Panagiotis Barkoutsos

When

31 May 2021, 16:00 Athens time via Zoom

Title

Exploring possibilities of near-term quantum computers. Hybrid Quantum/Classical approaches for fermionic problems.

Abstract

Near term noisy quantum processors require the development of schemes that will allow us to get meaningful results without the overhead of error correction codes. One of the most established algorithms for noisy intermediate scale quantum computers is the Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) that operates in synergy with a classical computer. In this talk I will present a plethora of approaches developed for the generation of the different components of the VQE algorithm for fermionic problems. In this case, the exponentially hard part of the calculations consists in the sampling of the molecular Hilbert space in search for the minimal energy eigenstate, which however can be efficiently mapped into a quantum circuit. I will highlight the effect of using the right trial wavefunctions and discuss convergence properties for ground state calculations for molecular systems. I will also discuss error mitigation techniques for near term quantum processors and highlight a recently developed scheme for hardware agnostic error mitigation schemes inspired from the classical Lanczos algorithm. Most of these developments are available vie the framework of the IBM Quantum Software Information Kit (Qiskit) and specifically the Qiskit Nature module.

About the speaker

https://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view.php?person=zurich-BPA 

Dr. Panagiotis Barkoutsos is a research staff member at IBM Research – Zurich working on foundations of quantum computing and the theoretical aspects of quantum computation/simulation. The main interest lies in simulations of quantum chemistry and combinatorial optimization in near term quantum computers. Panagiotis holds a PhD from ETH Zurich, group of Prof. M. Troyer, Department of Theoretical Physics, in the field of quantum computing and applications of near term quantum computers for quantum chemistry. He has a degree in Chemical Engineering from NTUA and a Master’s degree in Process Engineering from ETH Zurich. He is currently working in the interface of quantum computing with industrial applications and the development of open source software for near term quantum computers.