Parameter estimation of gravitational waves with a quantum metropolis algorithm

Abstract

After the first detection of a gravitational wave in 2015, the number of successes achieved by this innovative way of looking through the Universe has not stopped growing. However, the current techniques for analyzing this type of events present a serious bottleneck due to the high computational power they require. In this article we explore how recent techniques based on quantum algorithms could surpass this obstacle. For this purpose, we propose a quantization of the classical algorithms used in the literature for the inference of gravitational wave parameters based on the well-known quantum walks technique applied to a Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. Finally, we develop a quantum environment on classical hardware, implementing a metric to compare quantum versus classical algorithms in a fair way. We further test all these developments in the real inference of several sets of parameters of all the events of the first detection period GWTC-1 and we find a polynomial advantage in the quantum algorithms, thus setting a first starting point for future algorithms.