Identifying an accurate model for the dynamics of a quantum system is a vexing problem that underlies a range of problems in experimental physics and quantum information theory. Recently, a method called quantum Hamiltonian learning has been proposed by the present authors that uses quantum simulation as a resource for modeling an unknown quantum system. This approach can, under certain circumstances, allow such models to be efficiently identified. A major caveat of that work is the assumption of that all elements of the protocol are noise free. Here we show that quantum Hamiltonian learning can tolerate substantial amounts of depolarizing noise and show numerical evidence that it can tolerate noise drawn from other realistic models. We further provide evidence that the learning algorithm will find a model that is maximally close to the true model in cases where the hypothetical model lacks terms present in the true model. Finally, we also provide numerical evidence that the algorithm works for noncommuting models. This work illustrates that quantum Hamiltonian learning can be performed using realistic resources and suggests that even imperfect quantum resources may be valuable for characterizing quantum systems.

• Received 26 November 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.89.042314