Relaxation of stationary states on a quantum computer yields a unique spectroscopic fingerprint of the computer’s noise
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Abstract
Quantum computing has the potential to revolutionize computing, but its significant sensitivity to noise requires sophisticated error correction and mitigation. Traditionally, noise on the quantum device is characterized directly through qubit and gate measurements, but this approach has drawbacks in that it does not adequately capture the effect of noise on realistic multi-qubit applications. In this paper, we simulate the relaxation of stationary quantum states on a quantum computer to obtain a unique spectroscopic fingerprint of the computer’s noise. In contrast to traditional approaches, we obtain the frequency profile of the noise as it is experienced by the simulated stationary quantum states. Data from multiple superconducting-qubit IBM processors show that noise generates a bath within the simulation that exhibits both colored noise and non-Markovian behavior. Our results provide a direction for noise mitigation but also suggest how to use noise for quantum simulations of open systems. Quantifying, controlling, and correcting noise related errors is one of the current challenges in quantum computing. Here, the authors study the time dependence of the relaxation of a stationary state simulated on a quantum computer, and show that such spectroscopic signature is unique and can be used to characterize the noise on individual quantum computers.