{"paper":{"title":"Overcoming Barren Plateaus in Variational Quantum Circuits using a Two-Step Least Squares Approach","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["cs.IT","math.IT"],"primary_cat":"quant-ph","authors_text":"Francis Boabang, Samuel Asante Gyamerah","submitted_at":"2026-01-26T01:29:02Z","abstract_excerpt":"Variational Quantum Algorithms are a vital part of quantum computing. It is a blend of quantum and classical methods for tackling tough problems in machine learning, chemistry, and combinatorial optimization. Yet as these algorithms scale up, they cannot escape the barren-plateau phenomenon. As systems grow, gradients can vanish so quickly that training deep or randomly initialized circuits becomes nearly impossible. To overcome the barren plateau problem, we introduce a two-stage optimization framework. First comes the convex initialization stage. Here, we shape the quantum energy landscape, "},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2601.18060","kind":"arxiv","version":4},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2601.18060/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}