Fault-Tolerant Quantum Algorithm for Symmetry-Adapted Perturbation Theory
Cristian L. Cortes, Matthias Loipersberger, Robert M. Parrish, Sam Morley-Short, William Pol, Sukin Sim, Mark Steudtner, Christofer S. Tautermann, Matthias Degroote, Nikolaj Moll, Raffaele Santagati, Michael Streif
The efficient computation of observables beyond the total energy is a key challenge and opportunity for fault-tolerant quantum computing approaches in quantum chemistry. Here, we consider the symmetry-adapted perturbation-theory (SAPT) components of the interaction energy as a prototypical example of such an observable. We provide a guide for calculating this observable on a fault-tolerant quantum computer while optimizing the required computational resources. Specifically, we present a quantum algorithm that estimates interaction energies at the first-order SAPT level with a Heisenberg-limited scaling. To this end, we exploit a high-order tensor-factorization and block-encoding technique that efficiently represents each SAPT observable. To quantify the computational cost of our methodology, we provide resource estimates in terms of the required number of logical qubits and Toffoli gates to execute our algorithm for a range of benchmark molecules, also taking into account the cost of the eigenstate preparation and the cost of block encoding the SAPT observables. Finally, we perform the resource estimation for a heme and artemisinin complex as a representative large-scale system encountered in drug design, highlighting the performance of our algorithm in this new benchmark study and discussing possible bottlenecks that may be improved in future work. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
The efficient computation of observables beyond the total energy is a key challenge and opportunity for fault-tolerant quantum computing approaches in quantum chemistry. Here, we consider the symmetry-adapted perturbation-theory (SAPT) components of the interaction energy as a prototypical example of such an observable. We provide a guide for calculating this observable on a fault-tolerant quantum computer while optimizing the required computational resources. Specifically, we present a quantum algorithm that estimates interaction energies at the first-order SAPT level with a Heisenberg-limited scaling. To this end, we exploit a high-order tensor-factorization and block-encoding technique that efficiently represents each SAPT observable. To quantify the computational cost of our methodology, we provide resource estimates in terms of the required number of logical qubits and Toffoli gates to execute our algorithm for a range of benchmark molecules, also taking into account the cost of the eigenstate preparation and the cost of block encoding the SAPT observables. Finally, we perform the resource estimation for a heme and artemisinin complex as a representative large-scale system encountered in drug design, highlighting the performance of our algorithm in this new benchmark study and discussing possible bottlenecks that may be improved in future work. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
The computation of interaction energies on noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) computers appears to be challenging with straightforward application of existing quantum algorithms. For example, use of the standard supermolecular method with the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) would require extremely precise resolution of the total energies of the fragments to provide for accurate subtraction to the interaction energy. Here we present a symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) method that may provide interaction energies with high quantum resource efficiency. Of particular note, we present a quantum extended random-phase approximation (ERPA) treatment of the SAPT second-order induction and dispersion terms, including exchange counterparts. Together with previous work on first-order terms, this provides a recipe for complete SAPT(VQE) interaction energies up to second order. The SAPT interaction energy terms are computed as first-level observables with no subtraction of monomer energies invoked, and the only quantum observations needed are the the VQE one- and two-particle density matrices. We find empirically that SAPT(VQE) can provide accurate interaction energies even with coarsely optimized, low circuit depth wavefunctions from the quantum computer, simulated through ideal statevectors. The errors on the total interaction energy are orders of magnitude lower than the corresponding VQE total energy errors of the monomer wavefunctions.
Quantum phase estimation based on qubitization is the state-of-the-art fault-tolerant quantum algorithm for computing ground-state energies in chemical applications. In this context, the 1-norm of the Hamiltonian plays a fundamental role in determining the total number of required iterations and also the overall computational cost. In this work, we introduce the symmetry-compressed double factorization (SCDF) approach, which combines a CDF of the Hamiltonian with the symmetry shift technique, significantly reducing the 1-norm value. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated numerically by considering various benchmark systems, including the FeMoco molecule, cytochrome P450, and hydrogen chains of different sizes. To compare the efficiency of SCDF to other methods in absolute terms, we estimate Toffoli gate requirements, which dominate the execution time on fault-tolerant quantum computers. For the systems considered here, SCDF leads to a sizable reduction of the Toffoli gate count in comparison to other variants of DF or even tensor hypercontraction, which is usually regarded as the most efficient approach for qubitization.
Quantum computation is one of the most promising new paradigms for the simulation of physical systems composed of electrons and atomic nuclei, with applications in chemistry, solid-state physics, materials science, and molecular biology. This requires a truncated representation of the electronic structure Hamiltonian using a finite number of orbitals. While it is, in principle, obvious how to improve on the representation by including more orbitals, this is usually unfeasible in practice (e.g., because of the limited number of qubits available) and severely compromises the accuracy of the obtained results. Here, we propose a quantum algorithm that improves on the representation of the physical problem by virtue of second-order perturbation theory. In particular, our quantum algorithm evaluates the second-order energy correction through a series of time-evolution steps under the unperturbed Hamiltonian. An important application is to go beyond the active-space approximation, allowing to include corrections of virtual orbitals, known as multireference perturbation theory. Here, we exploit the fact that the unperturbed Hamiltonian is diagonal for virtual orbitals and show that the number of qubits is independent of the number of virtual orbitals. This gives rise to more accurate energy estimates without increasing the number of qubits. Moreover, we demonstrate numerically for realistic chemical systems that the total runtime has highly favorable scaling in the number of virtual orbitals compared to previous studies. Numerical calculations confirm the necessity of the multireference perturbation theory energy corrections to reach accurate ground-state energy estimates. Our perturbation theory quantum algorithm can also be applied to symmetry-adapted perturbation theory. As such, we demonstrate that perturbation theory can help to reduce the quantum hardware requirements for quantum chemistry. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
To maximize the value of fault-tolerant quantum computers, it is essential to develop concrete applications beyond well-established domains such as chemistry and condensed-matter physics. Here we construct and compile quantum algorithms to simulate the structure of atomic nuclei -- a topic that has received relatively little attention from the quantum computing community despite its similarities to the electronic structure problem in chemistry -- via effective shell-model Hamiltonians and no-core-shell-model Hamiltonians with three-body interactions derived from chiral effective field theory. Furthermore, we provide quantum resource estimates, in terms of Toffoli gate and qubit counts, for these algorithms, which, to our knowledge, are the first such estimates for fault-tolerant quantum simulation of atomic nuclei. Notably, the estimates for 32Mg and 219At shell-model Hamiltonians are comparable to recent estimates of Femoco simulations, a standard benchmark in chemistry. For no-core-shell-model Hamiltonians suitable for light nuclei (up to 40Ca or so), we find that resource requirements are significantly higher, suggesting that more bespoke strategies are required to make such simulations practicable. Throughout this work, we draw upon the similarities between nuclear and electronic structure problems, while also highlighting challenges that are specific to the former. We hope this work will spur long-term collaborations between the nuclear and quantum computing community with the ultimate goal of realizing useful nuclear simulations on quantum computers.
In fault-tolerant quantum computing, the cost of calculating Hamiltonian eigenvalues using the quantum phase estimation algorithm is proportional to the constant scaling the Hamiltonian matrix block-encoded in a unitary circuit. We present a method to reduce this scaling constant for the electronic Hamiltonians represented as a linear combination of unitaries. Our approach combines the double tensor-factorization method of Burg et al. with the block-invariant symmetry shift method of Loaiza and Izmaylov. By extending the electronic Hamiltonian with appropriately parametrized symmetry operators and optimizing the tensor factorization parameters, our method achieves a 25% reduction in the block-encoding scaling constant compared to previous best techniques for industrially and biologically relevant molecules, including the nitrogenase cofactor (FeMoCo) and cytochrome P450. Benchmark calculations comparing our method with the original double-factorization method show a 75% reduction in the block-encoding scaling constant. The resulting savings in the number of non-Clifford T-gates, which are an essential resource for fault-tolerant quantum computation, are expected to accelerate the journey to the feasibility of practical Hamiltonian simulations.
We present systematic and resource-efficient constructions of continuous symmetry projectors, particularly U(1) particle number and SU(2) total spin, tailored for fault-tolerant quantum computations. Our approach employs a linear combination of unitaries (LCU) as well as generalized quantum signal processing (GQSP and GQSVT) to implement projectors. These projectors can then be coherently applied as state filters prior to quantum phase estimation (QPE). We analyze their asymptotic gate complexities for explicit circuit realizations. For the particle number and Sz symmetries, GQSP offers favorable resource usage features owing to its low ancilla qubit requirements and robustness to finite precision rotation gate synthesis. For the total spin projection, the structured decomposition of P^S,MS reduces the projector T gate count. Numerical simulations show that symmetry filtering substantially increases the QPE success probability, leading to a lower overall cost compared to that of unfiltered approaches across representative molecular systems. Resource estimates further indicate that the cost of symmetry filtering is 3 to 4 orders of magnitude lower than that of the subsequent phase estimation step This advantage is especially relevant in large, strongly correlated systems, such as FeMoco, a standard strongly correlated open-shell benchmark. For FeMoco, the QPE cost is estimated at ∼1010 T gates, while our symmetry projector requires only ∼106--107 T gates. These results establish continuous-symmetry projectors as practical and scalable tools for state preparation in quantum chemistry and provide a pathway toward realizing more efficient fault-tolerant quantum simulations.