The fixed angle conjecture for QAOA on regular MaxCut graphs

Understand

The quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) is a near-term combinatorial optimization algorithm suitable for noisy quantum devices.

• However, little is known about performance guarantees for $p>2$.
• A recent work \cite{Wurtz_guarantee} computing MaxCut performance guarantees for 3-regular graphs conjectures that any $d$-regular graph evaluated at particular fixed angles has an approximation ratio greater than some worst-case guarantee.
• In this work, we provide numerical evidence for this fixed angle conjecture for $p<12$.