Refuting the QAOA fixed-angle conjecture

arXiv:2609.27703 · quant-ph · Submitted 2026-09-23 · Read on arXiv

quant-ph

Submitted: 2026-09-23

Updated: 2026-09-25

Code: https://github.com/MarkAureli/wl-counterexample

Terminology

• Objective Function — 4× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Alternation — 1× in this paper · explained in 1 episode
• Consistency — 1× in this paper · explained in 3 episodes
• IEEE High Performance Extreme Computing Conference — 1× in this paper
• Quantum Circuits — 1× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Transferability — 1× in this paper · explained in 4 episodes

Sources

• A Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm
• For Fixed Control Parameters the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm's Objective Function Value Concentrates for Typical Instances
• Transferability of optimal QAOA parameters between random graphs
• Strategies for running the QAOA at hundreds of qubits
• The QAOA on the ring of disagrees

Related papers

• Reconquering Bell sampling on qudits: stabilizer learning and testing, quantum pseudorandomness bounds, and more
• Encrypted clones can leak: Classification of informative subsets in Quantum Encrypted Cloning
• Polynomial-time classical and quantum simulation of quantum impurity models
• Theory of quantum-enhanced interferometry with general Markovian light sources
• A convergent hierarchy of spectral gap certificates for qubit Hamiltonians
• Universal Bound and Phase Transition in Many-Body Fermionic Non-Gaussianity