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  • Open Access

Circuit cutting with classical side information

Christophe Piveteau1,*, Lukas Schmitt1,2,*, and David Sutter2

  • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 033063 – Published 15 July, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/38mx-36k6

Abstract

Circuit cutting is a technique for simulating large quantum circuits by partitioning them into smaller subcircuits, which can be executed on smaller quantum devices. The results from these subcircuits are then combined in classical postprocessing to accurately reconstruct the expectation value of the original circuit. Circuit cutting introduces a sampling overhead that grows exponentially with the number of gates and qubit wires that are cut. Many recently developed quasiprobabilistic circuit cutting techniques leverage classical side information, obtained from intermediate measurements within the subcircuits, to enhance the postprocessing step. In this work, we provide a formalization of general circuit cutting techniques utilizing side information through quantum instruments. With this framework, we analyze the advantage that classical side information provides in reducing the sampling overhead of circuit cutting. Surprisingly, we find that in certain scenarios, side information does not yield any reduction in sampling overhead, whereas in others it is essential for circuit cutting to be feasible at all. Furthermore, we present a lower bound for the optimal sampling overhead with side information that can be evaluated efficiently via semidefinite programming and improves on all previously known lower bounds.

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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 033063– Published 15 July, 2025
  • Received 10 April 2025
  • Accepted 25 June 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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