Maximising the efficiency of a quantum circuit is of great interest to scientists from around the world, and researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru have now addressed this problem using a mathematical analogue. They devised an algorithm to explicitly count the number of computing resources necessary, and optimized it to obtain maximum efficiency, a statement from the Institute said.
Quantum circuits, the building blocks of quantum computers, use quantum mechanical effects to perform tasks. They are much faster and more accurate than the classical circuits that are found in electronic devices today. In reality, however, no quantum circuit is completely error-free.
"We were able to (theoretically) build the most efficient circuit and bring down the amount of resources needed by a huge factor," says Aninda Sinha, Associate Professor at the Centre for High Energy Physics, IISc, and corresponding author of the paper published in Physical Review Letters.
The researchers also suggest that this is the maximum possible efficiency achievable for a quantum circuit, the statement added.
"Analogously, there are universal quantum gates for making quantum circuits. In reality, the gates are not 100 percent efficient; there is always an error associated with the output of each gate. And that error cannot be removed; it simply keeps on adding for every gate used in the circuit," says Pratik Nandy, Sinha's PhD student and a co-author of the paper.
The most efficient circuit does not minimise the error in the output; rather it minimises the resources required for obtaining that same output. "So the question boils down to: given a net error tolerance, what is the minimum number of gates needed to build a quantum circuit?" says Nandy.
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