Feedback-based quantum optimization

Abstract: It is hoped that quantum computers will offer advantages over classical computers for combinatorial optimization. Here, we introduce a feedback-based strategy for quantum optimization, where the results of qubit measurements are used to constructively assign values to quantum circuit parameters. We show that this procedure results in an estimate of the combinatorial optimization problem solution that improves monotonically with the depth of the quantum circuit. Importantly, the measurement-based feedback enables approximate solutions to the combinatorial optimization problem without the need for any classical optimization effort, as would be required for the quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA). We experimentally demonstrate this feedback-based protocol on a superconducting quantum processor for the graph-partitioning problem MaxCut, and present a series of numerical analyses that further investigate the protocol's performance.