New Single-Preparation Methods for Unsupervised Quantum Machine Learning Problems

The term 'machine learning' especially refers to algorithms that derive mappings, i.e., input-output transforms, by using numerical data that provide information about considered transforms. These transforms appear in many problems related to classification/clustering, regression, system identification, system inversion, and input signal restoration/separation. We here analyze the connections between all these problems in the classical and quantum frameworks. We then focus on their most challenging versions, involving quantum data and/or quantum processing means, and unsupervised, i.e., blind, learning. We consider the general single-preparation quantum information processing (SIPQIP) framework that we have recently proposed. It involves methods that can work with a single instance of each (unknown) state, whereas usual methods are quite cumbersome because they have to very accurately create many copies of each (known) state. In our previous papers, we applied the SIPQIP approach to only one task [blind quantum process tomography (BQPT)], but it opens the way to a large range of other types of methods. In this article, we, therefore, propose various new SIPQIP methods that efficiently perform tasks related to system identification (blind Hamiltonian parameter estimation (BHPE), blind quantum channel identification/estimation, and blind phase estimation), system inversion and state estimation (blind quantum source separation (BQSS), blind quantum entangled state restoration (BQSR), and blind quantum channel equalization), and classification. Numerical tests show that our SIPQIP framework, moreover, yields much more accurate estimation than the usual multiple-preparation approach. Our methods are especially useful in a quantum computer, which we propose to more briefly call a 'quamputer': BQPT and BHPE simplify the characterization of quamputer gates; BQSS and BQSR yield quantum gates that may be used to compensate for the nonidealities that alter states stored in quantum registers and open the way to very general self-adaptive quantum gates. © 2020 IEEE.