Learning Topological Quantum Phases from Limited Subsystems

Many datasets encountered across a wide range of domains possess rich geometric and topological structure that is difficult to capture using conventional vector-based representations. Quantum machine learning offers the possibility of processing high-dimensional data in Hilbert spaces, but its practical success depends critically on how classical data is encoded into quantum states. We introduce \emph{quantum topological data encoding} (QTDE), a general framework for encoding topological information into quantum states via topology-driven quantum evolution. Our method generalises an existing topology-driven quantum encoding framework to higher-dimensional data. We test the proposed method on clique-complexes classification tasks, and provide preliminary evidence that topology-driven quantum representations can capture discriminative information beyond that available through direct comparisons of classical topological descriptors. The proposed quantum representations consistently outperform a baseline based on direct comparisons of the combinatorial Laplacians describing the underlying topological structure. We indicate several areas of application where the framework can be used to provide a more efficient and reliable data representation.

Recent theoretical progress has established conditions under which machine learning models can efficiently predict ground-state properties of gapped local Hamiltonians when trained on quantum-generated data. Previous experimental demonstrations in this paradigm, however, have largely been limited to small systems or highly structured states, due to the difficulty of preparing many-body ground states on quantum processors. In this work, we demonstrate learning from experimental quantum data generated from approximate ground states of the two-dimensional Heisenberg XXZ model with system sizes up to 115 qubits. We construct a dataset of single-site expectation values, two-point correlations, and 12-body loop correlations across the antiferromagnetic phase. We then train neural networks on this data and show that they can accurately predict spatially resolved observables for previously unseen Hamiltonian parameters, both within the training distribution and in an out-of-distribution regime approaching the phase boundary. Our results demonstrate the practical realization of learning from quantum data for an interacting two-dimensional many-body system at scale, motivating a path toward regimes where quantum processors could provide training data beyond the reach of classical approximation methods.

Interpretable machine learning techniques are becoming essential tools for extracting physical insights from complex quantum data. We build on recent advances in variational autoencoders to demonstrate that such models can learn physically meaningful and interpretable representations from a broad class of unlabeled quantum datasets. From raw measurement data alone, the learned representation reveals rich information about the underlying structure of quantum phase spaces. We further augment the learning pipeline with symbolic methods, enabling the discovery of compact analytical descriptors that serve as order parameters for the distinct regimes emerging in the learned representations. We demonstrate the framework on experimental Rydberg-atom snapshots, classical shadows of the cluster Ising model, and hybrid discrete-continuous fermionic data, revealing previously unreported phenomena such as a corner-ordering pattern in the Rydberg arrays. These results establish a general framework for the automated and interpretable discovery of physical laws from diverse quantum datasets. All methods are available through qdisc, an open-source Python library designed to make these tools accessible to the broader community.