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@ -16,11 +16,11 @@
= Personal Data <s1> = Personal Data <s1>
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. 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, My responsible supervisor is Sebastian Feld,
and my daily supervisor is Koen Mesman. and my daily supervisor is Koen Mesman.
@ -29,10 +29,45 @@ The date of submission is #datetime.today().display()
= Introduction = 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 = 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 = Data Management
@ -53,59 +88,30 @@ This experience will be useful since my project will have a significant focus on
= Risk Management = Risk Management
While there are many risks I can think of, these four seem the most likely. Due to the nature of making something new, there are a couple of risks in the time management.
I based this likelyhood on self-knowledge and my experiences with my bachelor thesis/team projects. 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. There are also personal risks associated with me working on a project. Since I have a surgery somewhere
Since I won't be rushing my own health this may take quite a while where I won't be focusing on the project next year this will lead to a (possibly lengthy) revalidation period during my thesis 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. 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 To limit the risks associated to scope-creep I will be making concrete steps and criteria. These
at that moment. I can also write down a short summary of what I was working on and what the next steps should be. will help when I have new ideas, since I can ask if it's truly necessary or should wait till later.
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.
= Supervision plan = Supervision plan
My responsible supervisor is, as mentioned before in @s1 Sebastian Feld. My responsible supervisor is, as mentioned before in @s1 Sebastian Feld.
Also mentioned before my daily supervisor is Koen Mesman. 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 = Project Planning
@ -120,7 +126,7 @@ Also mentioned before my daily supervisor is Koen Mesman.
week(1), [Review Literature], week(1), [Review Literature],
week(2), [Review Literature], week(2), [Review Literature],
week(3), [Review Literature], week(3), [Review Literature],
week(4), [Review Literature], week(4), [Review Literature], // written introduction
week(5), [Plan project direction], week(5), [Plan project direction],
week(6), [Holiday], week(6), [Holiday],
week(7), [Holiday], week(7), [Holiday],