Digital zero noise extrapolation for quantum error mitigation
Open accessAbstract
Zero-noise extrapolation (ZNE) is an increasingly popular technique for mitigating errors in noisy quantum computations without using additional quantum resources. We review the fundamentals of ZNE and propose several improvements to noise scaling and extrapolation, the two key components in the technique. We introduce unitary folding and parameterized noise scaling. These are digital noise scaling frameworks, i.e. one can apply them using only gate-level access common to most quantum instruction sets. We also study different extrapolation methods, including a new adaptive protocol that uses a statistical inference framework. Benchmarks of our techniques show error reductions of 18X to 24X over non-mitigated circuits and demonstrate ZNE's effectiveness at larger qubit numbers than have been tested previously. In addition to presenting new results, this work is a self-contained introduction to the practical use of ZNE by quantum programmers.
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Lower bias at the expense of higher variance is a well-known feature of ZNE techniques.
“This behavior, lower bias at the expense of higher variance, is a well-known feature of ZNE techniques. [20]”
From Limitations of Quantum Hardware for Molecular Energy Estimation Using VQE (2026) · cites this paper as [20]
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References 20 · Cited by 241
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- Authors
- Giurgica-Tiron, T., Hindy, Y., LaRose, R., Mari, A., & Zeng, W. J.
- Affiliations
- Stanford University (US)
- Michigan State University (US)
- Xanadu Quantum Technologies (Canada) (CA)
- Goldman Sachs (United States) (US)
- Venue
- 2020 IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering (QCE)
- Publisher
- IEEE
- Published
- 2020-10
- Pages
- 306-316
- OpenAlex
- W3028056599
- Cited by
- 241
- References
- 20
- Citations by year
- 2026: 30 · 2025: 50 · 2024: 47 · 2023: 62 · 2022: 31 · 2021: 20 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 10.89
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- arxiv.org
- Licence
- Locations
- IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering (QCE) (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) (submittedVersion)
- Unicam Scientific Publications (University of Camerino) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy (DESC0020266)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Quantum Computing Algorithms and Architecture
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Quantum Information and Cryptography
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics › Quantum many-body systems
- Keywords
- zero-noise extrapolation, quantum error mitigation, noise scaling, extrapolation, statistical inference, noisy quantum circuits
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