We propose an adaptive random quantum algorithm to obtain an optimized eigensolver. The changes in the involved matrices follow bio-inspired evolutionary mutations which are based on two figures of merit: learning speed and learning accuracy. This method provides high fidelities for the searched eigenvectors and faster convergence on the way to quantum advantage with current noisy intermediate-scaled quantum (NISQ) computers.
The problem of finding the ground state energy of a Hamiltonian using a quantum computer is currently solved using either the quantum phase estimation (QPE) or variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) algorithms. For precision $epsilon$, QPE requires $O(1)$ repetitions of circuits with depth $O(1/epsilon)$, whereas each expectation estimation subroutine within VQE requires $O(1/epsilon^{2})$ samples from circuits with depth $O(1)$. We propose a generalised VQE algorithm that interpolates between these two regimes via a free parameter $alphain[0,1]$ which can exploit quantum coherence over a circuit depth of $O(1/epsilon^{alpha})$ to reduce the number of samples to $O(1/epsilon^{2(1-alpha)})$. Along the way, we give a new routine for expectation estimation under limited quantum resources that is of independent interest.
The task of estimating the ground state of Hamiltonians is an important problem in physics with numerous applications ranging from solid-state physics to combinatorial optimization. We provide a hybrid quantum-classical algorithm for approximating the ground state of a Hamiltonian that builds on the powerful Krylov subspace method in a way that is suitable for current quantum computers. Our algorithm systematically constructs the Ansatz using any given choice of the initial state and the unitaries describing the Hamiltonian. The only task of the quantum computer is to measure overlaps and no feedback loops are required. The measurements can be performed efficiently on current quantum hardware without requiring any complicated measurements such as the Hadamard test. Finally, a classical computer solves a well characterized quadratically constrained optimization program. Our algorithm can reuse previous measurements to calculate the ground state of a wide range of Hamiltonians without requiring additional quantum resources. Further, we demonstrate our algorithm for solving problems consisting of thousands of qubits. The algorithm works for almost every random choice of the initial state and circumvents the barren plateau problem.
The variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) is one of the most representative quantum algorithms in the noisy intermediate-size quantum (NISQ) era, and is generally speculated to deliver one of the first quantum advantages for the ground-state simulations of some non-trivial Hamiltonians. However, short quantum coherence time and limited availability of quantum hardware resources in the NISQ hardware strongly restrain the capacity and expressiveness of VQEs. In this Letter, we introduce the variational quantum-neural hybrid eigensolver (VQNHE) in which the shallow-circuit quantum ansatz can be further enhanced by classical post-processing with neural networks. We show that VQNHE consistently and significantly outperforms VQE in simulating ground-state energies of quantum spins and molecules given the same amount of quantum resources. More importantly, we demonstrate that for arbitrary post-processing neural functions, VQNHE only incurs an polynomial overhead of processing time and represents the first scalable method to exponentially accelerate VQE with non-unitary post-processing that can be efficiently implemented in the NISQ era.
Solving eigenvalue problems is crucially important for both classical and quantum applications. Many well-known numerical eigensolvers have been developed, including the QR and the power methods for classical computers, as well as the quantum phase estimation(QPE) method and the variational quantum eigensolver for quantum computers. In this work, we present an alternative type of quantum method that uses fixed-point quantum search to solve Type II eigenvalue problems. It serves as an important complement to the QPE method, which is a Type I eigensolver. We find that the effectiveness of our method depends crucially on the appropriate choice of the initial state to guarantee a sufficiently large overlap with the unknown target eigenstate. We also show that the quantum oracle of our query-based method can be efficiently constructed for efficiently-simulated Hamiltonians, which is crucial for analyzing the total gate complexity. In addition, compared with the QPE method, our query-based method achieves a quadratic speedup in solving Type II problems.
Hybrid quantum-classical algorithms have been proposed as a potentially viable application of quantum computers. A particular example - the variational quantum eigensolver, or VQE - is designed to determine a global minimum in an energy landscape specified by a quantum Hamiltonian, which makes it appealing for the needs of quantum chemistry. Experimental realizations have been reported in recent years and theoretical estimates of its efficiency are a subject of intense effort. Here we consider the performance of the VQE technique for a Hubbard-like model describing a one-dimensional chain of fermions with competing nearest- and next-nearest-neighbor interactions. We find that recovering the VQE solution allows one to obtain the correlation function of the ground state consistent with the exact result. We also study the barren plateau phenomenon for the Hamiltonian in question and find that the severity of this effect depends on the encoding of fermions to qubits. Our results are consistent with the current knowledge about the barren plateaus in quantum optimization.