Characterizing quantum processors using discrete time crystals

Understand

We present a method for characterizing the performance of noisy quantum processors using discrete time crystals.

• Deviations from ideal persistent oscillatory behavior give rise to numerical scores by which relative quantum processor capabilities can be measured.
• We construct small sets of qubit layouts that cover the full topology of a target system, and execute our metric over these sets on a wide range of IBM Quantum processors.
• We show that there is a large variability in scores, not only across multiple processors, but between different circuit layouts over individual devices.