Statistical phase estimation and error mitigation on a superconducting quantum processor

Quantum phase estimation (QPE) is a key quantum algorithm, which has been widely studied as a method to perform chemistry and solid-state calculations on future fault-tolerant quantum computers. Recently, several authors have proposed statistical alternatives to QPE that have benefits on early fault-tolerant devices, including shorter circuits and better suitability for error-mitigation techniques. However, experimental investigations of the algorithm on real quantum processors are lacking. Here, we implement statistical phase estimation on Rigetti’s superconducting processors. Specifically, we use a modification of the Lin and Tong [PRX Quantum 3, 010318 (2022)] algorithm with the improved Fourier approximation of Wan et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 030503 (2022)] and apply a variational-compilation technique to reduce the circuit depth. We then incorporate error-mitigation strategies including zero-noise extrapolation and readout-error mitigation with bit-flip averaging. We propose a new method to estimate energies from the statistical phase estimation data, which is found to improve the accuracy in the final energy estimates by 1–2 orders of magnitude with respect to prior theoretical bounds, reducing the cost of performing accurate phase-estimation calculations. We apply these methods to chemistry problems for active spaces up to four electrons in four orbitals, including the application of a quantum embedding method, and use them to correctly estimate energies within chemical precision. Our work demonstrates that statistical phase estimation has a natural resilience to noise, particularly after mitigating coherent errors, and can achieve far higher accuracy than suggested by previous analysis, demonstrating its potential as a valuable quantum algorithm for early fault-tolerant devices.