan Ding , Taehee Ko , Jiahao Yao , Lin Lin , Xiantao Li

Optimization with constraints is a typical problem in quantum physics and quantum information science that becomes especially challenging for high-dimensional systems and complex architectures like tensor networks. Here we use ideas of…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2021-11-18 Ilia A. Luchnikov , Mikhail E. Krechetov , Sergey N. Filippov

Barren plateaus (BP), characterized by exponentially vanishing gradients that hinder the training of variational quantum circuits (VQC), present a pervasive and critical challenge in applying variational quantum algorithms to real-world…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-01-24 Yipei Liu , Yuhong Song , Jinyang Li , Qiang Guan , Cheng-chang Lu , Youzuo Lin , Weiwen Jiang

Variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) are expected to establish valuable applications on near-term quantum computers. However, recent works have pointed out that the performance of VQAs greatly relies on the expressibility of the ansatzes…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-08-15 Xia Liu , Geng Liu , Jiaxin Huang , Hao-Kai Zhang , Xin Wang

Despite its popularity, several empirical and theoretical studies suggest that the quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) has persistent issues in providing a substantial practical advantage. Numerical results for few qubits and…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-10-15 Gereon Koßmann , Lennart Binkowski , Lauritz van Luijk , Timo Ziegler , René Schwonnek

Identifying scalable circuit architectures remains a central challenge in variational quantum computing and quantum machine learning. Many approaches have been proposed to mitigate or avoid the barren plateau phenomenon or, more broadly,…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-07-30 Reyhaneh Aghaei Saem , Behrang Tafreshi , Zoë Holmes , Supanut Thanasilp

Combining classical optimization with parameterized quantum circuit evaluation, variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) are among the most promising algorithms in near-term quantum computing. Similar to neural networks (NNs), VQAs iteratively…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-11-18 Zhehao Yi , Yanying Liang , Haozhen Situ

Classical optimization of parameterized quantum circuits is a widely studied methodology for the preparation of complex quantum states, as well as the solution of machine learning and optimization problems. However, it is well known that…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-07-18 Abhinav Deshpande , Marcel Hinsche , Khadijeh Najafi , Kunal Sharma , Ryan Sweke , Christa Zoufal

Parameterized quantum circuits (PQCs) are pivotal components of variational quantum algorithms (VQAs), which represent a promising pathway to quantum advantage in noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices. PQCs enable flexible…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-04-13 Joona Pankkonen , Lauri Ylinen , Matti Raasakka , Andrea Marchesin , Ilkka Tittonen

Training quantum neural networks (QNNs) using gradient-based or gradient-free classical optimisation approaches is severely impacted by the presence of barren plateaus in the cost landscapes. In this paper, we devise a framework for…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-06-04 Yidong Liao , Min-Hsiu Hsieh , Chris Ferrie

Variational quantum algorithms are a promising class of algorithms that can be performed on currently available quantum computers. In most settings, the free parameters of a variational circuit are optimized using a classical optimizer that…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2023-07-12 Roeland Wiersema , Nathan Killoran

Variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) combine the advantages of classical optimization and quantum computation, making them one of the most promising approaches in the Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) era. However, when optimized…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-11-20 Zhehao Yi , Rahul Bhadani

Quantum algorithms based on parameterized quantum circuits (PQCs) have enabled a wide range of applications on near-term quantum devices. However, existing PQC architectures face several challenges, among which the ``barren plateaus"…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-01-09 Zhenyu Chen , Yuguo Shao , Zhengwei Liu , Zhaohui Wei

Many optimization methods for training variational quantum algorithms are based on estimating gradients of the cost function. Due to the statistical nature of quantum measurements, this estimation requires many circuit evaluations, which is…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-10-14 Lennart Bittel , Jens Watty , Martin Kliesch

Quantum neural networks (QNNs) are a framework for creating quantum algorithms that promises to combine the speedups of quantum computation with the widespread successes of machine learning. A major challenge in QNN development is a…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2021-06-18 Maria Kieferova , Ortiz Marrero Carlos , Nathan Wiebe

This paper presents an easy-to-implement approach to mitigate the challenges posed by barren plateaus (BPs) in randomly initialized parameterized quantum circuits (PQCs) within variational quantum algorithms (VQAs). Recent state-of-the-art…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-12-10 Muhammad Kashif , Muhammad Shafique

Optimisation via parameterised quantum circuits is the prevalent technique of near-term quantum algorithms. However, the omnipresent phenomenon of barren plateaus - parameter regions with vanishing gradients - sets a persistent hurdle that…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-04-20 Lennart Binkowski , Gereon Koßmann , Tobias J. Osborne , René Schwonnek , Timo Ziegler