The finite-shot help-harm boundary of zero-noise extrapolation
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Quantum Physics arXiv:2605.08251 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 7 May 2026] Title:The finite-shot help-harm boundary of zero-noise extrapolation Authors:Vicenzo Scavino Alfaro View a PDF of the paper titled The finite-shot help-harm boundary of zero-noise extrapolation, by Vicenzo Scavino Alfaro View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Zero-noise extrapolation (ZNE) reduces noise-induced bias but can increase sampling variance through Richardson coefficients and shot splitting. We define a finite-shot help-harm boundary: the lower local mean-squared-error crossing where fixed Richardson ZNE changes from harmful to helpful. A local expansion shows that this boundary is governed by the first squared-bias improvement and first excess-variance penalty, producing either a shrinking power law, a budget threshold, or no shrinking lower boundary. Qiskit Aer simulations and variance-exponent fits support the predicted separation between deterministic stabilizer measurements and variational energy measurements, while readout-regime diagnostics and IBM Quantum checks delineate measurement-protocol and hardware-traceability limits. Comments: Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2605.08251 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2605.08251v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2605.08251 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Vicenzo Scavino Alfaro [view email] [v1] Thu, 7 May 2026 17:01:52 UTC (1,180 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled The finite-shot help-harm boundary of zero-noise extrapolation, by Vicenzo Scavino AlfaroView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-05 References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)