Random state technology

Abstract

We review and extend, in a self-contained way, the mathematical foundations of numerical simulation methods that are based on the use of random states. The power and versatility of this simulation technology is illustrated by calculations of physically relevant properties such as the density of states of large single particle systems, the specific heat, current-current correlations, density-density correlations, and electron spin resonance spectra of many-body systems. We explore a new field of applications of the random state technology by showing that it can be used to analyze numerical simulations and experiments that aim to realize quantum supremacy on a noisy intermediate-scale quantum processor. Additionally, we show that concepts of the random state technology prove useful in quantum information theory.