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arXiv:2006.15371 · Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation

Efficient Step-Merged Quantum Imaginary Time Evolution Algorithm for Quantum Chemistry

Niladri Gomes, Feng Zhang, Noah Berthusen, Cai‐Zhuang Wang, Kai‐Ming Ho, Peter P. Orth, Yongxin Yao

Published Sep 2, 2020• 76 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We develop a resource-efficient step-merged quantum imaginary time evolution approach (smQITE) to solve for the ground state of a Hamiltonian on quantum computers. This heuristic method features a fixed shallow quantum circuit depth along the state evolution path. We use this algorithm to determine the binding energy curves of a set of molecules, including H 2, H 4, H 6, LiH, HF, H 2 O, and BeH 2, and find highly accurate results. The required quantum resources of smQITE calculations can be further reduced by adopting the circuit form of the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) technique, such as the unitary coupled cluster ansatz. We demonstrate that smQITE achieves a similar computational accuracy as VQE at the same fixed-circuit ansatz, without requiring a generally complicated high-dimensional nonconvex optimization. Finally, smQITE calculations are carried out on Rigetti quantum processing units, demonstrating that the approach is readily applicable on current noisy intermediate-scale quantum devices.

DOI
10.1021/acs.jctc.0c00666

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We develop a resource-efficient step-merged quantum imaginary time evolution approach (smQITE) to solve for the ground state of a Hamiltonian on quantum computers. This heuristic method features a fixed shallow quantum circuit depth along the state evolution path. We use this algorithm to determine the binding energy curves of a set of molecules, including H 2, H 4, H 6, LiH, HF, H 2 O, and BeH 2, and find highly accurate results. The required quantum resources of smQITE calculations can be further reduced by adopting the circuit form of the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) technique, such as the unitary coupled cluster ansatz. We demonstrate that smQITE achieves a similar computational accuracy as VQE at the same fixed-circuit ansatz, without requiring a generally complicated high-dimensional nonconvex optimization. Finally, smQITE calculations are carried out on Rigetti quantum processing units, demonstrating that the approach is readily applicable on current noisy intermediate-scale quantum devices.
An adaptive variational quantum imaginary time evolution (AVQITE) approach is introduced that yields efficient representations of ground states for interacting Hamiltonians on near-term quantum computers. It is based on McLachlan's variational principle applied to imaginary time evolution of variational wave functions, and avoids difficult nonconvex high-dimensional optimization that plagues other variational approaches such as the variational quantum eigensolver. The variational parameters evolve according to equations of motions that minimize the difference to the exact imaginary time evolution, which is quantified by the McLachlan distance. Rather than working with a fixed variational ansatz, where the minimal McLachlan distance is constrained by the quality of the ansatz, the adaptive method iteratively expands the ansatz along the dynamical path to ensure the McLachlan distance remains below a chosen threshold. AVQITE is used to prepare ground states of H4_44​, H2_22​O and BeH2_22​ molecules and yields compact variational ansatze and ground state energies beyond chemical accuracy. Finally, quantum Lanczos calculations can also be naturally performed alongside AVQITE without additional quantum resource costs.
Quantum imaginary time evolution (QITE) is one of the promising candidates for finding the eigenvalues and eigenstates of a Hamiltonian on a quantum computer. However, the original proposal suffers from large circuit depth and measurements due to the size of the Pauli operator pool and Trotterization. To alleviate the requirement for deep circuits, we propose a time-dependent drifting scheme inspired by the qDRIFT algorithm [Campbell, E. Phys. Rev. Lett. 2019, 123, 070503]. We show that this drifting scheme removes the depth dependency on the size of the operator pool and converges inversely with respect to the number of steps. We further propose a deterministic algorithm that selects the dominant Pauli term to reduce the fluctuation for the ground state preparation. We also introduce an efficient measurement reduction scheme across Trotter steps that removes its cost dependence on the number of iterations. We analyze the main source of error for our scheme both theoretically and numerically. We numerically test the validity of depth reduction, convergence performance of our algorithms, and the faithfulness of the approximation for our measurement reduction scheme on several benchmark molecules. In particular, the results on the LiH molecule give circuit depths comparable to that of the advanced adaptive variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) methods while requiring much fewer measurements.
Quantum systems in excited states are attracting significant interest with the advent of noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices. While ground states of small molecular systems are typically explored using hybrid variational algorithms like the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE), the study of excited states has received much less attention, partly due to the absence of efficient algorithms. In this work, we introduce the subspace search quantum imaginary time evolution (SSQITE) method, which calculates excited states using quantum devices by integrating key elements of the subspace search variational quantum eigensolver (SSVQE) and the variational quantum imaginary time evolution (VarQITE) method. The effectiveness of SSQITE is demonstrated through calculations of low-lying excited states of benchmark model systems including H 2 and LiH molecules. A toy Hamiltonian is also employed to demonstrate that the robustness of VarQITE in avoiding local minima extends to its use in excited state algorithms. With this robustness in avoiding local minima, SSQITE shows promise for advancing quantum computations of excited states across a wide range of applications.
Abstract An adaptive variational quantum imaginary time evolution (AVQITE) approach is introduced that yields efficient representations of ground states for interacting Hamiltonians on near‐term quantum computers. It is based on McLachlan's variational principle applied to imaginary time evolution of variational wave functions. The variational parameters evolve deterministically according to equations of motions that minimize the difference to the exact imaginary time evolution, which is quantified by the McLachlan distance. Rather than working with a fixed variational ansatz, where the McLachlan distance is constrained by the quality of the ansatz, the AVQITE method iteratively expands the ansatz along the dynamical path to keep the McLachlan distance below a chosen threshold. This ensures the state is able to follow the quantum imaginary time evolution path in the system Hilbert space rather than in a restricted variational manifold set by a predefined fixed ansatz. AVQITE is used to prepare ground states of H 4 , H 2 O, and BeH 2 molecules, where it yields compact variational ansätze and ground state energies within chemical accuracy. Polynomial scaling of circuit depth with system size is shown through a set of AVQITE calculations of quantum spin models. Finally, quantum Lanczos calculations are demonstrated alongside AVQITE without additional quantum resource costs.
Preparing ground states of correlated molecules on near-term quantum computers requires algorithms that are both accurate and resource-efficient. We introduce the qubit-adaptive variational quantum imaginary time evolution (QAITE) algorithm, which synthesizes the systematic convergence of imaginary-time evolution with hardware-efficient, adaptive ansatz construction. By integrating the linear-scaling qubit operator pool into the adaptive variational quantum imaginary time evolution framework, QAITE deterministically constructs a compact ansatz without costly classical optimization loops. Numerical simulations for molecular systems (H4, LiH, H2O, BeH2), benchmarked against our own implementations of established adaptive algorithms under identical conditions, show that QAITE achieves chemical accuracy with a 15-45% reduction in CNOT gates compared to the standard adaptive variational quantum imaginary time evolution (AVQITE) method. For hydrogen chains (RHH = 1.5 Å, N = 6-16 qubits), QAITE's circuit complexity grows approximately quadratically and remains the lowest of the four methods at every system size, reaching 31% fewer CNOT gates than AVQITE at 16 qubits─a saving of 1322 gates. This efficiency extends to heterogeneous (LiH)n and (HBe)n chains, where QAITE maintains a CNOT gate ratio below 1 for all sizes studied (e.g., 0.81 for (LiH)2). We further show that the deterministic parameter update is numerically robust: the results are insensitive to the regularization of the quantum geometric tensor over at least 4 orders of magnitude, and chemical accuracy is retained under realistic shot noise applied to both the quantum geometric tensor and the force vector. By outperforming established adaptive algorithms in both absolute gate count and scaling, QAITE establishes a promising, scalable pathway for quantum molecular simulations on noisy intermediate-scale quantum devices.
Abstract Various methods have been developed for the quantum computation of the ground and excited states of physical and chemical systems, but many of them require either large numbers of ancilla qubits or high-dimensional optimization in the presence of noise. The quantum imaginary-time evolution (QITE) and quantum Lanczos (QLanczos) methods proposed in Motta et al. (2020) eschew the aforementioned issues. In this study, we demonstrate the practical application of these algorithms to challenging quantum computations of relevance for chemistry and nuclear physics, using the deuteron-binding energy and molecular hydrogen binding and excited state energies as examples. With the correct choice of initial and final states, we show that the number of timesteps in QITE and QLanczos can be reduced significantly, which commensurately simplifies the required quantum circuit and improves compatibility with NISQ devices. We have performed these calculations on cloud-accessible IBM Q quantum computers. With the application of readout-error mitigation and Richardson error extrapolation, we have obtained ground and excited state energies that agree well with exact results obtained from diagonalization.