The quantum-classical hybrid Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) algorithm is recognized to be the most suitable approach to obtain ground state energies of quantum many-body systems in the noisy intermediate scale quantum era. In this work, we extend the VQE algorithm to the relativistic regime and carry out quantum simulations to obtain ground state energies as well as molecular permanent electric dipole moments of single-valence diatomic molecules, beginning with the light BeH molecule and all the way to the heavy radioactive RaH molecule. We study the correlation trends in these systems as well as assess the precision in our results within our active space of 12 qubits.
The quantum-classical hybrid Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) algorithm is recognized to be the most suitable approach to obtain ground state energies of quantum many-body systems in the noisy intermediate scale quantum era. In this work, we extend the VQE algorithm to the relativistic regime and carry out quantum simulations to obtain ground state energies as well as molecular permanent electric dipole moments of single-valence diatomic molecules, beginning with the light BeH molecule and all the way to the heavy radioactive RaH molecule. We study the correlation trends in these systems as well as assess the precision in our results within our active space of 12 qubits.
The quantum--classical hybrid variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) algorithm is among the most actively studied topics in atomic and molecular calculations on quantum computers, yet few studies address properties other than energies or account for relativistic effects. This work presents high-precision 18-qubit relativistic VQE simulations for calculating the permanent electric dipole moments (PDMs) of alkaline-earth metal monohydride molecules (BeH to RaH) on traditional computers, and 6- and 12-qubit PDM computations for SrH on IonQ quantum devices. To achieve high precision on current noisy intermediate-scale era quantum hardware, we apply various resource-reduction methods, including reinforcement learning-based and causal flow preserving ZX--calculus routines, along with error mitigation and postselection techniques. Our approach reduces the two-qubit gate count in our 12-qubit circuit by 99.71, with only a 2.35 trade-off in precision for PDM when evaluated classically within a suitably chosen active space. On the current generation IonQ Forte-I hardware, the error in PDM is $\ensuremath{-}1.17%$ relative to classical calculations and only 1.21 compared with the unoptimized circuit.
The quantum-classical hybrid variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) algorithm is among the most actively studied topics in atomic and molecular calculations on quantum computers, yet few studies address properties other than energies or account for relativistic effects. This work presents high-precision 18-qubit relativistic VQE simulations for calculating the permanent electric dipole moments (PDMs) of BeH to RaH molecules on traditional computers, and 6- and 12-qubit PDM computations for SrH on IonQ quantum devices. To achieve high precision on current noisy intermediate scale era quantum hardware, we apply various resource reduction methods, including Reinforcement Learning and causal flow preserving ZX-Calculus routines, along with error mitigation and post-selection techniques. Our approach reduces the two-qubit gate count in our 12-qubit circuit by 99.71%, with only a 2.35% trade-off in precision for PDM when evaluated classically within a suitably chosen active space. On the current generation IonQ Forte-I hardware, the error in PDM is -1.17% relative to classical calculations and only 1.21% compared to the unoptimized circuit.
Classical simulation of molecular electronic structure is often limited by the rapid increase in computational cost associated with describing electron correlation. The Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) is one hybrid quantum-classical approach ideally adapted to the Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) regime. This work applies the VQE algorithm to compute ground state energies of a set of molecules:H2,H3+,LiH,HF,OH−,H2O,BH3,CH4, andNH3. The approach utilizes the Unitary Coupled Cluster for Single and Double excitations (UCCSD) ansatz along with the Bravyi-Kitaev transformation for fermionic-to-qubit encoding. Quantum simulation outputs are systematically benchmarked against Full Configuration Interaction (FCI), a numerically exact traditional approach, and Unrestricted Hartree-Fock (UHF). The results establish a robust consistency of the VQE-obtained molecular ground state energies against standard FCI and UHF benchmarks. This research provides a critical benchmark, confirming that VQE has the capability for high-precision molecular simulations and playing the role of a pivotal stepping stone toward revolutionizing applications in drug discovery and materials science.
The classical-quantum hybrid Variational Quantum Eigensolver algorithm is the most widely used approach in the Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum era to obtain ground state energies of atomic and molecular systems. In this work, we extend the scope of properties that can be calculated using the algorithm by computing the first ionization energies of Lithium and Boron atoms. We check the precision of our ionization energies and the observed many-body trends and compare them with the results from calculations carried out on traditional computers.
The variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) is a hybrid quantum-classical algorithm designed for noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) hardware to estimate eigenvalues of many-body Hamiltonians. Unlike fully quantum approaches such as quantum phase estimation (QPE), VQE trades deep coherent circuits for repeated state preparation, measurement, and classical optimization, making it more compatible with limited qubit counts and finite coherence times. Recent developments have focused on reducing quantum resource requirements while retaining chemically meaningful wavefunction structure. In this paper, we examine recent progress in VQE methods for molecular electronic structure with an emphasis on three themes: (i) strategies for circuit and ansatz complexity reduction, including adaptive and selectively screened approaches, (ii) chemically motivated workflows that combine VQE with orbital optimization, fragmentation, and localized active-space ideas to better address strong correlation, and (iii) extensions of VQE to excited-state calculations. Throughout, we emphasize the tradeoffs among parameter count, gate depth, symmetry preservation, measurement overhead, and classical preprocessing, and discuss where these approaches may become most useful for chemically challenging active spaces. We also highlight benchmarking considerations for assessing both accuracy and resource requirements, and conclude with a perspective on regimes in which VQE may offer the greatest long-term value, particularly multireference active spaces and low-lying excited-state manifolds.
With rapid progress being made in the development of platforms for quantum computation, there has been considerable interest in whether present-day and near-term devices can be used to solve problems of relevance. A commonly cited application area is the domain of quantum chemistry. While most experimental demonstrations of quantum chemical calculations on quantum devices have focused on the ground-state electronic energy of the system, other properties of the ground state, such as the electric dipole moment, are also of interest. Here, we employ the quantum-computed-moments method, based on the Lanczos cluster expansion, to estimate the dipole moment of the water molecule on an IBM Quantum superconducting quantum device. The noise-mitigated results agree with full-configuration-interaction calculations to within 0.03 ± 0.007 D ( 2 % ± 0.5 % ), compared with direct expectation-value determination (i.e., variational quantum eigensolver, VQE) with errors of the order of 0.07 D (5%), even when the VQE calculation is performed without noise. This demonstrates that moments-based energy-estimation techniques can be adapted to noise-robust evaluation of nonenergetic ground-state properties of chemical systems. We emphasize that the dipole moment is chosen as an example of such a property, but the method applies to any property determined by one- or two-body interactions.