Cost function dependent barren plateaus in shallow parametrized quantum circuits

M. Cerezo (), Akira Sone, Tyler Volkoff, Lukasz Cincio and Patrick J. Coles ()
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M. Cerezo: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Akira Sone: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Tyler Volkoff: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lukasz Cincio: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Patrick J. Coles: Los Alamos National Laboratory

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) optimize the parameters θ of a parametrized quantum circuit V(θ) to minimize a cost function C. While VQAs may enable practical applications of noisy quantum computers, they are nevertheless heuristic methods with unproven scaling. Here, we rigorously prove two results, assuming V(θ) is an alternating layered ansatz composed of blocks forming local 2-designs. Our first result states that defining C in terms of global observables leads to exponentially vanishing gradients (i.e., barren plateaus) even when V(θ) is shallow. Hence, several VQAs in the literature must revise their proposed costs. On the other hand, our second result states that defining C with local observables leads to at worst a polynomially vanishing gradient, so long as the depth of V(θ) is $${\mathcal{O}}(\mathrm{log}\,n)$$ O ( log n ) . Our results establish a connection between locality and trainability. We illustrate these ideas with large-scale simulations, up to 100 qubits, of a quantum autoencoder implementation.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-21728-w

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