  Hybrid quantum-classical algorithms provide ways to use noisy
intermediate-scale quantum computers for practical applications. Expanding the
portfolio of such techniques, we propose a quantum circuit learning algorithm
that can be used to assist the characterization of quantum devices and to train
shallow circuits for generative tasks. The procedure leverages quantum hardware
capabilities to its fullest extent by using native gates and their qubit
connectivity. We demonstrate that our approach can learn an optimal preparation
of the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states, also known as "cat states". We
further demonstrate that our approach can efficiently prepare approximate
representations of coherent thermal states, wave functions that encode
Boltzmann probabilities in their amplitudes. Finally, complementing proposals
to characterize the power or usefulness of near-term quantum devices, such as
IBM's quantum volume, we provide a new hardware-independent metric called the
qBAS score. It is based on the performance yield in a specific sampling task on
one of the canonical machine learning data sets known as Bars and Stripes. We
show how entanglement is a key ingredient in encoding the patterns of this data
set; an ideal benchmark for testing hardware starting at four qubits and up. We
provide experimental results and evaluation of this metric to probe the trade
off between several architectural circuit designs and circuit depths on an
ion-trap quantum computer.
