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  • Open Access

Filter-enhanced adiabatic quantum computing on a digital quantum processor

Erenay Karacan1,*, Conor Mc Keever2, Michael Foss-Feig3, David Hayes3, and Michael Lubasch2,†

  • 1Quantinuum, Leopoldstraße 180, 80804 München, Germany
  • 2Quantinuum, Partnership House, Carlisle Place, London SW1P 1BX, United Kingdom
  • 3Quantinuum, 303 S. Technology Ct., Broomfield, Colorado 80021, USA

  • *Contact author: ekaracan@ethz.ch
  • †Contact author: michael.lubasch@quantinuum.com
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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 033153 – Published 14 August, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/x2v8-jx1h

Abstract

Eigenstate filters underpin near-optimal quantum algorithms for ground-state preparation. Their realization on current quantum computers, however, poses a challenge as the filters are typically represented by deep quantum circuits. Additionally, since the filters are created probabilistically, their circuits need to be rerun many times when the associated success probability is small. Here, we describe a strategy to implement a ground-state filter on quantum hardware in the presence of noise by prepending the filter with digitized adiabatic quantum computing. The adiabatically prepared input state increases the success probability of the filter and also reduces its circuit depth requirements. At the same time, the filter enhances the accuracy of the adiabatically prepared ground state. We compare the approach to the purely adiabatic protocol through numerical simulations and experiments on the Quantinuum H1-1 quantum computer. We demonstrate a significant improvement in ground-state accuracies for paradigmatic quantum spin models.

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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 033153– Published 14 August, 2025
  • Received 27 March 2025
  • Accepted 23 July 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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