Why constraining quantum parameters to discrete values should work better

Just posted a preprint exploring what happens when you constrain VQE and QAOA parameters to discrete rational values instead of doing continuous optimization. The main result: you can get 30-60% reduction in gate counts and faster convergence by snapping rotation angles to specific rational values. This makes sense from a computational perspective - searching through fourteen recurring configurations is obviously more efficient than iterative continuous optimization. The interesting part is which rational values to use. The paper derives these from geometric constraints in projective space, but the practical implementation is straightforward. You just modify your parameter selection to use these discrete values instead of continuous search. No architectural changes needed - it works with existing VQE/QAOA implementations. I've included test cases in the paper if anyone wants to verify. Should be particularly effective for problems where parameter optimization is currently the bottleneck. submitted by /u/EverythingExpands [link] [comments]