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Resource-Efficient Chemistry on Quantum Computers with the Variational Quantum Eigensolver and the Double Unitary Coupled-Cluster Approach

Journal Article · · Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation

Applications of quantum simulation algorithms to obtain electronic energies of molecules on noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices require careful consideration of resources describing the complex electron correlation effects. In modeling second-quantized problems, the biggest challenge confronted is that the number of qubits scales linearly with the size of the molecular basis. This poses a significant limitation on the size of the basis sets and the number of correlated electrons included in quantum simulations of chemical processes. To address this issue and enable more realistic simulations on NISQ computers, we employ the double unitary coupled-cluster (DUCC) method to effectively downfold correlation effects into the reduced-size orbital space, commonly referred to as the active space. Using downfolding techniques, we demonstrate that properly constructed effective Hamiltonians can capture the effect of the whole orbital space in small-size active spaces. Combining the downfolding preprocessing technique with the variational quantum eigensolver, we solve for the ground-state energy of H2, Li2, and BeH2 in the cc-pVTZ basis using the DUCC-reduced active spaces. Finally, we compare these results to full configuration-interaction and high-level coupled-cluster reference calculations.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231; AC06-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
1616985
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1686096
Journal Information:
Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation, Journal Name: Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 16; ISSN 1549-9618
Publisher:
American Chemical SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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