Quantum Local Search with the Quantum Alternating Operator Ansatz

Abstract: We present a new hybrid, local search algorithm for quantum approximate optimization of constrained combinatorial optimization problems. We focus on the Maximum Independent Set problem and demonstrate the ability of quantum local search to solve large problem instances on quantum devices with few qubits. This hybrid algorithm iteratively finds independent sets over carefully constructed neighborhoods and combines these solutions to obtain a global solution. We study the performance of this algorithm on 3-regular, Community, and Erd\H{o}s-R\'{e}nyi graphs with up to 100 nodes.