Performance of hybrid quantum/classical variational heuristics for combinatorial optimization
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The recent literature on near-term applications for quantum computers contains several examples of the applications of hybrid quantum/classical variational approaches. This methodology can be applied to a variety of optimization problems, but its practical performance is not well studied yet. This technical report moves some steps in the direction of characterizing the practical performance of the methodology, in the context of finding solutions to classical combinatorial optimization problems. Our study is based on numerical results obtained applying several classical nonlinear optimization algorithms to Hamiltonians for six combinatorial optimization problems; the experiments are conducted via noise-free classical simulation of the quantum circuits implemented in QISKit.
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