English
Related papers

Related papers: Trainability Barriers in Low-Depth QAOA Landscapes

200 papers

The Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) has been suggested as a promising candidate for the solution of combinatorial optimization problems. Yet, whether - or under what conditions - it may offer an advantage compared to…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-04-14 Vanessa Dehn , Martin Zaefferer , Gerhard Hellstern , Florentin Reiter , Thomas Wellens

The Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) is a promising algorithm for solving combinatorial optimization problems (COPs), with performance governed by variational parameters $\{\gamma_i, \beta_i\}_{i=0}^{p-1}$. While most prior…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-08-07 J. A. Montanez-Barrera , Kristel Michielsen

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

The Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) is a leading approach for solving combinatorial optimization problems on near-term quantum processors. However, finding good variational parameters remains a significant challenge due to…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-12-05 Yu-Cheng Lin , Yu-Chao Hsu , Samuel Yen-Chi Chen

The Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) adopts a hybrid quantum-classical approach to find approximate solutions to variational optimization problems. In fact, it relies on a classical subroutine to optimize the parameters of…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2023-07-31 Simone Tibaldi , Davide Vodola , Edoardo Tignone , Elisa Ercolessi

Developing quantum algorithms adaptive to specific constraints of near-term devices is an essential step towards practical quantum advantage. In a recent work [Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 103601(2023)], we show cold atoms in an optical cavity can…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-06-12 Yuchen Luo , Xiaopeng Li , Jian Lin

Variational quantum algorithms have emerged as a cornerstone of contemporary quantum algorithms research. While they have demonstrated considerable promise in solving problems of practical interest, efficiently determining the minimal…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-02-04 Daniil Rabinovich , Andrey Kardashin , Soumik Adhikary

Present-day, noisy, small or intermediate-scale quantum processors---although far from fault-tolerant---support the execution of heuristic quantum algorithms, which might enable a quantum advantage, for example, when applied to…

The Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) is a standard method for combinatorial optimization with a gate-based quantum computer. The QAOA consists of a particular ansatz for the quantum circuit architecture, together with a…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2020-04-28 Li Li , Minjie Fan , Marc Coram , Patrick Riley , Stefan Leichenauer

Quantum optimization has emerged as a promising approach for tackling complicated classical optimization problems using quantum devices. However, the extent to which such algorithms harness genuine quantum resources and the role of these…

A large ongoing research effort focuses on Variational Quantum Algorithms (VQAs), representing leading candidates to achieve computational speed-ups on current quantum devices. The scalability of VQAs to a large number of qubits, beyond the…

The Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) and its advanced variant, the Quantum Alternating Operator Ansatz (QAOA), are major research topics in the current era of Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) computing. However, the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-03-23 Shuai Zeng

Quantum machine learning has emerged as a promising utilization of near-term quantum computation devices. However, algorithmic classes such as variational quantum algorithms have been shown to suffer from barren plateaus due to vanishing…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-01-23 Lukas Broers , Ludwig Mathey

The quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) is widely seen as a possible usage of noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices. We analyze the algorithm as a bang-bang protocol with fixed total time and a randomized greedy…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2020-09-16 Daniel Liang , Li Li , Stefan Leichenauer

The quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) holds promise for combinatorial optimization but is constrained by limited qubits. While divide-and-conquer frameworks like QAOA$^{2}$ address scalability by partitioning graphs into…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-05-14 Zubin Zheng , Jiahao Wu , Shengcai Liu

A new paradigm for data science has emerged, with quantum data, quantum models, and quantum computational devices. This field, called Quantum Machine Learning (QML), aims to achieve a speedup over traditional machine learning for data…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2023-05-24 Supanut Thanasilp , Samson Wang , Nhat A. Nghiem , Patrick J. Coles , M. Cerezo

The quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) is a near-term quantum algorithm aimed at solving combinatorial optimization problems. Since its introduction, various generalizations have emerged, spanning modifications to the initial…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-11-18 Truman Yu Ng , Jin Ming Koh , Dax Enshan Koh

The quantum approximate optimization algorithm, also known in its generalization as the quantum alternating operator ansatz, (QAOA) is a heuristic hybrid quantum-classical algorithm for finding high-quality approximate solutions to…

We develop a framework for analyzing layered quantum algorithms such as quantum alternating operator ans\"atze. Our framework relates quantum cost gradient operators, derived from the cost and mixing Hamiltonians, to classical cost…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-12-09 Stuart Hadfield , Tad Hogg , Eleanor G. Rieffel

The quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) is a method of approximately solving combinatorial optimization problems. While QAOA is developed to solve a broad class of combinatorial optimization problems, it is not clear which…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2020-08-13 James Ostrowski , Rebekah Herrman , Travis S. Humble , George Siopsis