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arXiv:2312.09292 · Physical Review A

Exploring thermal equilibria of the Fermi-Hubbard model with variational quantum algorithms

Jack Y. Araz, Michael Spannowsky, Matthew Wingate A

Published Jun 14, 2024• 4 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

This study investigates the thermal properties of the repulsive Fermi-Hubbard model with chemical potential using variational quantum algorithms, crucial in comprehending particle behavior within lattices at high temperatures in condensed matter systems. Conventional computational methods encounter challenges, especially in managing chemical potential, prompting exploration into Hamiltonian approaches. Despite the promise of quantum algorithms, their efficacy is hampered by coherence limitations when simulating extended imaginary time evolution sequences. To overcome such constraints, this research focuses on optimizing variational quantum algorithms to probe the thermal properties of the Fermi-Hubbard model. Physics-inspired circuit designs are tailored to alleviate coherence constraints, facilitating a more comprehensive exploration of materials at elevated temperatures. Our study demonstrates the potential of variational algorithms in simulating the thermal properties of the Fermi-Hubbard model while acknowledging limitations stemming from error sources in quantum devices and encountering barren plateaus.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.109.062422

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This study investigates the thermal properties of the repulsive Fermi-Hubbard model with chemical potential using variational quantum algorithms, crucial in comprehending particle behavior within lattices at high temperatures in condensed matter systems. Conventional computational methods encounter challenges, especially in managing chemical potential, prompting exploration into Hamiltonian approaches. Despite the promise of quantum algorithms, their efficacy is hampered by coherence limitations when simulating extended imaginary time evolution sequences. To overcome such constraints, this research focuses on optimizing variational quantum algorithms to probe the thermal properties of the Fermi-Hubbard model. Physics-inspired circuit designs are tailored to alleviate coherence constraints, facilitating a more comprehensive exploration of materials at elevated temperatures. Our study demonstrates the potential of variational algorithms in simulating the thermal properties of the Fermi-Hubbard model while acknowledging limitations stemming from error sources in quantum devices and encountering barren plateaus.
Quantum simulation and near-term quantum algorithms have gained significant momentum over the past few years, with researchers exploring quantum-based approaches to solve classically intractable problems. Out of many research problems, certain problems are well suited for quantum algorithms. Fermi Hubbard model based on lattice structures is one of the quantum-mechanical models used in many-body and condensed matter physics to capture the essence of electron-correlated systems. In this work, we show one of the first kinds of experiments on simulating the ground state properties of 1D and 2D Fermi Hubbard-based lattice models compared with the reference ground state energy values using Qiskit Nature. We utilize the Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) and different gradient-based optimizers to achieve results that closely converge towards the exact values, showcasing the potential of variational quantum algorithms.
Preparing Gibbs states on a quantum computer offers a way to computationally probe how microscopic interactions give rise to macroscopic phenomena at finite temperature. However, an uncomfortable tension has set in: our strongest general guarantees for Gibbs state preparation hold in regimes where the resulting states can also be simulated classically. We propose investigating physical models with competing energy scales. The Fermi--Hubbard model is a natural target: the competition between electron hopping, on-site repulsion and chemical potential encapsulates many mysteries of condensed matter physics, including Mott insulators, striping and superconductivity. Our main result identifies a simple guiding principle: the temperature scale for efficient preparation is set by the couplings between sites, while the on-site energy scale is unrestricted. For the Fermi--Hubbard model on an nnn-site nearest-neighbor lattice of fixed dimension, we construct a quantum Gibbs sampler that mixes in O(log⁡(n/ε))\mathcal{O}(\log(n/ε))O(log(n/ε)) time whenever the temperature is at least a constant factor larger than the hopping strength, but is allowed to be independent of the repulsion and chemical potential. We obtain analogous guarantees for local qubit systems with bounded intersite interactions and arbitrary external fields. As a consequence, our algorithms can efficiently prepare Fermi--Hubbard Gibbs states that are provably outside the convex hull of fermionic Gaussian states and qubit Gibbs states for locally interacting Hamiltonians outside the set of product states.
Fermionic atoms in optical lattices provide a native implementation of Fermi-Hubbard (FH) models that can be used as analog quantum simulators of many-body fermionic systems. Recent experimental advances include the time-dependent local control of chemical potentials and tunnelings, and thus enable us to operate this platform digitally as a programmable quantum simulator. Here, we explore these opportunities and develop ground-state preparation algorithms for different fermionic models, based on the ability to implement both single-particle and many-body high-fidelity fermionic gates, as provided by the native FH Hamiltonian. In particular, we first design variational precompiled quantum circuits to prepare the ground state of the natively implemented FH model, with significant speedups relative to competing adiabatic protocols. Besides, the versatility of this variational approach enables us to target extended FH models, i.e., including terms that are not natively realized on the platform. As an illustration, we include next-nearest-neighbor tunnelings at finite dopings, relevant in the context of d -wave superconductivity. Furthermore, we discuss how to approximate the imaginary-time evolution using variational fermionic circuits, both as an alternative state-preparation strategy and as a subroutine for the quantum Lanczos algorithm to further improve the energy estimation. We benchmark our protocols for ladder geometries, though they can be readily applied to two-dimensional experimental setups to address regimes beyond the capabilities of current classical methods. These results pave the way for more efficient and comprehensive explorations of relevant many-body phases with existing programmable fermionic quantum simulators.
Exploring the ground state properties of many-body quantum systems conventionally involves adiabatic processes, alongside exact diagonalization, in the context of quantum annealing or adiabatic quantum computation. Shortcuts to adiabaticity by counter-diabatic driving serve to accelerate these processes by suppressing energy excitations. Motivated by this, we develop variational quantum algorithms incorporating the auxiliary counter-diabatic interactions, comparing them with digitized adiabatic algorithms. These algorithms are then implemented on gate-based quantum circuits to explore the ground states of the Fermi-Hubbard model on honeycomb lattices, utilizing systems with up to 26 qubits. The comparison reveals that the counter-diabatic inspired ansatz is superior to traditional Hamiltonian variational ansatz. Furthermore, the number and duration of Trotter steps are analyzed to understand and mitigate errors. Given the model’s relevance to materials in condensed matter, our study paves the way for using variational quantum algorithms with counterdiabaticity to explore quantum materials in the noisy intermediate-scale quantum era.
Simulating the Hubbard model is of great interest to a wide range of applications within condensed matter physics, however its solution on classical computers remains challenging in dimensions larger than one. The relative simplicity of this model, embodied by the sparseness of the Hamiltonian matrix, allows for its efficient implementation on quantum computers, and for its approximate solution using variational algorithms such as the variational quantum eigensolver. While these algorithms have been shown to reproduce the qualitative features of the Hubbard model, their quantitative accuracy in terms of producing true ground state energies and other properties, and the dependence of this accuracy on the system size and interaction strength, the choice of variational ansatz, and the degree of spatial inhomogeneity in the model, remains unknown. Here we present a rigorous classical benchmarking study, demonstrating the potential impact of these factors on the accuracy of the variational solution of the Hubbard model on quantum hardware, for systems with up to 32 qubits. We find that even when using the most accurate wavefunction ansätze for the Hubbard model, the error in its ground state energy and wavefunction plateaus for larger lattices, while stronger electronic correlations magnify this issue. Concurrently, spatially inhomogeneous parameters and the presence of off-site Coulomb interactions only have a small effect on the accuracy of the computed ground state energies. Our study highlights the capabilities and limitations of current approaches for solving the Hubbard model on quantum hardware, and we discuss potential future avenues of research.
Quantum algorithms offer the hope to potentially solve computationally expensive problems that are too difficult for classical computers. Superposition and entanglement allow these algorithms to use quantum states to better approximate heuristic solutions. However, current hardware limitations face significant challenges from gate noise and short coherence times, forcing optimized circuits to be created. The Fermi-Hubbard model is a system used to determine the ground state energy of molecules by capturing the behavior of interacting particles in lattice systems. Many classically complex optimization problems can be run on this model, allowing them to be studied using similar computational approaches. However, quantum simulation methods depend on carefully designed variational circuits, known as ansatz structures, within algorithms such as the Variational Quantum Eigensolver. Ansatz creation requires meticulously following minimal gradients, which oftentimes results in the occurrence of a barren plateau. This work aims to investigate the effectiveness of a machine learning-based approach to generating stable, effective quantum circuits to simulate mapped problems on the Fermi-Hubbard model using a deep neural network. By deriving circuit parameters from the energy of the system, this study evaluates the performance of the generated circuits based on their ability to reach ground state convergence with strong gradients.