Abstract
Contextuality is an indicator of nonclassicality, and a resource for various quantum procedures. In this Letter, we use contextuality to evaluate the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE), one of the most promising tools for near-term quantum simulation. We present an efficiently computable test to determine whether or not the objective function for a VQE procedure is contextual. We apply this test to evaluate the contextuality of experimental implementations of VQE, and determine that several, but not all, fail this test of quantumness.
- Received 20 May 2019
- Revised 23 September 2019
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.200501
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