As we approach the era of quantum advantage, when quantum computers (QCs) can outperform any classical computer on particular tasks, there remains the difficult challenge of how to validate their performance. While algorithmic success can be easily v
erified in some instances such as number factoring or oracular algorithms, these approaches only provide pass/fail information for a single QC. On the other hand, a comparison between different QCs on the same arbitrary circuit provides a lower-bound for generic validation: a quantum computation is only as valid as the agreement between the results produced on different QCs. Such an approach is also at the heart of evaluating metrological standards such as disparate atomic clocks. In this paper, we report a cross-platform QC comparison using randomized and correlated measurements that results in a wealth of information on the QC systems. We execute several quantum circuits on widely different physical QC platforms and analyze the cross-platform fidelities.
Many-body open quantum systems balance internal dynamics against decoherence from interactions with an environment. Here, we explore this balance via random quantum circuits implemented on a trapped ion quantum computer, where the system evolution is
represented by unitary gates with interspersed projective measurements. As the measurement rate is varied, a purification phase transition is predicted to emerge at a critical point akin to a fault-tolerent threshold. We probe the pure phase, where the system is rapidly projected to a deterministic state conditioned on the measurement outcomes, and the mixed or coding phase, where the initial state becomes partially encoded into a quantum error correcting codespace. We find convincing evidence of the two phases and show numerically that, with modest system scaling, critical properties of the transition clearly emerge.
