Accrediting outputs of noisy intermediate-scale quantum computing devices

Understand

We present an accreditation protocol for the outputs of noisy intermediate-scale quantum devices.

• By testing entire circuits rather than individual gates, our accreditation protocol can provide an upper-bound on the variation distance between noisy and noiseless probability distribution of the outputs of the target circuit of interest.
• Our accreditation protocol requires implementation of quantum circuits no larger than the target circuit, therefore it is practical in the near term and scalable in the long term.
• Inspired by trap-based protocols for the verification of quantum computations, our accreditation protocol assumes that noise in single-qubit gates is bounded (but potentially gate-dependent) in diamond norm.