An Energy Estimation Benchmark for Quantum Computers

Certifying the performance of quantum computers requires standardized tests. We propose a simple energy estimation benchmark that is motivated from quantum chemistry. With this benchmark we statistically characterize the noisy outcome of the IBM Quantum System One in Ehningen, Germany. We find that the benchmark results hardly correlate with the gate errors and readout errors reported for the device. In a time-resolved analysis, we monitor the device over several hours and find two-hour oscillations of the benchmark results, as well as outliers, which we cannot explain from the reported device status. We then show that the implemented measurement error mitigation techniques cannot resolve these oscillations, which suggests that deviations from the theoretical benchmark outcome statistics do not stem solely from the measurement noise of the device.