Authors:Wenchao Xu, Guoqing Wang, Changhao Li
Masachusetts Institute of Technology, 2022 Jan
Contact: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected].
IonQ.ipynb: source code for creating circuits and running circuits on both ionQ simulator and qpu.
Fig for key experimental result: KeyResult_payoff.pdf
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Zpf4Tk2HvHyfmWVDCfaSGvTE0gYI7pJODs9Eowujq-g/edit?usp=sharing
Games are not only fun for people to play, the theory of games is also an important discipline of applied mathematics, which has found numerous applications in psychology, ecology and social science. While well-established framework has been established for classical game theory, extending and generalizing it towards the quantum domain still has some open questions.
In this project, we focus on the prisoner's dilemma-a standard example of a game analyzed in game theory-in a quantum world. Classical prisoner's dilemma describes a situation in which two completely rational individuals might not cooperate, and act selfishly. This eventually results in a suboptimal choice for both. However, quantum prisoners can behave differently. Here, we explained the quantum circuit implementation for describing the behavior of quantum prisoners, and investigated how these quantum prisoners will make their decision. By using the IonQ quantum computer, we concluded that the best quantum strategies will break the prisoner's dilemma.
Our designed game can be extended to multiple-players where the quantum effect will become more significant, which results in new quantum strategies without analogue in traditional games. Theory of quantum games is also closely related to quantum communication. On the educational side, we hope this quantum game can let our community appreciate the importance of cooperating, for addressing some global challenges such as climate change.
We really appreciate the iQuHack Committee and sponsors for the opportunity to collaborate and cooperate on a fun quantum game project using Microsoft/IonQ online simulator and quantum computers. The tutorials provided by the organizers really navigate us through the details of the online trapped ion computer and help us learn how to run our circuits on the device. Although the Hackathon time is very limited, we still enjoy playing the ionQ GPU and designing our own circuit.
During this iQuHack experience, we also learnt some fun and deep research in quantum game theory, which we were not familiar with. We realize that there is a deep relation between quantum game theory and quantum information science. We hope to move forward along this direction, and we are looking forward to more opportunities with using Microsoft/IonQ platforms in the future.