No Arabic abstract
Using quantum devices supported by classical computational resources is a promising approach to quantum-enabled computation. One example of such a hybrid quantum-classical approach is the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) built to utilize quantum resources for the solution of eigenvalue problems and optimizations with minimal coherence time requirements by leveraging classical computational resources. These algorithms have been placed among the candidates for first to achieve supremacy over classical computation. Here, we provide evidence for the conjecture that variational approaches can automatically suppress even non-systematic decoherence errors by introducing an exactly solvable channel model of variational state preparation. Moreover, we show how variational quantum-classical approaches fit in a more general hierarchy of measurement and classical computation that allows one to obtain increasingly accurate solutions with additional classical resources. We demonstrate numerically on a sample electronic system that this method both allows for the accurate determination of excited electronic states as well as reduces the impact of decoherence, without using any additional quantum coherence time or formal error correction codes.
Quantum computers can exploit a Hilbert space whose dimension increases exponentially with the number of qubits. In experiment, quantum supremacy has recently been achieved by the Google team by using a noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) device with over 50 qubits. However, the question of what can be implemented on NISQ devices is still not fully explored, and discovering useful tasks for such devices is a topic of considerable interest. Hybrid quantum-classical algorithms are regarded as well-suited for execution on NISQ devices by combining quantum computers with classical computers, and are expected to be the first useful applications for quantum computing. Meanwhile, mitigation of errors on quantum processors is also crucial to obtain reliable results. In this article, we review the basic results for hybrid quantum-classical algorithms and quantum error mitigation techniques. Since quantum computing with NISQ devices is an actively developing field, we expect this review to be a useful basis for future studies.
Many quantum algorithms have daunting resource requirements when compared to what is available today. To address this discrepancy, a quantum-classical hybrid optimization scheme known as the quantum variational eigensolver was developed with the philosophy that even minimal quantum resources could be made useful when used in conjunction with classical routines. In this work we extend the general theory of this algorithm and suggest algorithmic improvements for practical implementations. Specifically, we develop a variational adiabatic ansatz and explore unitary coupled cluster where we establish a connection from second order unitary coupled cluster to universal gate sets through relaxation of exponential splitting. We introduce the concept of quantum variational error suppression that allows some errors to be suppressed naturally in this algorithm on a pre-threshold quantum device. Additionally, we analyze truncation and correlated sampling in Hamiltonian averaging as ways to reduce the cost of this procedure. Finally, we show how the use of modern derivative free optimization techniques can offer dramatic computational savings of up to three orders of magnitude over previously used optimization techniques.
We re-analyse the optomechanical interferometer experiment proposed by Marshall, Simon, Penrose and Bouwmeester with the help of a recently developed quantum-classical hybrid theory. This leads to an alternative evaluation of the mirror induced decoherence. Surprisingly, we find that it behaves essentially in the same way for suitable initial conditions and experimentally relevant parameters, no matter whether the mirror is considered a classical or quantum mechanical object. We discuss the parameter ranges where this result holds and possible implications for a test of spontaneous collapse models, for which this experiment has been designed.
Many-body techniques based on the double unitary coupled cluster ansatz (DUCC) can be used to downfold electronic Hamiltonians into low-dimensional active spaces. It can be shown that the resulting dimensionality reduced Hamiltonians are amenable for quantum computing. Recent studies performed for several benchmark systems using quantum phase estimation (QPE) algorithms demonstrated that these formulations can recover a significant portion of ground-state dynamical correlation effects that stem from the electron excitations outside of the active space. These results have also been confirmed in studies of ground-state potential energy surfaces using quantum simulators. In this letter, we study the effectiveness of the DUCC formalism in describing excited states. We also emphasize the role of the QPE formalism and its stochastic nature in discovering/identifying excited states or excited-state processes in situations when the knowledge about the true configurational structure of a sought after excited state is limited or postulated (due to the specific physics driving excited-state processes of interest). In this context, we can view the QPE algorithm as an engine for verifying various hypotheses for excited-state processes and providing statistically meaningful results that correspond to the electronic state(s) with the largest overlap with a postulated configurational structure. We illustrate these ideas on examples of strongly correlated molecular systems, characterized by small energy gaps and high density of quasi-degenerate states around the Fermi level.
The initial states which minimize the predictability loss for a damped harmonic oscillator are identified as quasi-free states with a symmetry dictated by the environments diffusion coefficients. For an isotropic diffusion in phase space, coherent states (or mixtures of coherent states) are selected as the most stable ones.