FIG. 1. Schematic diagram of a Variational Quantum Algorithm (VQA). The inputs to a VQA are: a cost function C(θ), with θ a set of parameters that encodes the solution to the problem, an ansatz whose parameters are trained to minimize the cost, and (possibly) a set of training data {ρ k } used during the optimization. Here, the cost can often be expressed in the form in Eq. ( 3), for some set of functions {f k }. Also, the ansatz is shown as a parameterized quantum circuit (on the left), which is analogous to a neural network (also shown schematically on the right). At each iteration of the loop one uses a quantum computer to efficiently estimate the cost (or its gradients). This information is fed into a classical computer that leverages the power of optimizers to navigate the cost landscape C(θ) and solve the optimization problem in Eq. ( 1). Once a termination condition is met, the VQA outputs an estimate of the solution to the problem. The form of the output depends on the precise task at hand. The red box indicates some of the most common types of outputs.
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