VQLS Read the Fine Print

VQLS Read the Fine Print: Practical Challenges for Solving the Poisson Equation by Means of a Variational Quantum Linear Solver

Verduyn, Thomas (TU Delft Aerospace Engineering)

Gerritsma, M.I. (mentor)

Delft University of Technology

Aerospace Engineering

2022-12-05

The need of computational power for engineering applications has been ever increasing and with classical computers approaching their physical limits, new ways of improvement have to be investigated. One of the promising solutions is quantum computing. Most engineering problems require solving a system of linear equations of higher dimensions and the Variational Quantum Linear Solver (VQLS) algorithm seems like a promising near term solution. This algorithm evaluates a cost function on a quantum machine and uses a classical optimizer to minimize this cost function. The minimum of this cost function corresponds to the solution of the linear system. This work aims at finding what the practical limitations are when solving the Poisson equation by means of VQLS. Results showed that problems small in size can be solved, however for larger problems obtaining the solution becomes effectively impossible due to barren plateaus, which are flat spots in the cost function landscape.

Quantum Algorithms
Poisson equation
Quantum Computing
Qiskit
Barren Plateaus
Optimisation
Quantum Mechanics
Variational Quantum Linear Solver
Variational Quantum Algorithm
Decomposition

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:35e245ed-3b4f-44d4-a119-1065f2fa07e5

Student theses

master thesis

© 2022 Thomas Verduyn