Exploiting overcompleteness of Platonic-solid POVMs for shadow estimation

Abstract

Accurately estimating expectation values of observables from a finite number of measurement shots is a central challenge in quantum information science. Informationally overcomplete measurements provide a route to reduce estimation variance through optimized classical post-processing. However, the interplay between measurement geometry and dual-frame construction remains largely unexplored. In this work, we study Platonic solid POVMs ---highly symmetric, overcomplete single-qubit measurements whose effects correspond to the vertices of the five Platonic solids on the Bloch sphere--- for the estimation of molecular Hamiltonians. Using $k$-locally optimal dual frames, we show that the geometry of the POVM can have a non-trivial and non-monotonic effect on the estimation variance. We further propose a joint optimization of the POVM orientation and effect weights using a classical proxy state, either a product state or a Matrix Product State (MPS) approximation. We demonstrate that optimized Platonic solid POVMs can outperform standard randomized Pauli measurements, provided the MPS bond dimension is sufficient to faithfully represent the target state. These results reveal a trade-off between classical preprocessing and estimation accuracy, suggesting a practical route to improved observable estimation on near-term quantum hardware.