{"title":"Investigating and mitigating barren plateaus in variational quantum circuits: a survey","authors":"Jack Cunningham, Jun Zhuang","doi":"10.1007/s11128-025-04665-1","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In recent years, variational quantum circuits (VQCs) have been widely explored to advance quantum circuits against classic models on various domains, such as quantum chemistry and quantum machine learning. Similar to classic machine-learning models, VQCs can be trained through various optimization approaches, such as gradient-based or gradient-free methods. However, when employing gradient-based methods, the gradient variance of VQCs may dramatically vanish as the number of qubits or layers increases. This issue, a.k.a. barren plateaus (BPs), seriously hinders the scaling of VQCs on large datasets. To mitigate the barren plateaus, extensive efforts have been devoted to tackling this issue through diverse strategies. In this survey, we conduct a systematic literature review of recent works from both investigation and mitigation perspectives. Furthermore, we propose a new taxonomy to categorize most existing mitigation strategies into five groups and introduce them in detail. Also, we compare the concurrent survey papers about BPs. Finally, we provide insightful discussion on future directions for BPs.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":746,"journal":{"name":"Quantum Information Processing","volume":"24 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2000,"publicationDate":"2025-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11128-025-04665-1.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Quantum Information Processing","FirstCategoryId":"101","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11128-025-04665-1","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PHYSICS, MATHEMATICAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In recent years, variational quantum circuits (VQCs) have been widely explored to advance quantum circuits against classic models on various domains, such as quantum chemistry and quantum machine learning. Similar to classic machine-learning models, VQCs can be trained through various optimization approaches, such as gradient-based or gradient-free methods. However, when employing gradient-based methods, the gradient variance of VQCs may dramatically vanish as the number of qubits or layers increases. This issue, a.k.a. barren plateaus (BPs), seriously hinders the scaling of VQCs on large datasets. To mitigate the barren plateaus, extensive efforts have been devoted to tackling this issue through diverse strategies. In this survey, we conduct a systematic literature review of recent works from both investigation and mitigation perspectives. Furthermore, we propose a new taxonomy to categorize most existing mitigation strategies into five groups and introduce them in detail. Also, we compare the concurrent survey papers about BPs. Finally, we provide insightful discussion on future directions for BPs.
期刊介绍:
Quantum Information Processing is a high-impact, international journal publishing cutting-edge experimental and theoretical research in all areas of Quantum Information Science. Topics of interest include quantum cryptography and communications, entanglement and discord, quantum algorithms, quantum error correction and fault tolerance, quantum computer science, quantum imaging and sensing, and experimental platforms for quantum information. Quantum Information Processing supports and inspires research by providing a comprehensive peer review process, and broadcasting high quality results in a range of formats. These include original papers, letters, broadly focused perspectives, comprehensive review articles, book reviews, and special topical issues. The journal is particularly interested in papers detailing and demonstrating quantum information protocols for cryptography, communications, computation, and sensing.