TECHNIQUES FOR CONTROLLING SMALL ANGLE MØLMER-SØRENSEN GATES AND FOR HANDLING ASYMMETRIC SPAM ERRORS

The disclosure describes various techniques to control of small angle Mølmer-Sørensen (MS) gates and to handle asymmetric errors. A technique is described that implements a two-qubit calibration circuit with two MS gates, where a parameter θ represents an amount of entanglement of the MS gate. The calibration circuit is run for several values of θ to measure observed parity signals that are direct measurements of the values of θ. Calibration information is generated that describes the relationship between θ and the parity signals, and such calibration information is then provided to arbitrarily calibrate one or more MS gates in a quantum simulation. Another technique is described for using the calibration information in quantum simulations, including for quantum chemistry simulations. Yet another technique is described for handling system-based asymmetric errors in the measurements of different qubit states in different types of quantum circuits, including, for example, the calibration circuit mentioned above.