The Effect of Noise Levels on the Performance of Shor’s Algorithm

Abstract: Advanced enough quantum computers promise to revolutionise fields such as cryptography, drug discovery and simulations of complex systems. Quantum computers are built on qubits which are fragile and susceptible to error-inducing interference, which is called noise. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of varying levels of noise interference on the success rate and runtimes of a quantum computer circuit design built to implement Shor’s quantum factorisation algorithm. This was conducted using the Qiskit framework for quantum computer simulation and custom noise model creation. Our results show a correlation between the level of noise interference on a circuit and the probability of getting the correct measurement. We also found a greater impact of readout errors on the success rates, one-qubit depolarising errors on runtimes and that two-qubit depolarising errors greatly affected both, which was also discussed in the study. Our findings are in line with previous research and help to highlight the importance of minimising errors on critical quantum logic gates in an algorithm.