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Negative Results and Limitations

A negative result is evidence that rules out, narrows, reverses, or fails to support a specified claim under stated conditions. A limitation is a proved, measured, or modeled boundary on performance, scaling, generalization, or implementation.

Neither term means that an entire research area has failed. The scientifically useful object is a bounded statement:

  • what claim was tested;
  • which assumptions and resource model were used;
  • what outcome would have been detectable;
  • what was ruled out or left unresolved;
  • which alternative route remains open;
  • what new evidence could change the conclusion.

This page tracks durable limitation classes and representative quantum- information cases. It is not a scoreboard of technologies. Claims, Hype, and Evidence Standards owns claim classification. Claims and Evidence Checklist owns the review procedure. Dedicated algorithm, hardware, QEC, sensing, and network pages own their complete positive and negative records. The present page owns the cross-domain limitation ledger and the rules for interpreting it.

A theorem proves that a target is impossible within a formal model. Its force comes from proof, and its boundary comes from assumptions. The Eastin–Knill theorem, for example, rules out a universal set of transversal logical unitaries for a nontrivial exact finite-dimensional code that detects arbitrary single-subsystem errors. It does not rule out magic-state distillation, code switching, gauge fixing, teleportation, approximate codes, or other fault-tolerant constructions. Fault-Tolerant Gates develops the theorem’s operational boundary and those surviving mechanisms.

A lower bound proves that a task needs at least a specified resource in a declared access model. Unstructured quantum search requires Ω(N)\Omega(\sqrt N) oracle queries, making Grover’s quadratic improvement optimal in that black-box setting. The bound does not apply when additional algebraic, geometric, or promise structure changes the task.

Lower Bounds and Limitations owns durable formal implication rules across access, output, noise, complexity, and implementation resources; this page retains dated empirical nulls, reversals, scope changes, and their update triggers.

An experiment may find no detectable improvement, or may constrain the difference to be smaller than a practically meaningful margin. The second is stronger. “Not statistically significant” can mean no effect, insufficient data, high variance, poor measurement, or model mismatch.

A quantum result can be overtaken by a later classical algorithm, simulator, hardware implementation, or analysis. The original measurement need not become wrong. The comparative claim changes because the dated baseline changed.

A component can improve while end-to-end performance remains dominated by sampling, data access, error correction, routing, verification, loss, or classical control. This is not a theorem of impossibility unless a lower bound is proved. It is a statement about the current resource model and scaling evidence.

Classification of negative quantum-information evidence into formal barriers, empirical nulls, comparator reversals, resource bottlenecks, and open claims

Negative evidence has several logical forms. A theorem inherits the scope of its assumptions; a null requires sensitivity or equivalence analysis; a benchmark reversal requires a matched and dated comparator; an overhead result requires an end-to-end resource boundary; and an open claim records a missing bridge rather than a failure. Each path should end in a bounded conclusion and an explicit update trigger.

For every entry, preserve:

FieldQuestion
target claimwhat exact proposition is being limited?
result classtheorem, lower bound, null, equivalence, reversal, overhead, or open claim?
assumptionsaccess model, noise, locality, code family, data distribution, or apparatus regime?
tested populationwhich instances, devices, states, circuits, times, and scales?
sensitivitywhich effect sizes or scaling laws could the study distinguish?
comparatorwhat baseline, version, hardware, and date?
resource boundarywhich setup, samples, retries, control, verification, and infrastructure costs?
bounded conclusionexactly what is ruled out, narrowed, or unsupported?
surviving routeswhich regimes or alternative methods remain possible?
update triggerwhat theorem, experiment, scaling study, or comparator would change the entry?

A useful record does not say “QAOA does not work” or “quantum sensing loses under noise.” It names the depth, instance family, noise model, estimator, and performance criterion for which the limitation was established.

Let

Δ=θcandidate−θbaseline\Delta = \theta_{\rm candidate} - \theta_{\rm baseline}

be the effect relevant to the claim. A conventional test may fail to reject Δ=0\Delta=0. That does not establish Δ=0\Delta=0.

Before collecting data, define a smallest effect Δmin⁡>0\Delta_{\min}>0 that would matter scientifically or practically. Evidence of practical equivalence can be claimed when an appropriate confidence interval satisfies

CI1−α(Δ)⊂[−Δmin⁡,Δmin⁡].{\rm CI}_{1-\alpha}(\Delta) \subset \left[ -\Delta_{\min}, \Delta_{\min} \right].

Three outcomes are then distinct:

Interval positionInterpretation
entirely beyond the improvement marginevidence for a meaningful improvement
entirely inside the equivalence intervalevidence that any difference is smaller than the chosen meaningful margin
overlaps meaningful improvement, equivalence, and harminconclusive at the achieved sensitivity

The margin must come from the task, not from the observed interval. Choosing it after seeing the data turns an equivalence analysis into another selection step.

A negative report should include:

  • the target effect or scaling exponent;
  • power or expected interval width under a prespecified model;
  • the independent experimental unit;
  • systematic and model uncertainty;
  • stopping and exclusion rules;
  • the tested parameter range;
  • the strongest effect still compatible with the data.

For a benchmark over problem instances, the independent unit may be the instance, not the number of shots used to estimate each score. For hardware generalization, many shots on one device and one day do not replace multiple devices or calibration epochs.

A null can occur because both methods hit:

  • a finite-shot noise floor;
  • a detector or readout floor;
  • a small-instance ceiling where every method succeeds;
  • a time limit where no method converges;
  • a verification floor that cannot distinguish outputs;
  • a classical preprocessing bottleneck shared by both methods.

The correct conclusion may be “the experiment could not resolve the difference,” not “the methods are equal.”

Suppose fraction ff of a baseline runtime can be accelerated by a quantum subroutine with segment speedup SqS_q, while the remaining fraction is unchanged. Under the simplest serial model, the total speedup is

Stotal=1(1−f)+f/Sq.S_{\rm total} = \frac{1}{ (1-f)+f/S_q }.

Even Sq→∞S_q\to\infty gives

Stotal≤11−f.S_{\rm total} \leq \frac{1}{1-f}.

If state preparation, data movement, repeated measurements, decoding, verification, or output interpretation dominate, accelerating the coherent kernel does not establish an end-to-end advantage. Parallelism and overlap can modify this expression, but they must be scheduled rather than assumed.

For statistically independent attempts with delivered-success probability pdelp_{\rm del} and mean attempt cost TattT_{\rm att}, the idealized expected time to one delivered result is

E[Tdel]=Tattpdel.\mathbb E[T_{\rm del}] = \frac{T_{\rm att}}{p_{\rm del}}.

This exposes postselection, heralding, optimizer restarts, failed jobs, and probabilistic state preparation. A high conditional fidelity can coexist with poor time to solution when pdelp_{\rm del} is small.

Many mitigation estimators combine noisy expectation estimates linearly:

μ^mit=∑jηjμ^j.\widehat\mu_{\rm mit} = \sum_j \eta_j\widehat\mu_j.

For independent estimates,

Var⁡(μ^mit)=∑jηj2Var⁡(μ^j).\operatorname{Var} \left( \widehat\mu_{\rm mit} \right) = \sum_j \eta_j^2 \operatorname{Var} \left( \widehat\mu_j \right).

Large positive and negative coefficients can cancel bias while amplifying variance. In probabilistic error cancellation, if γ=∑j∣ηj∣\gamma=\sum_j|\eta_j|, a common shot-overhead scale is γ2\gamma^2 relative to an unmitigated estimate, subject to allocation and protocol details. Fundamental bounds show that generic mitigation cannot arbitrarily erase accumulated noise at constant sampling cost.

Error mitigation can still be useful for selected observables and circuit regimes. The limitation is that improved bias, sampling overhead, residual model dependence, and total runtime must be reported together.

Error Mitigation Overview owns finite-regime method selection, explicit estimator accounting, combination rules, and held-out validation; this page retains durable lower-bound and no-go scope, benchmark reversals, and negative-result reporting.

Limits of Error Mitigation owns mitigation-specific theorem statements, finite resource stress tests, and local escalation decisions; this page retains the durable cross-domain ledger of no-go scope, empirical reversals, and update triggers.

Unstructured search has only a quadratic black-box speedup

Section titled “Unstructured search has only a quadratic black-box speedup”

Grover search gives O(N)O(\sqrt N) oracle queries, and the Bennett–Bernstein– Brassard–Vazirani lower bound shows that this scaling is optimal for unstructured black-box search. Encoding every optimization problem as a marked-item search therefore does not create an exponential speedup.

What it rules out: a better generic query scaling when the oracle hides all structure.

What remains open: algorithms that exploit group structure, algebraic promises, geometry, sparsity, or problem-specific distributions.

Shallow QAOA has instance-dependent reachability limits

Section titled “Shallow QAOA has instance-dependent reachability limits”

Fixed-depth QAOA is local on bounded-degree problem graphs. Results on reachability deficits, symmetry protection, and specific graph families show that shallow circuits can fail to reach high-quality regions even without hardware noise. Classical local algorithms can match or outperform low-depth QAOA in some settings. The canonical QAOA page owns the ansatz, hypotheses, guarantees, and resource model; this page retains the cross-study limitation record and update triggers.

These are targeted results, not a universal theorem against QAOA. Increasing depth changes what the circuit can see, while also increasing optimization, sampling, compilation, and noise costs. A practical advantage claim therefore needs a scaling comparison among solution quality, depth, training cost, and current classical methods.

Current bounded conclusion: low-depth QAOA has no established generic practical speedup for combinatorial optimization.

Update trigger: a prespecified instance family on which end-to-end, verified quality–cost scaling beats competitive classical methods.

Variational trainability can become exponentially expensive

Section titled “Variational trainability can become exponentially expensive”

Random, sufficiently expressive parameterized circuits can exhibit barren plateaus in which gradient variance decreases exponentially with system size. Global costs, deep random ansatzes, entanglement structure, symmetries, and noise create distinct mechanisms. Under local Pauli noise, work in 2021 proved noise-induced gradient suppression that is exponential in depth and therefore in system size when depth grows linearly.

That result has assumptions. In 2026, analysis of local non-unital noise found that local-observable costs need not exhibit the same barren plateau. However, the same noise made typical circuits effectively shallow and enabled efficient classical estimation in the studied average-case setting. Removing one trainability symptom did not automatically restore quantum advantage.

Problem-inspired ansatzes, local costs, initialization, symmetry sectors, adaptive growth, error correction, and engineered dissipation can change the picture. Their success should be established by gradient signal-to-noise, shots, optimizer calls, final quality, and scaling across held-out instances.

Current bounded conclusion: trainability is not guaranteed by a shallow finite-size demonstration, and generic noisy VQA speedup remains unestablished.

Classical data can erase an apparent quantum-learning separation

Section titled “Classical data can erase an apparent quantum-learning separation”

Quantum Machine Learning proposals can assume amplitude-encoded inputs or sample-and-query access that hides substantial data preparation. Tang’s quantum-inspired recommendation algorithm showed that, under a classical sampling access model analogous to the quantum input assumption, a previously claimed exponential separation did not survive.

The QML owner specifies the exact access and learning hypotheses plus positive guarantees; this page retains the durable limitation and update ledger.

Separately, the “power of data” analysis showed that classical learners can predict labels from examples even when independently computing the underlying quantum process is hard. Hard simulation does not imply hard supervised learning.

What it rules out: inferring prediction advantage solely from the classical hardness of simulating the feature-generating circuit.

What remains open: quantum-native data, carefully separated access models, tasks with provable learning separations, and practical data sets on which matched classical learners are beaten.

Classical simulation can move the advantage frontier

Section titled “Classical simulation can move the advantage frontier”

A 2023 127-qubit kicked-Ising experiment reported quantum results beyond the then-used classical approximations in a strongly entangled regime. In 2024, Tindall and collaborators used geometry-aware tensor-network belief propagation to produce more accurate and precise classical results for that experiment, while Begušić and collaborators developed another fast, converged classical simulation.

The quantum measurements did not cease to exist. The comparative interpretation changed because the classical frontier moved. The episode also yielded useful algorithmic insight: hardware geometry, observable locality, entanglement structure, and approximation error mattered more than qubit count alone.

Current bounded conclusion: a disagreement with selected classical approximations is not durable evidence of utility or advantage without adversarial classical follow-up.

Update trigger: a task with verified quantum output, a dated broad classical search, matched resources, and a separation robust to new simulation methods.

Generic exponential advantage in ground-state chemistry is not established

Section titled “Generic exponential advantage in ground-state chemistry is not established”

Quantum phase estimation has rigorous advantages for some Hamiltonian and access models, and fault-tolerant chemistry resource estimates can be valuable. A stronger claim is that chemically typical ground states are both efficiently preparable on a quantum computer and generically exponentially hard for the best classical heuristics at chemically relevant accuracy.

Lee and collaborators examined evidence for that hypothesis and found that it was not established by the tested families and diagnostics. “Generic chemistry” is itself difficult to define, state preparation can be hard on both quantum and classical computers, and classical electronic-structure methods exploit locality, weak correlation, tensor structure, and chemical priors.

What it does not rule out: polynomial or high-degree speedups, special strongly correlated families, dynamics, response properties, or future algorithms with validated state preparation.

Current bounded conclusion: exponential quantum advantage should not be treated as a generic property of ground-state quantum chemistry.

Error mitigation cannot replace scalable error correction at fixed cost

Section titled “Error mitigation cannot replace scalable error correction at fixed cost”

Error mitigation estimates ideal quantities from noisy executions without maintaining a protected logical state. It can reduce bias in useful finite regimes. General bounds connect the achievable error reduction to sampling overhead, circuit noise, and distinguishability lost to the environment. Later bounds tightened exponential overhead statements for broad circuit and noise settings.

What it rules out: assuming that arbitrarily deep noisy computation can be made ideal with constant sampling and no additional model assumptions.

What remains open: problem-specific observables, shallow circuits, symmetry verification, virtual distillation, learned noise structure, and hybrids in which mitigation supplements rather than replaces QEC.

The symmetry-verification specialist owns finite sector-filtering licenses, invisible-error boundaries, acceptance cost, and abstention; this page retains the broader scoped limitation ledger.

Fault tolerance has structural overhead, not only better components

Section titled “Fault tolerance has structural overhead, not only better components”

The Eastin–Knill theorem means an ordinary exact code cannot obtain a universal logical unitary set entirely from transversal gates. Magic-state distillation, code switching, gauge fixing, lattice surgery, or related machinery supplies the missing operations at a cost.

For two-dimensional geometrically local commuting codes, the Bravyi–Poulin– Terhal tradeoff constrains encoded rate and distance:

kd2≤cn,k d^2 \leq c n,

where nn is the number of physical subsystems, kk the number of encoded qubits, dd the distance, and cc depends on locality details. The theorem does not apply unchanged to every nonlocal, subsystem, dynamical, or higher- dimensional construction.

Threshold behavior addresses suppression of logical faults with increasing code size. It does not erase factories, routing, measurement, reset, decoder latency, leakage handling, or rare correlated events. Error-Correction Case Studies gives the experimental evidence ladder.

Current bounded conclusion: better physical error rates and a below- threshold memory are necessary evidence, not a complete low-overhead fault-tolerant computer.

Noise often restores standard-quantum-limit scaling

Section titled “Noise often restores standard-quantum-limit scaling”

Ideal entangled probes can attain Heisenberg-like scaling in selected noiseless models. For independent Markovian dephasing in frequency estimation, Huelga and collaborators showed that the asymptotic scaling advantage can disappear. Broader channel bounds show that dephasing, depolarization, spontaneous emission, and loss generically reduce the asymptotic gain to a constant factor in common models.

This does not say entanglement is useless. Constant gains can be valuable, and ancillas, temporal correlations, error correction, non-Markovian structure, adaptive protocols, or a different resource count can change a bound.

Current bounded conclusion: a squeezed or entangled probe does not by itself establish Heisenberg scaling or end-to-end sensor advantage under realistic loss and noise.

Pure loss imposes a repeaterless rate–distance limit

Section titled “Pure loss imposes a repeaterless rate–distance limit”

For a pure-loss bosonic channel with transmissivity η\eta, the two-way-assisted secret-key capacity without quantum repeaters is

K(η)=−log⁡2(1−η).K(\eta) = -\log_2(1-\eta).

At high loss,

K(η)≃ηln⁡2.K(\eta) \simeq \frac{\eta}{\ln 2}.

This Pirandola–Laurenza–Ottaviani–Banchi bound is a fundamental benchmark per channel use under its point-to-point model. Better detectors and coding can approach the bound but cannot change its high-loss scaling. Surpassing that direct-transmission scaling requires changing the architecture, for example with repeater nodes, memories, or a protocol whose channel partition is explicitly different.

What it does not rule out: trusted relays, satellite geometry, twin-field architectures with an intermediate measurement station, or genuine quantum repeaters. Those systems must be compared under their own trust and resource boundaries.

Several important propositions remain neither proved nor refuted:

  • a practical quantum advantage for a valuable optimization workload;
  • broad quantum-learning advantage on classical industry data;
  • economical fault-tolerant chemistry at a useful accuracy and turnaround time;
  • a scalable universal architecture with acceptable energy, control, and manufacturing overhead;
  • network services that beat direct architectures after memories, scheduling, and availability are included;
  • metrological advantage that survives full instrument overhead across a valuable operating range.

Label these open, not failed. Absence of a convincing demonstration is not a no-go theorem. Conversely, commercial activity, investment, and roadmaps are not evidence that the claim has already been established.

An open-claim record should name the missing bridge. “More research is needed” is too vague. Examples include:

  • no matched classical baseline at useful instance size;
  • no verified output beyond tractable instances;
  • no scaling across code distance;
  • no unconditional rate after postselection;
  • no end-to-end resource estimate;
  • no holdout test on representative data;
  • no manufacturing or calibration yield evidence.

Report the original hypothesis, primary endpoint, smallest meaningful effect, sample-size rationale, stopping rule, and exclusions. Distinguish prespecified, secondary, and exploratory analyses.

Provide:

  • per-instance or per-device results, not only an average;
  • uncertainty intervals and distribution tails;
  • conditional and unconditional performance;
  • per-cycle and per-time quantities where both matter;
  • component and end-to-end resource views;
  • chronological plots when drift or rare events matter.

A negative comparison against a poorly tuned candidate is weak evidence about the method. Record:

  • hyperparameter and compiler search;
  • convergence diagnostics;
  • calibration validity;
  • classical and quantum implementation checks;
  • positive controls known to succeed;
  • ablations that locate the bottleneck.

This does not require unlimited tuning. It requires a fair, declared budget and evidence that the implementation exercised the intended mechanism.

Separate local failure from family-wide failure

Section titled “Separate local failure from family-wide failure”

Use language such as:

Under noise model N\mathcal N, depth scaling L(n)L(n), observable family O\mathcal O, and the tested parameter distribution, the gradient signal fell below the declared resolvability threshold. This rules out the tested training protocol at the measured shot budget; it does not rule out all structured ansatzes or fault-tolerant implementations.

The boundary is part of the result, not a disclaimer added afterward.

When a comparator overtakes a result, retain both records:

  1. what was supported at the original date;
  2. which new algorithm, hardware, or analysis changed the comparison;
  3. whether the original output remains valid;
  4. which broader claim must be withdrawn or narrowed;
  5. the new baseline and update date.

This makes scientific progress visible rather than rewriting history.

Entry typeStrong update
no-go theoremrelax an assumption, prove a stronger theorem, or exhibit a valid counterexample outside the old scope
lower boundchange the access model or prove a tighter matching algorithm
empirical nullimprove sensitivity, broaden the population, or replicate under a stronger design
benchmark reversalproduce a new matched result against the updated frontier
overhead bottleneckdemonstrate improved scaling or move the bottleneck end to end
open claimsupply the named missing bridge with verification and uncertainty

A larger device count is not automatically the relevant update. If the limitation is data loading, loss, verification, or a classical baseline, more qubits may leave the claim unchanged.

  • Treating p>0.05p>0.05 as evidence of no effect.
  • Calling an underpowered experiment an equivalence result.
  • Turning one adverse instance family into a theorem about all algorithms.
  • Omitting the assumptions of a no-go theorem.
  • Treating a later classical simulation as proof that the quantum experiment was fraudulent or scientifically worthless.
  • Preserving an obsolete advantage headline after its comparator was beaten.
  • Reporting the coherent-kernel speedup while excluding dominant workflow stages.
  • Calling sampling overhead a small constant without showing how it scales.
  • Treating a finite-size crossover as asymptotic evidence.
  • Calling an unproved application claim false merely because it remains open.
  • Hiding negative seeds, devices, instances, or calibration windows.
  • Publishing only the failed endpoint without diagnostics of implementation competence.
  • Describing structural overhead as an engineering detail that can be assumed away.
  • Letting “quantum-inspired” or “classically simulable” substitute for a matched resource comparison.

A measured speed difference is Δ^=0.8%\widehat\Delta=0.8\% with a 95%95\% confidence interval [−2.5%,4.1%][-2.5\%,4.1\%]. The prespecified practically meaningful margin is Δmin⁡=1%\Delta_{\min}=1\%. What can be concluded?

Solution

The interval contains zero, so the study does not show a statistically resolved difference under the chosen procedure. It also extends well outside the equivalence interval [−1%,1%][-1\%,1\%], so it does not show practical equivalence.

The correct disposition is inconclusive at the achieved sensitivity. Effects ranging from a modest harm to a meaningful improvement remain compatible with the interval.

A quantum kernel occupies f=0.20f=0.20 of the baseline end-to-end runtime and is accelerated by a factor Sq=100S_q=100. Compute the idealized total speedup and its maximum as Sq→∞S_q\to\infty.

Solution

The total speedup is

Stotal=10.80+0.20/100≈1.247.S_{\rm total} = \frac{1}{0.80+0.20/100} \approx 1.247.

Even an infinitely fast kernel gives

Stotalmax⁡=10.80=1.25.S_{\rm total}^{\max} = \frac{1}{0.80} = 1.25.

The hundredfold segment improvement supports a component claim, while the workflow can improve by at most 25%25\% under this serial resource model.

A heralded protocol takes 4 ms4\ {\rm ms} per attempt and delivers a useful output with probability 2×10−32\times10^{-3}. Estimate the idealized mean time per delivered output.

Solution

Using the geometric-attempt model,

E[Tdel]=4×10−3 s2×10−3=2 s.\mathbb E[T_{\rm del}] = \frac{4\times10^{-3}\ {\rm s}} {2\times10^{-3}} = 2\ {\rm s}.

A conditional operation time of 4 ms4\ {\rm ms} is therefore not a 4 ms4\ {\rm ms} delivered-service latency. Queueing, timeout, reset, and latency-tail effects could make the operational value larger.

An estimator is

μ^mit=1.5μ^1−0.5μ^2.\widehat\mu_{\rm mit} = 1.5\widehat\mu_1 - 0.5\widehat\mu_2.

The two independent unmitigated estimates each have variance σ2/N\sigma^2/N. Find the mitigated variance and compare it with one unmitigated estimate using the same NN for each circuit.

Solution

Independence gives

Var⁡(μ^mit)=(1.52+0.52)σ2N=2.5σ2N.\operatorname{Var} \left( \widehat\mu_{\rm mit} \right) = \left( 1.5^2+0.5^2 \right) \frac{\sigma^2}{N} = 2.5\frac{\sigma^2}{N}.

The variance is 2.52.5 times that of one unmitigated estimate, and the protocol also used 2N2N total shots. Whether the comparison should fix shots, elapsed time, or precision depends on the claim. Bias reduction must be compared with this variance and execution cost.

Someone summarizes Eastin–Knill as “fault-tolerant universal gates are impossible.” Repair the statement and name two surviving routes.

Solution

The theorem rules out a universal set of transversal encoded unitaries for a nontrivial exact finite-dimensional code that detects arbitrary errors on each physical subsystem. It does not rule out universal fault-tolerant computation.

Surviving routes include magic-state injection and distillation, code switching, gauge fixing, teleportation-based gates, lattice surgery, and approximate or otherwise out-of-scope constructions. Any two suffice, with their own error and overhead analysis.

A quantum experiment accurately measured an observable in 2023 and compared it with the best classical approximations used in that paper. A new classical algorithm reproduces the observable more accurately and faster in 2024. Which claims change?

Solution

The validity of the 2023 measured data does not change merely because the classical algorithm improved. Claims tied to those observations and their uncertainty can remain supported.

The comparative claim that the observable lay beyond practical classical calculation, or that the experiment established utility or advantage against the classical frontier, must be updated. The record should identify the old baseline, the new algorithm and date, and whether any narrower hardware or physics conclusion remains.

A pure-loss link has transmissivity η=10−4\eta=10^{-4}. Estimate its high-loss PLOB capacity in secret bits per channel use. Does a protocol below this rate disprove quantum repeaters?

Solution

At high loss,

K(η)≃10−4ln⁡2≈1.44×10−4K(\eta) \simeq \frac{10^{-4}}{\ln2} \approx 1.44\times10^{-4}

secret bits per channel use.

A protocol below this rate does not disprove repeaters. The PLOB value is the ultimate repeaterless benchmark in the stated channel model. A repeater protocol may be immature, suffer local inefficiencies, or optimize another resource. Evidence for a repeater advantage requires an end-to-end comparison that eventually surpasses the appropriate direct bound under matched channel uses and trust assumptions.

No published experiment has shown an end-to-end practical quantum advantage for a valuable logistics workload under a current classical baseline. Is the claim “quantum optimization will never be useful” supported?

Solution

No. The available statement is that practical advantage for the declared workload remains unestablished. Absence of a demonstration does not prove future impossibility.

A useful ledger entry names the missing bridge: representative instances, matched quality and time to solution, competitive classical methods, verification, all tuning and retry costs, and scaling beyond a favorable finite-size point. A theorem or broad empirical program would be needed for a stronger negative conclusion.

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