# qml.templates.layers.RandomLayers¶

RandomLayers(weights, wires, ratio_imprim=0.3, imprimitive=<class 'pennylane.ops.qubit.CNOT'>, rotations=None, seed=42)[source]

Layers of randomly chosen single qubit rotations and 2-qubit entangling gates, acting on randomly chosen qubits.

Warning

This template uses random number generation inside qnodes. Find more details about how to invoke the desired random behaviour in the “Usage Details” section below.

The argument weights contains the weights for each layer. The number of layers $$L$$ is therefore derived from the first dimension of weights.

The two-qubit gates of type imprimitive and the rotations are distributed randomly in the circuit. The number of random rotations is derived from the second dimension of weights. The number of two-qubit gates is determined by ratio_imprim. For example, a ratio of 0.3 with 30 rotations will lead to the use of 10 two-qubit gates.

Note

If applied to one qubit only, this template will use no imprimitive gates.

This is an example of two 4-qubit random layers with four Pauli-Y/Pauli-Z rotations $$R_y, R_z$$, controlled-Z gates as imprimitives, as well as ratio_imprim=0.3:

Parameters
• weights (array[float]) – array of weights of shape (L, k),

• wires (Sequence[int]) – sequence of qubit indices that the template acts on

• ratio_imprim (float) – value between 0 and 1 that determines the ratio of imprimitive to rotation gates

• imprimitive (pennylane.ops.Operation) – two-qubit gate to use, defaults to CNOT

• rotations (list[pennylane.ops.Operation]) – List of Pauli-X, Pauli-Y and/or Pauli-Z gates. The frequency determines how often a particular rotation type is used. Defaults to the use of all three rotations with equal frequency.

• seed (int) – seed to generate random architecture, defaults to 42

Raises

ValueError – if inputs do not have the correct format

Default seed

RandomLayers always uses a seed to initialize the construction of a random circuit. This means that the template creates the same circuit every time it is called. If no seed is provided, the default seed of 42 is used.

import pennylane as qml
import numpy as np
from pennylane.templates.layers import RandomLayers

dev = qml.device("default.qubit", wires=2)
weights = [[0.1, -2.1, 1.4]]

@qml.qnode(dev)
def circuit1(weights):
RandomLayers(weights=weights, wires=range(2))
return qml.expval(qml.PauliZ(0))

@qml.qnode(dev)
def circuit2(weights):
RandomLayers(weights=weights, wires=range(2))
return qml.expval(qml.PauliZ(0))

>>> np.allclose(circuit1(weights), circuit2(weights))
>>> True


You can verify this by drawing the circuits.

>>> print(circuit1.draw())
>>>  0: ──RX(0.1)──RX(-2.1)──╭X──╭X───────────┤ ⟨Z⟩
...  1: ─────────────────────╰C──╰C──RZ(1.4)──┤

>>> print(circuit2.draw())
>>>  0: ──RX(0.1)──RX(-2.1)──╭X──╭X───────────┤ ⟨Z⟩
...  1: ─────────────────────╰C──╰C──RZ(1.4)──┤


Changing the seed

To change the randomly generated circuit architecture, you have to change the seed passed to the template. For example, these two calls of RandomLayers do not create the same circuit:

@qml.qnode(dev)
def circuit_9(weights):
RandomLayers(weights=weights, wires=range(2), seed=9)
return qml.expval(qml.PauliZ(0))

@qml.qnode(dev)
def circuit_12(weights):
RandomLayers(weights=weights, wires=range(2), seed=12)
return qml.expval(qml.PauliZ(0))

>>> np.allclose(circuit_9(weights), circuit_12(weights))
>>> False

>>> print(circuit_9.draw())
>>>  0: ──╭X──RY(-2.1)──RX(1.4)──┤ ⟨Z⟩
...  1: ──╰C──RX(0.1)────────────┤

>>> print(circuit_12.draw())
>>>  0: ──╭X──RX(-2.1)──╭C──╭X──RZ(1.4)──┤ ⟨Z⟩
...  1: ──╰C──RZ(0.1)───╰X──╰C───────────┤


Automatically creating random circuits

To automate the process of creating different circuits with RandomLayers, you can set seed=None to avoid specifying a seed. However, in this case care needs to be taken. In the default setting, a quantum node is mutable, which means that the quantum function is re-evaluated every time it is called. This means that the circuit is re-constructed from scratch each time you call the qnode:

@qml.qnode(dev)
def circuit_rnd(weights):
RandomLayers(weights=weights, wires=range(2), seed=None)
return qml.expval(qml.PauliZ(0))

first_call = circuit_rnd(weights)
second_call = circuit_rnd(weights)

>>> np.allclose(first_call, second_call)
>>> False


This can be rectified by making the quantum node immutable.

@qml.qnode(dev, mutable=False)
def circuit_rnd(weights):
RandomLayers(weights=weights, wires=range(2), seed=None)
return qml.expval(qml.PauliZ(0))

first_call = circuit_rnd(weights)
second_call = circuit_rnd(weights)

>>> np.allclose(first_call, second_call)
>>> True