Measuring magic on a quantum processor

Magic states are the resource that allows quantum computers to attain an advantage over classical computers, as stabilizer circuits can be efficiently simulated classically. Given the importance of magic for quantum computation, it is useful to have a method for measuring the amount of magic in a quantum state. This work proposes and experimentally demonstrates a protocol for measuring magic based on randomized measurements that only require local one-qubit Clifford operations. Experiments are carried out on IBM Quantum Falcon processors. The protocol characterizes the effectiveness of quantum hardware in producing states that are hard to simulate classically and enables construction of realistic noise models affecting the hardware.