No Arabic abstract
Imaginary time evolution is a powerful tool for studying quantum systems. While it is possible to simulate with a classical computer, the time and memory requirements generally scale exponentially with the system size. Conversely, quantum computers can efficiently simulate quantum systems, but not non-unitary imaginary time evolution. We propose a variational algorithm for simulating imaginary time evolution on a hybrid quantum computer. We use this algorithm to find the ground-state energy of many-particle systems; specifically molecular hydrogen and lithium hydride, finding the ground state with high probability. Our method can also be applied to general optimisation problems and quantum machine learning. As our algorithm is hybrid, suitable for error mitigation and can exploit shallow quantum circuits, it can be implemented with current quantum computers.
The road to computing on quantum devices has been accelerated by the promises that come from using Shors algorithm to reduce the complexity of prime factorization. However, this promise hast not yet been realized due to noisy qubits and lack of robust error correction schemes. Here we explore a promising, alternative method for prime factorization that uses well-established techniques from variational imaginary time evolution. We create a Hamiltonian whose ground state encodes the solution to the problem and use variational techniques to evolve a state iteratively towards these prime factors. We show that the number of circuits evaluated in each iteration scales as O(n^{5}d), where n is the bit-length of the number to be factorized and $d$ is the depth of the circuit. We use a single layer of entangling gates to factorize several numbers represented using 7, 8, and 9-qubit Hamiltonians. We also verify the methods performance by implementing it on the IBMQ Lima hardware.
Quantum simulation on emerging quantum hardware is a topic of intense interest. While many studies focus on computing ground state properties or simulating unitary dynamics of closed systems, open quantum systems are an interesting target of study owing to their ubiquity and rich physical behavior. However, their non-unitary dynamics are also not natural to simulate on near-term quantum hardware. Here, we report algorithms for the digital quantum simulation of the dynamics of open quantum systems governed by a Lindblad equation using an adaptation of the quantum imaginary time evolution (QITE) algorithm. We demonstrate the algorithms on IBM Quantums hardware with simulations of the spontaneous emission of a two level system and the dissipative transverse field Ising model. Our work shows that the dynamics of open quantum systems can be efficiently simulated on near-term quantum hardware.
An adaptive variational quantum imaginary time evolution (AVQITE) approach is introduced that yields efficient representations of ground states for interacting Hamiltonians on near-term quantum computers. It is based on McLachlans variational principle applied to imaginary time evolution of variational wave functions. The variational parameters evolve deterministically according to equations of motions that minimize the difference to the exact imaginary time evolution, which is quantified by the McLachlan distance. Rather than working with a fixed variational ansatz, where the McLachlan distance is constrained by the quality of the ansatz, the AVQITE method iteratively expands the ansatz along the dynamical path to keep the McLachlan distance below a chosen threshold. This ensures the state is able to follow the quantum imaginary time evolution path in the system Hilbert space rather than in a restricted variational manifold set by a predefined fixed ansatz. AVQITE is used to prepare ground states of H$_4$, H$_2$O and BeH$_2$ molecules, where it yields compact variational ansatze and ground state energies within chemical accuracy. Polynomial scaling of circuit depth with system size is demonstrated through a set of AVQITE calculations of quantum spin models. Finally, it is shown that quantum Lanczos calculations can also be naturally performed alongside AVQITE without additional quantum resource costs.
Quantum imaginary time evolution is a powerful algorithm to prepare ground states and thermal states on near-term quantum devices. However, algorithmic errors induced by Trotterization and local approximation severely hinder its performance. Here we propose a deep-reinforcement-learning-based method to steer the evolution and mitigate these errors. In our scheme, the well-trained agent can find the subtle evolution path where most algorithmic errors cancel out, enhancing the recovering fidelity significantly. We verified the validity of the method with the transverse-field Ising model and graph maximum cut problem. Numerical calculations and experiments on a nuclear magnetic resonance quantum computer illustrated the efficacy. The philosophy of our method, eliminating errors with errors, sheds new light on error reduction on near-term quantum devices.
Computing the ground-state properties of quantum many-body systems is a promising application of near-term quantum hardware with a potential impact in many fields. Quantum phase estimation uses deep circuits and is infeasible without fault-tolerant technologies. Many quantum simulation algorithms developed recently work in an inexact and variational manner to exploit the power of shallow circuits. These algorithms rely on the assumption that variational circuits can produce the desired result. Here, we combine quantum Monte Carlo with quantum computing and propose a quasi-exact algorithm for imaginary-time simulation and ground-state computing. Unlike variational algorithms, our algorithm always approaches the exact solution when the Trotter circuit depth increases. Even when the circuit is shallow, our algorithm can yield an accurate ground-state energy. Compared with quantum phase estimation, the conventional quasi-exact algorithm, our algorithm can reduce the Trotter step number by thousands of times. We verify this resilience to Trotterisation errors in numerical simulation of up to 20 qubits and theoretical analysis. Our results demonstrate that non-variational and exact quantum simulation is promising even without a fully fault-tolerant quantum computer.