Online Seminar: Dr Eleanor Rieffel, NASA

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Investigations of the Quantum Alternating Operator Ansatz

SPEAKER:  Dr Eleanor Rieffel

AFFILIATION: Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (QuAIL), NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA

HOSTED BY: Prof Michael Bremner, UTS Centre for Quantum Software and Information

ABSTRACT:
The next few years will be exciting as prototype universal quantum processors emerge, enabling implementation of a wider variety of algorithms. Of particular interest are quantum heuristics, which require experimentation on quantum hardware for their evaluation, and which have the potential to significantly expand the breadth of quantum computing applications. Here, we present investigations of the Quantum Alternating Operator Ansatz, an extension of the framework used by Farhi et al. in their Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm. We look at what can be done in this simple alternating framework, including design criteria for alternative mixers and mappings of specific problems, numerical results demonstrating the advantage of alternative mixers, a different algorithm for Grover’s unstructured search problem, and compilation to near-term hardware. We also discuss how QAOA is related to and differs from quantum annealing and adiabatic quantum computing, including synergies between QAOA parameter setting and quantum annealing schedules.

Bio: Eleanor G. Rieffel leads the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the NASA Ames Research Center. She joined NASA Ames Research Center in 2012 to work on the expanding quantum computing effort. Previously, she performed research in diverse fields at FXPAL, including quantum computation, applied cryptography, image-based geometric reconstruction of 3D scenes, bioinformatics, video surveillance, and automated control code generation for modular robotics. Her research interests include quantum heuristics, evaluation and utilization of near-term quantum hardware, fundamental resources for quantum computation, quantum error mitigation, and applications for quantum computing. She received her Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is best known for her 2011 book Quantum Computing: A Gentle Introduction with coauthor Wolfgang Polak and published by MIT press.  

 

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