Quantum Phase Estimation (QPE) is the quantum algorithmic workhorse for computing ground state energies of quantum Hamiltonians with quantum computers. Ground state energy calculation of physical systems is perhaps the most promising use case for quantum computing in terms of scientific and commercial value with a plausible path to outperformance of classical alternatives. This path, however, hinges on the availability of initial states for QPE with significant overlap with the true ground state. Using extensive (classical) numerical computations, we study whether the NISQ-era algorithm VQE (Variational Quantum Eigensolver) could be used to efficiently prepare high-overlap states of disordered fully-connected anisotropic Heisenberg spin glass quantum Hamiltonians with up to $15$ qubits. We find that (i) -- consistent with widely held, but rarely numerically illustrated beliefs -- VQE is generally unable to efficiently converge to the ground state for our Hamiltonians, which is a well-known issue with VQE due to a variety of factors including vanishing gradients and local minima; (ii) low energy states do not necessarily have large ground-state overlap, but there is typically a correlation between the two measures; (iii) adding more than three layers to the VQE ansatz neither improves overlap nor the energies found; and (iv) the best-found overlap scaling as a function of the Hamiltonian system size is not strongly exponentially decreasing, suggesting potential for VQE to be a heuristic state preparation algorithm for QPE.
Quantum Phase Estimation (QPE) is the quantum algorithmic workhorse for computing ground state energies of quantum Hamiltonians with quantum computers. Ground state energy calculation of physical systems is perhaps the most promising use case for quantum computing in terms of scientific and commercial value with a plausible path to outperformance of classical alternatives. This path, however, hinges on the availability of initial states for QPE with significant overlap with the true ground state. Using extensive (classical) numerical computations, we study whether the NISQ-era algorithm VQE (Variational Quantum Eigensolver) could be used to efficiently prepare high-overlap states of disordered fully-connected anisotropic Heisenberg spin glass quantum Hamiltonians with up to 15 qubits. We find that (i) -- consistent with widely held, but rarely numerically illustrated beliefs -- VQE is generally unable to efficiently converge to the ground state for our Hamiltonians, which is a well-known issue with VQE due to a variety of factors including vanishing gradients and local minima; (ii) low energy states do not necessarily have large ground-state overlap, but there is typically a correlation between the two measures; (iii) adding more than three layers to the VQE ansatz neither improves overlap nor the energies found; and (iv) the best-found overlap scaling as a function of the Hamiltonian system size is not strongly exponentially decreasing, suggesting potential for VQE to be a heuristic state preparation algorithm for QPE.
The variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) is a hybrid quantum classical algorithm designed for current and near-term quantum devices. Despite its initial success, there is a lack of understanding involving several of its key aspects. There are problems with VQE that forbid a favorable scaling towards quantum advantage. In order to alleviate the problems, we propose and extensively test a quantum annealing inspired heuristic that supplements VQE. The improved VQE enables an efficient initial state-preparation mechanism, in a recursive manner, for a quasidynamical unitary evolution. We conduct an in-depth scaling analysis of finding the ground-state energies with increasing lattice sizes of the Heisenberg model, employing simulations of up to 40 qubits that manipulate the complete state vector. In addition to systematically finding the ground-state energy, we observe that it avoids barren plateaus, escapes local minima, and works with low-depth circuits. For the current devices, we further propose a benchmarking toolkit using a mean-field model and test it on IBM Q devices. Realistic gate execution times estimate a longer computational time to complete the same computation on a fully functional error-free quantum computer than on a quantum computer emulator implemented on a classical computer. However, our proposal can be expected to help accurate estimations of the ground-state energies beyond 50 qubits when the complete state vector can no longer be stored on a classical computer, thus enabling quantum advantage.
The variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) is a hybrid quantum-classical algorithm designed for current and near-term quantum devices. Despite its initial success, there is a lack of understanding involving several of its key aspects. There are problems with VQE that forbid a favourable scaling towards quantum advantage. In order to alleviate the problems, we propose and extensively test a quantum annealing inspired heuristic that supplements VQE. The improved VQE enables an efficient initial state preparation mechanism, in a recursive manner, for a quasi-dynamical unitary evolution. We conduct an in-depth scaling analysis of finding the ground state energies with increasing lattice sizes of the Heisenberg model, employing simulations of up to 40 qubits that manipulate the complete state vector. For the current devices, we further propose a benchmarking toolkit using a mean-field model and test it on IBM Q devices. The improved VQE avoids barren plateaus, exits local minima, and works with low-depth circuits. Realistic gate execution times estimate a longer computational time to complete the same computation on a fully functional error-free quantum computer than on a quantum computer emulator implemented on a classical computer. However, our proposal can be expected to help accurate estimations of the ground state energies beyond 50 qubits when the complete state vector can no longer be stored on a classical computer, thus enabling quantum advantage.
We numerically investigate quantum circuit elementary-gate level instantiations of the standard Quantum Phase Estimation (QPE) algorithm for the task of computing the ground-state energy of a quantum magnet; the disordered fully-connected quantum Heisenberg spin glass model. We consider (classical simulations of) QPE circuit computations on relatively small quantum Hamiltonians (3 qubits) with up to 10 phase bits of precision, using up to Trotter order 10. We systematically study the inputs of QPE, specifically time evolution, Trotter order, Trotter steps, and initial state, and illustrate how these inputs practically determine how QPE operates. From this we outline a coherent set of quantum algorithm input and tuning guidelines. One of the notable properties we characterize is that QPE sampling of the optimal digitized phase converges to a fixed rate. This results in strong diminishing returns of optimal phase sampling rates which can occur when the Trotter error is surprisingly high.
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.
Quantum chemistry is envisioned as an early and disruptive application for quantum computers. Yet, closer scrutiny of the proposed algorithms shows that there are considerable difficulties along the way. Here, we propose two criteria for evaluating two leading quantum approaches for finding the ground state of molecules. The first criterion applies to the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) algorithm. It sets an upper bound to the level of imprecision/decoherence that can be tolerated in quantum hardware as a function of the targeted precision, the number of gates and the typical energy contribution from states populated by decoherence processes. We find that decoherence is highly detrimental to the accuracy of VQE and performing relevant chemistry calculations would require performances that are expected for fault-tolerant quantum computers, not mere noisy hardware, even with advanced error mitigation techniques. Physically, the sensitivity of VQE to decoherence originates from the fact that, in VQE, the spectrum of the studied molecule has no correlation with the spectrum of the quantum hardware used to perform the computation. The second criterion applies to the quantum phase estimation (QPE) algorithm, which is often presented as the go-to replacement of VQE upon availability of (noiseless) fault-tolerant quantum computers. QPE requires an input state with a large enough overlap with the sought-after ground state. We provide a criterion to estimate quantitatively this overlap based on the energy and the energy variance of said input state. Using input states from a variety of state-of-the-art classical methods, we show that the scaling of this overlap with system size does display the standard orthogonality catastrophe, namely an exponential suppression with system size. This in turns leads to an exponentially reduced QPE success probability.
Quantum systems have historically been formidable to simulate using classical computational methods, particularly as the system size grows. In recent years, advancements in quantum computing technology have offered new opportunities for tackling complex quantum systems, potentially enabling the study and preparation of quantum states directly on quantum processors themselves. The Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) algorithm is a system composed of a quantum circuit as well as a classical optimizer that can be used to efficiently prepare interesting many-body states on the current noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices. We assess the efficacy and scalability of VQE by preparing the ground states of the 1D generalized Heisenberg model, a pivotal model in understanding magnetic materials. We present an ansatz capable of preparing the ground states for all possible values of the coupling, including the critical states for the anisotropic XXZ model. This paper also aims to provide insights into the precision and time consumption involved in classical and optimized sampling approaches in the calculation of expectation values. In preparing the ground state for the Heisenberg models, this paper paves the way for more efficient quantum algorithms and contributes to the broader field of condensed matter physics.