Contextuality Test of the Nonclassicality of Variational Quantum Eigensolvers

Abstract

Contextuality is an indicator of non-classicality, and a resource for various quantum procedures. In this paper, we use contextuality to evaluate the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE), one of the most promising tools for near-term quantum simulation. We present an efficiently computable test to determine whether or not the objective function for a VQE procedure is contextual. We apply this test to evaluate the contextuality of experimental implementations of VQE, and determine that several, but not all, fail this test of quantumness.

14 pages, 8 figures

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• The Variational Quantum Eigensolver: a review of methods and best practices
• Measurement reduction in variational quantum algorithms
• Minimizing State Preparations in Variational Quantum Eigensolver by Partitioning into Commuting Families
• Phase space simulation method for quantum computation with magic states on qubits
• Ordering of Trotterization: Impact on Errors in Quantum Simulation of Electronic Structure
• Abrupt Transitions in Variational Quantum Circuit Training
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• Bounding the joint numerical range of Pauli strings by graph parameters
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• Quantum Zeno approach for molecular energies with maximum commuting initialHamiltonians
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• Classically-Boosted Variational Quantum Eigensolver
• Contextuality of Quantum Error-Correcting Codes
• Noncontextual Pauli Hamiltonians
• On the extremal points of the $\Lambda$-polytopes and classical simulation of quantum computation with magic states