Amplified Amplitude Estimation: Exploiting Prior Knowledge to Improve Estimates of Expectation Values

Abstract: We provide a method for estimating the expectation value of an operator that can utilize prior knowledge to accelerate the learning process on a quantum computer. Specifically, suppose we have an operator that can be expressed as a concise sum of projectors whose expectation values we know a priori to be $O(\epsilon)$. In that case, we can estimate the expectation value of the entire operator within error $\epsilon$ using a number of quantum operations that scales as $O(1/\sqrt{\epsilon})$. We then show how this can be used to reduce the cost of learning a potential energy surface in quantum chemistry applications by exploiting information gained from the energy at nearby points. Furthermore, we show, using Newton-Cotes methods, how these ideas can be exploited to learn the energy via integration of derivatives that we can estimate using a priori knowledge. This allows us to reduce the cost of energy estimation if the block-encodings of directional derivative operators have a smaller normalization constant than the Hamiltonian of the system.