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arXiv:2610.11026 · npj Quantum Information

Demonstration of subspace-search variational quantum eigensolver using photonic orbital angular momentum qudits

Kang-Min Hu, Myung-Hyun Sohn, Yong-Su Kim, Kwang Jo Lee, Hyun Woo Kim, Hyang-Tag Lim

quant-phSubmitted Oct 8, 2026• Announced Oct 9, 2026• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Accurate excited state energies are essential for interpreting fluorescence and photochemical processes, yet variational quantum eigensolvers (VQEs) on noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) hardware have largely been confined to ground states. Subspace-search VQE (SSVQE) offers a NISQ-friendly route to excited states without ancilla-based overlap measurements, however it has lacked an experimental demonstration since it requires the coherent preparation and manipulation of multiple orthogonal basis states under a shared variational unitary. Here we realize SSVQE on a photonic platform by encoding orthogonal qudit states in the orbital angular momentum of single photons and optimizing a shared variational circuit. We estimate excited state energies for a four-dimensional $\rm{HeH^+}$ molecule and an eight-dimensional Heisenberg chain, thereby demonstrating scalable excited state eigensolving in a high-dimensional Hilbert space. Our results establish photonic qudits as a resource-efficient pathway to excited state quantum simulation.

Journal reference
npj Quantum Information (2026)
DOI
10.1038/s41534-026-01380-2
Comments
8 pages, 4 figures, Supplementary Note

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Accurate excited state energies are essential for interpreting fluorescence and photochemical processes, yet variational quantum eigensolvers (VQEs) on noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) hardware have largely been confined to ground states. Subspace-search VQE (SSVQE) offers a NISQ-friendly route to excited states without ancilla-based overlap measurements, however it has lacked an experimental demonstration since it requires the coherent preparation and manipulation of multiple orthogonal basis states under a shared variational unitary. Here we realize SSVQE on a photonic platform by encoding orthogonal qudit states in the orbital angular momentum of single photons and optimizing a shared variational circuit. We estimate excited state energies for a four-dimensional HeH+\rm{HeH^+}HeH+ molecule and an eight-dimensional Heisenberg chain, thereby demonstrating scalable excited state eigensolving in a high-dimensional Hilbert space. Our results establish photonic qudits as a resource-efficient pathway to excited state quantum simulation.
Solving the electronic structure problem is a notorious challenge in quantum chemistry and material science. Variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) is a promising hybrid classical-quantum algorithm for finding the lowest-energy configuration of a molecular system. However, it typically requires many qubits and quantum gates with substantial quantum circuit depth to accurately represent the electronic wave function of complex structures. Here, we propose an alternative approach to solve the electronic structure problem using VQE with a single qudit. Our approach exploits a high-dimensional orbital angular momentum state of a heralded single photon and notably reduces the required quantum resources compared to conventional multi-qubit–based VQE. We experimentally demonstrate that our single-qudit–based VQE can efficiently estimate the ground state energy of hydrogen (H 2 ) and lithium hydride (LiH) molecular systems corresponding to two- and four-qubit systems, respectively. We believe that our scheme opens a pathway to perform a large-scale quantum simulation for solving more complex problems in quantum chemistry and material science.
Quantum computers have the potential to deliver speed-ups for solving certain important problems that are intractable for classical counterparts, making them a promising avenue for advancing modern computation. However, many quantum algorithms require deep quantum circuits, which are challenging to implement on current noisy devices. To address this limitation, variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) have been actively developed, enabling practical quantum computing in the noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) era. Among them, the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) stands out as a leading approach for solving problems in quantum chemistry, many-body physics, and even integer factorization. The VQE algorithm can be implemented on various quantum hardware platforms, including photonic systems, quantum dots, trapped ions, neutral atoms, and superconducting circuits. In particular, photonic platforms offer several advantages: they operate at room temperature, exhibit low decoherence, and support multiple degrees of freedom, making them suitable for scalable, high-dimensional quantum computation. Here we present methodologies for realizing VQE on photonic systems, highlighting their potential for practical quantum computing. We first provide a theoretical overview of the VQE framework, focusing on the procedure for variationally estimating ground state energies. We then explore how photonic systems can implement these processes, showing that a wide variety of problems can be addressed using either multiple qubit states or a single qudit state.
We propose a new approach to improve the accuracy of ground state estimates in Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) algorithms by employing subspace representations with soft-coded orthogonality constraints. As in other subspace-based VQE methods, such as the Subspace-Search VQE (SSVQE) and Multistate Contracted VQE (MCVQE), once the parameters are optimized to maximize the subspace overlap with the low-energy sector of the Hamiltonian, one diagonalizes the Hamiltonian restricted to the subspace. Unlike these methods, where \emph{hard-coded} orthogonality constraints are enforced at the circuit level among the states spanning the subspace, we consider a subspace representation where orthogonality is \emph{soft-coded} via penalty terms in the cost function. We show that this representation allows for shallower quantum circuits while maintaining high fidelity when compared to single-state (standard VQE) and multi-state (SSVQE or MCVQE) representations, on two benchmark cases: a 3×33\times 33×3 transverse-field Ising model and random realizations of the Edwards--Anderson spin-glass model on a 4×44\times 44×4 lattice.
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The weighted subspace-search variational quantum eigensolver (SSVQE) is a prominent algorithm for calculating excited-state properties of molecular quantum systems. In this work, we elaborate on some of its fundamental features with the aim of improving its practical realization. First, we demonstrate that the initial ansätze for various excited states could be prepared into a single pure state through a minimal number of ancilla qubits, followed by the optimization of a subsequent global unitary rotation in the targeted subspace. Since the ancillas' sole purpose is to purify an underlying ensemble ρwρ_{\boldsymbol{w}}ρw​ state with spectral weights w\boldsymbol{w}w, their measurement would just collapse ρwρ_{\boldsymbol{w}}ρw​ with probabilities wjw_jwj​ to one of its eigenstates ∣Ψj⟩|Ψ_j \rangle∣Ψj​⟩. We thus observe that our realization of SSVQE is equivalent to the original SSVQE improved by importance sampling. Then, we elaborate by numerical means on the potential influence of the auxiliary weights w\boldsymbol{w}w on the accuracy of the sought-after eigenstates and eigenenergies. Clear trends are discovered which are contrasted with some recent mathematical results concerning the ensemble variational principle that underlies SSVQE.
Variational quantum algorithms, a representative class of modern quantum algorithms, provide practical uses of near-term quantum processors. The size of the problem that can be encoded and solved on a quantum processor is limited by the dimension of the Hilbert space associated with the processor. One common approach for increasing the system dimension is to utilize a larger number of quantum systems. Here, we adopt an alternative approach to utilize multiple degrees of freedom of individual quantum systems to experimentally resource-efficiently increase the Hilbert space. We report experimental implementation of the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) using four-dimensional photonic quantum states of single photons. The four-dimensional quantum states are implemented by utilizing polarization and path degrees of freedom of a single photon. Our photonic VQE is equipped with a quantum error mitigation protocol that efficiently reduces the effects of Pauli noise in the quantum processing unit. We apply our photonic VQE to estimate the ground state energy of the H e − H + cation. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate that our experimental resource-efficient photonic VQE can accurately estimate the bond dissociation curve, even in the presence of large noise in the quantum processing unit. We also discuss further possible resource-efficient enhancement of the Hilbert space in photonic quantum processors. Our results propose that photonic systems utilizing multiple degrees of freedom can provide a resource-efficient avenue to implement practical near-term quantum processors.