arxiv5/20/2026, 2:38:04 AM
Problem-Agnostic Entanglement Hurts VQA Performance: The Case for Structured Circuits in Combinatorial OptimizationFor combinatorial optimization problems governed by diagonal Hamiltonians — whose ground states are classical product states requiring zero entanglement — hardware-efficient ansätze (HEAs) introduce entanglement that actively degrades performance. A new study on MaxCut shows a mo…