Maximum weighted independent set and quantum alternating operator ansatz

We study the maximum weighted independent set problem of graph theory using the quantum alternating operator ansatz. We perform simulations on the Rigetti Forrest simulator and analyze the dependence of the algorithm on the depth of the circuit, initial states and the weights of the vertices. We point out that the probability distribution of observation of the feasible states representing maximum independent sets is asymmetric for the Maximum Independent Set problem unlike the MaxCut problem where the probability distribution of feasible states is symmetric. We also give a numerical comparison of the approximation ratios for the algorithm when we choose different initial states in our graph.