From 20f6540522e2ae7a0f82dbdebeb1ad5e42cd3a09 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Noa Aarts Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2025 17:02:39 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] add intro, rewrite risk management --- planning/main.typ | 102 ++++++++++++++++++++++++---------------------- 1 file changed, 54 insertions(+), 48 deletions(-) diff --git a/planning/main.typ b/planning/main.typ index 013ddaa..43f7db7 100644 --- a/planning/main.typ +++ b/planning/main.typ @@ -16,11 +16,11 @@ = Personal Data -The current title I'm using is: .... +The current title I'm using is: Hardware Topology Inspired Quantum Ansatz Design My name is Noa Puk Aarts, and my student number is 6292755. -The project is done as part of the .... research group. +The project is done as part of the Quantum Machine Learning research group. My responsible supervisor is Sebastian Feld, and my daily supervisor is Koen Mesman. @@ -29,10 +29,45 @@ The date of submission is #datetime.today().display() = Introduction +I feel like Koen wrote a good introduction on my thesis when he wrote a research proposal for me, +after meeting we decided to include that as an introduction. + +== Context + +Currently, Quantum Machine learning is an upcoming field, with shown advantages in data requirements for +learning from complex quantum information@quantum-advantage-bounds@quantum-advantage-learning. Currently, the quantum circuits (Ansatze) that act as +machine learning kernels are constructed using heuristics. These heuristic Ansatze are designed to have low +requirements on quantum hardware, as the current quantum computers are prone to noise and of small scale +(also dubbed the NISQ era). +The fallacy of these hardware-efficient Ansatze is that their effectiveness is not well understood. Ansatze +can be evaluated by their expressivity@expressibility-and-entanglement, i.e., how much of the Hilbert space they can explore, and their +entanglement capabilities@expressibility-and-entanglement@quantum-dynamics-physical-resource. Simply taking the expressivity is unfortunately not enough to fully capture the +Ansatze’s expected performance@expressibility-and-entanglement@scaling-variational-circuit-depth. As such, designing QML Ansatze is a non-trivial challenge. + +== Scope and Motivation + +The scope for this project will be the automatic design of a QML Ansatze, based on quantum hardware noise +and connectivity topology, given a set of targets. The motivation is to find quantum kernels most resilient to +the hardware noise experienced in implementation. A downside of using topology-inspired kernels is the lack +of re-usability, as it’s performance will be directly correlated to the hardware it is run on. However, it must be +noted that quantum hardware is showing increasing uniformity in its design, and (elements of) hardware are +very likely to be reused by other consumers (or can be intentionally targeted). When considering commercial +or research usage, generally, one or a few topologies are used by the user in the first place. +The proposed method is to use user defined criteria, such as expressivity, entanglement (e.g., Schmidt +strength@quantum-dynamics-physical-resource), and number of trainable parameters as a cost function, and generating an Ansatz to best fulfill +the requirement given a topology. Methods of generating the Ansatz can be done either by procedural generation +(algorithmic), using optimization methods such as genetic algorithms@architecture-search@evolutionary-architecture-search, or by using machine learning +methods such as generative AI@generative-quantum-eigensolver. The choice is to be determined by the MSc. student, based on a review of +methods. +Targets for the projects are comparisons on standard benchmarks of the QML Ansatz using hardware +simulations. If time and resources allow, this can be extended to real hardware experiments. Alternatively, +the proposed method can be further fine-tuned for more complex environments, such as resilience to time-dependency@calibration-aware-transpilation. +The novelty of this project is the bottom-up approach with great detail, exploiting NISQ hardware to its +fullest. This has to date not been shown to this extend = Research Question -What is a way to generate an ansatz for a specific quantum computer to perform well on variational quantum eigensolvers? += Hypothesis = Data Management @@ -53,59 +88,30 @@ This experience will be useful since my project will have a significant focus on = Risk Management -While there are many risks I can think of, these four seem the most likely. -I based this likelyhood on self-knowledge and my experiences with my bachelor thesis/team projects. +Due to the nature of making something new, there are a couple of risks in the time management. +If, after the literature research, I decide to use a certain strategy and figure out that it won't work +much later on this could lead to a significant amount of wasted time. -== Surgery pulls me out of it +To manage this risk I will define certain components which each have to work on their own before continuing. +Choosing these components carefully allows them to be interchanged when a different strategy is chosen +at a later time. This interchangability limits time spent when a direction is found fruitless. -I will very likely have a surgery somewhere in the spring, afterwards I'll have a revalidation period. -Since I won't be rushing my own health this may take quite a while where I won't be focusing on the project -as much. The risk is that after this I have to figure out where I was with my project and how to continue it. +There are also personal risks associated with me working on a project. Since I have a surgery somewhere +next year this will lead to a (possibly lengthy) revalidation period during my thesis project. +After this period I'll have to be able to hop back into the project, to help me do this I will try to +finish a contained part before the surgery and write down what the next steps in the research are. +This way I can read the next steps once I'm ready to start working again. -Since I will know at least a couple of weeks before the surgery, I have time to wrap up the thing I'm working on -at that moment. I can also write down a short summary of what I was working on and what the next steps should be. -Once I finished (part of) my recovery I will then be able to read this summary to get back into the flow of research. - -== Losing data - -Because I'm using a local Git server, there is the risk of my drive failing/getting corrupted and me losing my -progress and data. - -I think the chances of this happening are small but non-zero. I also -work on both my laptop and my computer which helps because I'll have somewhat recent clones of the git repository -on both. This means that three copies exist, they aren't in different locations though. But if my house burns down -I think I have bigger problems than the lost data. - -== Losing Motivation - -I am a person who is very bad at doing things when I'm not motivated to do them. This is partially due to -the combination of ASS and ADHD (combined type). - -My motivation for this project is mostly driven from a sense to help my daily supervisor, together with -me wanting to "make something I'm proud of". I think that once I have a plan around the holidays I will -also get the new motivation source of "ooh, this is cool, I want to make this" which I hope will -last till at least the bulk of the project is done. - -For the writing of the report I'm more scared, but I hope that starting with writing during the earlier -phases so that I have at least a basis will help counteract my dislike of (academic) writing. -I also have medication for my ADHD that should help with working on aspects that I know I have to do even -though I don't like them. - -== Scope Creep - -While working on the project I will be thinking of ways to expand the scope to cover more usecases or -changing large components due to new insights. While a small amount of this is healthy and expected, -there is a risk of it becoming too much. - -To counteract the effects of scope-creep I'll be creating concrete and testable success criteria with -my supervisor. This way I can ask for ideas "is this in the success criteria?" and create a more informed -decision about if I should continue on this idea. +To limit the risks associated to scope-creep I will be making concrete steps and criteria. These +will help when I have new ideas, since I can ask if it's truly necessary or should wait till later. = Supervision plan My responsible supervisor is, as mentioned before in @s1 Sebastian Feld. Also mentioned before my daily supervisor is Koen Mesman. +I am meeting with my daily supervisor every week, and we're inviting the responsible supervisor +to join as well. Depending on his ... = Project Planning @@ -120,7 +126,7 @@ Also mentioned before my daily supervisor is Koen Mesman. week(1), [Review Literature], week(2), [Review Literature], week(3), [Review Literature], - week(4), [Review Literature], + week(4), [Review Literature], // written introduction week(5), [Plan project direction], week(6), [Holiday], week(7), [Holiday],