PAC-learning of free-fermionic states is NP-hard

Abstract

Free-fermionic states, also known as matchgates or Gaussian states, are a fundamental class of quantum states due to their efficient classical simulability and their crucial role across various domains of Physics. With the advent of quantum devices, experiments now yield data from quantum states, including estimates of expectation values. We establish that deciding whether a given dataset, formed by a few Majorana correlation functions estimates, can be consistent with a free-fermionic state is an NP-complete problem. Our result also extends to datasets formed by estimates of Pauli expectation values. This is in stark contrast to the case of stabilizer states, where the analogous problem can be efficiently solved. Moreover, our results directly imply that free-fermionic states are computationally hard to properly PAC-learn, where PAC-learning of quantum states is a learning framework introduced by Aaronson. Remarkably, this is the first class of classically simulable quantum states shown to have this property.