So I have a discreet functional $f(x_{1},x_{2},...,x_{k})$ that I want to encode in a variational state: $|\psi(\lambda)>$. The number of variables in my functional takes values $k=9,18,30$.
I want the parameters $x_{1},x_{2}...x_{k}$ to be the amplitudes of my state. I can encode $2^n$ parameters with $n$ qubits, however as for the number of variables given $k=9,18,30$, I can not write $k=2^{n}$, where $n$ is an integer for these values of $k$. I was wondering if there is any nice way around this. Thank you