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arXiv:2112.02764 · Physical Review Research

Hybrid quantum-classical algorithm for computing imaginary-time correlation functions

Rihito Sakurai, Wataru Mizukami, Hiroshi Shinaoka

Published Jun 16, 2022• 30 citations
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Abstract

Quantitative descriptions of strongly correlated materials pose a considerable challenge in condensed matter physics and chemistry. A promising approach to address this problem is quantum embedding methods. In particular, the dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) maps the original system to an effective quantum impurity model comprising correlated orbitals embedded in an electron bath. The biggest bottleneck in DMFT calculations is numerically solving the quantum impurity model, i.e., computing the Green's function. Past studies have proposed theoretical methods to compute the Green's function of a quantum impurity model in polynomial time using a quantum computer. So far, however, efficient methods for computing the imaginary-time Green's functions have not been established despite the advantages of the imaginary-time formulation. We propose a quantum-classical hybrid algorithm for computing imaginary-time Green's functions on quantum devices with limited hardware resources by applying the variational quantum simulation. Using a quantum circuit simulator, we verified this algorithm by computing Green's functions for a dimer model as well as a four-site impurity model obtained by DMFT calculations of the single-band Hubbard model, although our method can be applied to general imaginary-time correlation functions.

DOI
10.1103/physrevresearch.4.023219

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Quantitative descriptions of strongly correlated materials pose a considerable challenge in condensed matter physics and chemistry. A promising approach to address this problem is quantum embedding methods. In particular, the dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) maps the original system to an effective quantum impurity model comprising correlated orbitals embedded in an electron bath. The biggest bottleneck in DMFT calculations is numerically solving the quantum impurity model, i.e., computing the Green's function. Past studies have proposed theoretical methods to compute the Green's function of a quantum impurity model in polynomial time using a quantum computer. So far, however, efficient methods for computing the imaginary-time Green's functions have not been established despite the advantages of the imaginary-time formulation. We propose a quantum-classical hybrid algorithm for computing imaginary-time Green's functions on quantum devices with limited hardware resources by applying the variational quantum simulation. Using a quantum circuit simulator, we verified this algorithm by computing Green's functions for a dimer model as well as a four-site impurity model obtained by DMFT calculations of the single-band Hubbard model, although our method can be applied to general imaginary-time correlation functions.
The accurate theoretical description of materials with strongly correlated electrons is a formidable challenge in condensed matter physics and computational chemistry. Dynamical Mean Field Theory (DMFT) is a successful approach that predicts behaviors of such systems by incorporating some of the correlated behavior using an impurity model, but it is limited by the need to calculate the impurity Green’s function. This work proposes a framework for DMFT calculations on quantum computers, focusing on near-term applications. It leverages the structure of the impurity problem, combining a low-rank Gaussian subspace representation of the ground state and a compressed, short-depth quantum circuit that joins state preparation with time evolution to compute Green’s functions. We demonstrate the convergence of the DMFT algorithm using the Gaussian subspace in a noise-free setting, and show the hardware viability of circuit compression by extracting the impurity Green’s function on IBM quantum processors for a single impurity coupled to three bath orbitals (8 qubits, 1 ancilla). We discuss potential paths toward realizing this quantum computing use case in materials science.
Quantum computers (QC) could harbor the potential to significantly advance materials simulations, particularly at the atomistic scale involving strongly correlated fermionic systems, where an accurate description of quantum many-body effects scales unfavorably with size. While a full-scale treatment of condensed matter systems with currently available noisy quantum computers remains elusive, quantum embedding schemes like dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) allow the mapping of an effective, reduced subspace Hamiltonian to available devices to improve the accuracy of ab initio calculations such as density functional theory (DFT). Here, we report on the development of a hybrid quantum-classical DFT + DMFT simulation framework which relies on a quantum impurity solver based on the Lehmann representation of the impurity Green’s function. Hardware experiments with up to 14 qubits on the IBM Quantum system are conducted, using advanced error mitigation methods and a novel calibration scheme for an improved zero-noise extrapolation to effectively reduce adverse effects from inherent noise on current quantum devices. We showcase the utility of our quantum DFT + DMFT workflow by assessing the correlation effects on the electronic structure of a real material, Ca 2 CuO 2 Cl 2 , which is mapped to an effective single-band Hubbard Hamiltonian and the subsequently derived Anderson impurity model solved with up to 6 bath sites on available quantum hardware. Further, we carefully benchmark our quantum results with respect to exact reference solutions and experimental spectroscopy measurements. While challenges remain to scale our approach to larger, multi-orbital and multi-site systems with more bath sites, the present work marks an important milestone towards achieving utility-scale quantum computation in materials simulation.
Predicting the properties of strongly correlated materials is a significant challenge in condensed matter theory. The widely used dynamical mean-field theory faces difficulty in solving quantum impurity models numerically. Hybrid quantum-classical algorithms such as variational quantum eigensolvers emerge as a potential solution for quantum impurity models. A common challenge in these algorithms is the rapid growth of the number of variational parameters with the number of spin-orbitals in the impurity. In our approach to this problem, we develop compact using a combination of two different strategies. First, we employ a compact physics-inspired , k -unitary cluster Jastrow , developed in the field of quantum chemistry. Second, we eliminate largely redundant variational parameters of physics-inspired associated with bath sites based on physical intuition. This is based on the fact that a quantum impurity model with a star-like geometry has no direct hopping between bath sites. We benchmark the accuracy of these for both ground-state energy and dynamic quantities by solving typical quantum impurity models with and without shot noise. The results suggest that we can maintain the accuracy of ground-state energy while we drop the number of variational parameters associated with bath sites. Furthermore, we demonstrate that a moment expansion, when combined with the proposed , can calculate the imaginary-time Green's functions under the influence of shot noise. This study demonstrates the potential for addressing complex impurity models in large-scale quantum simulations with fewer variational parameters without sacrificing accuracy. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Quantum embedding methods, such as dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT), provide a powerful framework for investigating strongly correlated materials. A central computational bottleneck in DMFT is in solving the Anderson impurity model (AIM), whose exact solution is classically intractable for large bath sizes. In this work, we develop and benchmark a quantum-classical hybrid solver tailored for DMFT applications, using the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) to prepare the ground state of the AIM with shallow quantum circuits. The solver uses a unified ansatz framework to prepare the particle and hole excitations of the ground-state from parameter-shifted circuits, enabling the reconstruction of the impurity Green's function through a continued-fraction expansion. We evaluate the performance of this approach across a few bath sizes and interaction strengths under noisy, shot-limited conditions. We compare three optimization routines (COBYLA, Adam, and L-BFGS-B) in terms of convergence and fidelity, assess the benefits of estimating a quantum-computed moment (QCM) correction to the variational energies, and benchmark the approach by comparing the reconstructed density of states (DOS) against that obtained using a classical pipeline. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of Green's function reconstruction on near-term devices and establish practical benchmarks for quantum impurity solvers embedded within self-consistent DMFT loops.
Quantum impurity solvers are the computational bottleneck of quantum embedding approaches to correlated materials, such as dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT). We show that neural networks trained on synthetic, material-agnostic data learn the impurity mapping from hybridization functions and local interactions to Green's functions with quantitative accuracy for both model systems and real materials, providing fast solvers for single- and multi-orbital models. Benchmarks against numerically controlled quantum Monte Carlo show that the method reproduces the Mott transition, multi-orbital phase diagrams of Hubbard-Kanamori models, and the electronic properties of SrVO3_33​ and SrMnO3_33​. The learned solvers achieve orders-of-magnitude speedup and can initialize controlled calculations, dramatically accelerating DMFT while preserving accuracy.
We design a hybrid quantum-classical computational workflow, combining density functional theory and dynamical mean-field theory, to investigate the electronic properties of CaCuO2, a parent structure of high-temperature cuprate superconductors. Our approach uses a quantum algorithm as an impurity solver that is based on variational quantum compressed time evolution to compute the time-dependent Greens function on an IBM Heron quantum device. Utilizing error mitigation techniques and a Lehmann representation fitting procedure, we extract the density of states from the signal in the accessible time regime. Despite the significant challenges rooted in the residual imprecision of currently accessible NISQ devices, we successfully resolve the characteristic features of the spectral function. However, we find that the required numerical accuracy for full DMFT self-consistency exceeds current hardware capabilities, indicating that practical real-material DMFT applications will necessitate post-NISQ hardware developments.