Quantum error mitigation in quantum annealing
Jack Raymond, M. H. S. Amin, Andrew David King, Richard Harris, William Bernoudy, A. J. Berkley, Kelly Boothby, Anatoly Yu. Smirnov, Fabio Altomare, Michael C. Babcock, Catia Baron, J. N. L. Connor, Martin H. Dehn, Colin Enderud, Emile M. Hoskinson, Shuiyuan Huang, Mark W. Johnson, E. Ladizinsky, Trevor M. Lanting, Allison MacDonald · npj Quantum Information · 2025
Abstract Quantum error mitigation (QEM) presents a promising near-term approach to reducing errors when estimating expectation values in quantum computing. Here, we introduce QEM techniques tailored for quantum annealing, using zero-noise extrapolation (ZNE). We implement ZNE through zero-temperature and zero-time extrapolations. The practical zero-time extrapolation developed exploits the Kibble-Zurek mechanism so that only problem-Hamiltonian rescaling is required. We conduct experimental investigations into the quantum critical and post-critical dynamics of a transverse-field Ising spin chain by examining statistics with weak and strong post-critical dynamics. We demonstrate successful mitigation of thermal noise and non-thermal errors through both of these extrapolation techniques.