Impact of Noise on the Accuracy of Amplitude Amplification on the IBM Q Quantum Computer

Abstract: Quantum computers promise immense speed up compared to even the most advanced supercomputers of today, but environmental noise introduces errors in the former, constituting a significant hurdle for realizing these promises. Quantum error-correcting codes have been suggested as a strategy to alleviate this hurdle, including codes optimized toward computation under specific models of noise. Investigating the impact different types of quantum error have on the results of quantum computation could therefore be instructive for the design and construction of these optimized quantum error-correcting codes. We simulate amplitude amplification, a central operation in an important quantum algorithm, Grover’s algorithm, under different models of noise. Our results are inconclusive concerning discernment of the difference between different models of noise and their effect on the output of this operation, but are in line with previous research in that errors in even five qubit circuits degenerate the results to the point where they are by and large unusable.