6–11 Dec 2026
Stellenbosch University
Africa/Johannesburg timezone

Fragmentation is Efficiently Learnable by Quantum Neural Networks

10 Dec 2026, 09:40
30m
Jan Mouton Learning Centre (Stellenbosch University)

Jan Mouton Learning Centre

Stellenbosch University

Speaker

Mikhail Mints (Caltech)

Description

In certain classes of physical quantum systems, the exponentially large state space "fragments" into many low-dimensional, dynamically disconnected subspaces. We introduce a learning problem known as fragment classification, where given a quantum state input, one is interested in classifying to which subspace the state belongs. We prove that solving this learning problem is efficient on a quantum computer when the fragmentation phenomenon satisfies certain conditions. Furthermore, we give evidence supporting the classical hardness of this task by demonstrating that known dequantization techniques fail for the fragment classification problem. Consequently, this work provides a rare example of a physically motivated quantum machine learning task that is both efficient for quantum computers to perform and admits no known classical dequantization.

Topic Theoretical foundations of quantum learning
Additional Topic Quantum variational circuits and their applications

Authors

Presentation materials