Noise tailoring for error mitigation and for diagnozing digital quantum computers

Abstract: Error mitigation (EM) methods are crucial for obtaining reliable results in the realm of noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) computers, where noise significantly impacts output accuracy. Some EM protocols are particularly efficient for specific types of noise. Yet the noise in the actual hardware may not align with that. In this article, we introduce Noise Tailoring (NT) -- an innovative strategy designed to modify the structure of the noise associated with two-qubit gates through statistical sampling. We perform classical emulation of the protocol behavior and find that the NT+EM results can be up to 5 times more accurate than the results of EM alone for realistic Pauli noise acting on two-qubit gates. At the same time, on actual IBM quantum computers, the NT method falls victim to various small error sources beyond Markovian Pauli noise. We propose to use the NT method for characterizing such error sources on quantum computers in order to inform hardware development.