ARC-Bench Quantum Domain
Ten open-ended quantum machine learning and variational quantum algorithm topics that run on the autoclaw native sandbox (Qiskit 2.x stack, statevector and finite-shot simulation, no GPU, no IBM Quantum hardware, no external agent).
Added in branch feat/quantum-domain. Same rc_full runner that drives the ML domain (run_bench.py), same stages 10 to 14, same paperbench_finalize + judge post-processing.
Layout
config/quantum/
topics.yaml registry of 10 topics (Q01-Q10)
manifests/Q0N.yaml per-topic manifest: synthesis, hypotheses, experiment_design, rubric_path
rubrics/Q0N.json per-topic 3-bucket rubric (code / exec / results)
README.md this file
results/rc_full/Q0N/<run_id>/
bench_meta.json run config and bench inputs
judge_result.json per-leaf grades + overall_score
claims.json extracted quantitative claims
RESULTS_README.md auto-generated run summary
submission/ trimmed agent output (code + figures + writeup)
log/rc_full/Q0N/<run_id>/full_run/
full stage-07..14 archive. Gitignored.
Topic registry
| ID | Theme | Primary metric | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q01 | Data encoding strategies for VQC | test_accuracy | maximize |
| Q02 | CNOT ablation in VQC | test_accuracy | maximize |
| Q03 | Classical optimizers for VQE on H2 | shots_to_chemical_accuracy | minimize |
| Q04 | Data re-uploading depth scaling | test_mse | minimize |
| Q05 | Barren plateau cost locality | log_gradient_variance | maximize |
| Q06 | NN warm-start for QAOA MaxCut | iterations_to_target_ratio | minimize |
| Q07 | MPS classifier vs NN baselines | test_accuracy | maximize |
| Q08 | Layerwise vs end-to-end VQC | test_accuracy | maximize |
| Q09 | Noise-aware VQC training | test_accuracy | maximize |
| Q10 | Quantum autoencoder fidelity | reconstruction_fidelity | maximize |
Full topic strings live in topics.yaml. Per-topic hypotheses H1 / H2 / H3, conditions, baselines, and seed counts live in manifests/Q0N.yaml.
Latest single-run scores (rc_full, gpt-5.3-codex + gpt-4o judge)
Methodology: one latest run per topic, no best-of-N cherry picking.
| ID | Score | Run timestamp |
|---|---|---|
| Q01 | 0.709 | 20260517-192423 |
| Q02 | 0.430 | 20260517-192423 |
| Q03 | 0.757 | 20260517-212933 |
| Q04 | 0.571 | 20260517-212933 |
| Q05 | 0.576 | 20260517-212933 |
| Q06 | 0.317 | 20260517-212933 |
| Q07 | 0.513 | 20260517-212933 |
| Q08 | 0.421 | 20260517-212720 |
| Q09 | 0.145 | 20260517-192423 |
| Q10 | 0.421 | 20260517-192422 |
| Mean | 0.486 |
Stage-15 PROCEED gate requires at least 2 baselines plus the proposed method, so every quantum manifest declares two or more baselines (random / random_init_control / classical MLP / logistic-regression as appropriate).
How to run
Single topic:
python experiments/arc_bench/scripts/run_bench.py \
--mode rc_full \
--topic Q03 \
--runs 1
All quantum topics:
python experiments/arc_bench/scripts/run_bench.py \
--mode rc_full \
--domain quantum \
--runs 1
The runner reads base_config.yaml, expands Q0N to the matching manifests/Q0N.yaml and rubrics/Q0N.json, registers Q -> quantum in prepare_run.py, and drops outputs under results/rc_full/Q0N/<run_id>/.
Skill
Agents pick up Qiskit-specific patterns from a domain skill:
researchclaw/skills/builtin/domain/quantum-qiskit/SKILL.md
Triggered on stages 10 and 13 whenever the topic synthesis or experiment plan mentions Qiskit, VQE, VQC, QAOA, EfficientSU2, ZZFeatureMap, MPS, noise model, etc. The skill is intentionally generic. It contains no Q-topic narratives and no bench-specific signal that would leak rubric information to the agent.
Key patterns it documents:
- Imports for Qiskit 2.x (StatevectorEstimator, StatevectorSampler, BackendSamplerV2, AerSimulator).
- Data-encoding feature maps (ZFeatureMap, ZZFeatureMap, StatePreparation).
- Variational ansatze (EfficientSU2, n-local).
- VQC training with
qiskit_machine_learning.VQC.fit. - Manual VQE loop pattern.
qiskit_algorithms.VQEis broken under Qiskit 2.x becauseqiskit_nature.second_q.algorithmsimports the removedBaseEstimator. The skill shows the StatevectorEstimator +optimizer.minimize()replacement. - MPS-structured circuits via
AerSimulator(method='matrix_product_state', matrix_product_state_max_bond_dimension=chi). - Noise model wiring.
qiskit_machine_learning.Samplerdoes not accept anoise_modelkwarg, so noisy training routes throughBackendSamplerV2(backend=AerSimulator(noise_model=...)). - Qiskit 2.x compatibility notes and a table of common errors with fixes.
Dependencies
Pinned in config/base_config.yaml allowed_imports:
qiskit, qiskit_aer, qiskit_algorithms, qiskit_machine_learning, qiskit_nature, pyscf
numpy, scipy, matplotlib, sklearn, pandas, statsmodels, networkx, skimage
The agent runs inside a sandbox so it cannot install new packages mid-run. Anything outside this list fails the import gate at stage 10.
Caveats
- LLM nondeterminism. Single-run scores carry std around 0.2 to 0.4. Compare topics with caution. The committed runs are one snapshot. A rerun on the same manifest can swing materially.
- Q09 is hard. Noise-aware training under our sandbox time budget regularly bottoms out near the random-prediction floor. The 0.145 score reflects this. The skill already documents the correct noise model wiring, so the failure mode is not a missing pattern but a genuinely thin training signal under the configured noise rates.
- Multi-file consistency. Topics such as Q08 require the agent to keep
main.py,model.py,evaluate.py, etc. in sync. When the agent gets out of sync, the run fails at stage 12 with a missing-import error. This is an agent capability ceiling and is not fixable by skill updates. - Code bucket weight. Rubrics carry a Code Development bucket (weight 2 of 7), but the autoclaw default
judge.pyoperates inresults_onlymode and skips code-leaf grading. Code leaves are kept in the rubric so that a future code-aware judge can score them without re-authoring.
Adding a new quantum topic
- Add an entry to
topics.yamlwith aQ11+id, a verbose topic string, domains, metric_key, metric_direction. - Write
manifests/Q11.yamlwith synthesis (research question + skill pointer + protocol), hypotheses (H1 / H2 / H3), experiment_design (conditions, at least 2 baselines, metrics, datasets, compute_requirements), and arubric_pathpointing torubrics/Q11.json. - Write
rubrics/Q11.jsonas a 3-bucket tree (code / exec / results), 25 / 25 / 50 weights, with 9 leaves total. - Make sure
scripts/prepare_run.py_PREFIX_MAPandscripts/judge.py_PREFIX_MAPboth mapQ -> quantum. They already do for Q01-Q10. - Run end-to-end with
--runs 1first to shake out manifest typos before committing.