Benchmarking Adaptive Quantum Circuit Optimization Algorithms for Quantum Chemistry

IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering (QCE), pp. 83–88

Abstract

In the noisy near-term quantum computing era variational quantum algorithms are promising to explore the boundaries of quantum advantage. One prevalent instance is the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) employed in quantum chemistry to approximate ground-state energies of molecules. The performance of VQE depends on the design of the parametrized quantum circuit, as well as the optimization algorithm used to optimize those parameters. Circuit optimization methods have been developed to generate quantum circuits to reach accurate approximations to the ground-states. In this work, we conduct an empirical comparison between two prominent adaptive quantum circuit optimization algorithms, namely qubit-ADAPT-VQE and a reinforcement learning (RL) based method, on the problem of finding the ground state energy of Lithium Hydride (LiH). In our experiment, we focus on the circuit depth generated by each circuit optimization method and the number of two-qubit quantum gates in the best-found circuit.

Authors 6

1. Waheeda Saib Aachen IBM Research-Africa

   Leiden University · IBM Research - Africa

   Affiliation as printed

   IBM Research-Africa, Universiteit Leiden,LIACS,Leiden,Netherlands

   LIACS, IBM Research-Africa, Universiteit Leiden, Leiden, Netherlands

2. Xavier Bonet-Monroig Aachen Instituut-Lorentz

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Instituut-Lorentz, Universiteit Leiden,Leiden,Netherlands

   Instituut-Lorentz, Universiteit Leiden, Leiden, Netherlands

3. Vedran Dunjko Aachen

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Universiteit Leiden,LIACS,Leiden,Netherlands

   LIACS, Universiteit Leiden, Leiden, Netherlands

4. Ivano Tavernelli

   IBM Research - Zurich

   Affiliation as printed

   IBM Quantum, IBM Research Zurich,Rüschlikon,Switzerland

5. Thomas Bäck Aachen

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Universiteit Leiden,LIACS,Leiden,Netherlands

   LIACS, Universiteit Leiden, Leiden, Netherlands

6. Hao Wang Aachen

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Universiteit Leiden,LIACS,Leiden,Netherlands

   LIACS, Universiteit Leiden, Leiden, Netherlands