Monte Carlo simulation of random circuit sampling in quantum computing

Abstract: We develop Monte Carlo methods for sampling random states and corresponding bit strings in qubit systems. To this end, we derive exact probability density functions that yield the Porter-Thomas distribution in the limit of large systems. We apply these functions in importance sampling algorithms and demonstrate efficiency for qubit systems with 70, 105, 1000, and more than one million ($2^{20}$) qubits. In particular, we simulate the output of recent quantum computations without noise on a PC with minimal computational cost. I would therefore argue that random circuit sampling can be conveniently performed on classical computers.