Better-than-classical Grover search via quantum error detection and suppression

Abstract: Grover's search algorithm is one of the first quantum algorithms to exhibit a provable quantum advantage. It forms the backbone of numerous quantum applications and is widely used in benchmarking efforts. Here, we report better-than-classical success probabilities for a complete Grover search algorithm on the largest scale demonstrated to date, of up to five qubits, using two different IBM superconducting transmon qubit platforms. This is enabled, on the four and five-qubit scale, by error suppression via robust dynamical decoupling pulse sequences, without which we do not observe better-than-classical results. Further improvements arise after the use of measurement error mitigation, but the latter is insufficient by itself for achieving better-than-classical performance. For two qubits, we demonstrate a success probability of 99.5% via the use of the [[4,2,2]] quantum error-detection (QED) code. This constitutes a demonstration of quantum algorithmic breakeven via QED. Along the way, we introduce algorithmic error tomography, a method of independent interest that provides a holistic view of the errors accumulated throughout an entire quantum algorithm, filtered via the errors detected by the QED code used to encode the circuit. We demonstrate that algorithmic error tomography provides a stringent test of an error model based on a combination of amplitude damping, dephasing, and depolarization.