Variational Quantum Eigensolver Approach to Prime Factorization on IBM’s Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum Computer

Sobhani, Mona, Chai, Yahui, Hartung, Tobias and Jansen, Karl (2025) Variational Quantum Eigensolver Approach to Prime Factorization on IBM’s Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum Computer. Physical Review A. ISSN 2469-9934 (In Press)

Abstract

This paper presents a hybrid quantum-classical approach to prime factorization. The proposed algorithm is based on the Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE), which employs a classical optimizer to find the ground state of a given Hamiltonian. A numerical study is presented, evaluating the performance of the proposed method across various instances on both IBM’s real quantum computer and its classical simulator. The results demonstrate that the method is capable of successfully factorizing numbers up to 253 on a real quantum computer and up to 1048561 on a classical simulator. These findings show the potential of the approach for practical applications on near-term quantum computers.

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