Taxonomy

This section gathers the definition of terms that frequently used in the zoo.

Figure of Merit

The term ‘figure of merit’ broadly refers to any quantity that can be measured as a result of a benchmark experiment.

Megaquop

Metric

When the term ‘metric’ is employed, it refers to a figure of merit that is a metric in the mathematical sense: ensuring positivity, symmetry and triangle inequality (see xxx for definition).

NISQ

The term NISQ is the abbreviation for ‘Noisy-Intermediate scale quantum’ computers. J. Preskill introduced this term in [1] to qualify medium-scale quantum computers with a few hundred noisy qubits for gate-based quantum computers and up to thousands for analog quantum computers.

Quantum Emulation

Combination of classical software and hardware used to run or execute a quantum evolution (such as running a quantum circuit, solving the Shrödinger equation etc. ). The classical software and hardware use bits as basic units of information and classical logic gate as fundamental operations. Further details on the difference between quantum emulation and quantum simulation can be found at [2]

Quantum Simulation

A simulation provides insights into a mathematical function, which can be interpreted as some part of a physical model (either quantum or classical). This process is called a quantum simulation when this physical model relies on quantum mechanics. Analog quantum systems are considered quantum simulations as their associated Hamiltonian can be interpreted as a part of a real quantum physical model. Further details can be found at [3].

Quantum supremacy

The term ‘quantum supremacy’ was introduced by J. Preskill in [4]. It refers to the demonstration of a controllable quantum computer’s ability to perform a computational task that is intractable for classical computers beyond a classical feasible regime.

Quantum Speedups

Random Special Unitary Group

References

1. [1]J. Preskill, “Quantum computing in the NISQ era and beyond,” Quantum, vol. 2, p. 79, 2018.
2. [2]O. Ezratty, “Disentangling quantum emulation and quantum simulation.” 2023.
3. [3]F. X. Johnson and S. Silveira, “Pioneer countries in the transition to alternative transport fuels: Comparison of ethanol programmes and policies in Brazil, Malawi and Sweden,” Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, vol. 11, pp. 1–24, 2014.
4. [4]J. Preskill, “Quantum computing and the entanglement frontier,” arXiv preprint arXiv:1203.5813, 2012.