Classically efficient quantum scalable Fermi-Hubbard benchmark

Abstract

In order to quantify the relative performance of different testbed quantum computing devices, it is useful to benchmark them using a common protocol. While some benchmarks rely on the performance of random circuits and are generic in nature, here we instead propose and implement a practical, application-based benchmark. In particular, our protocol calculates the energy of the ground state in the single particle subspace of a 1-D Fermi Hubbard model, a problem which is efficient to solve classically. We provide a quantum ansatz for the problem that is provably able to probe the full single particle subspace for a general length 1-D chain and scales efficiently in number of gates and measurements. Finally, we demonstrate and analyze the benchmark performance on superconducting and ion trap testbed hardware from three hardware vendors and with up to 24 qubits.