1 research outputs found
Identifying challenges towards practical quantum advantage through resource estimation: the measurement roadblock in the variational quantum eigensolver
Recent advances in Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices have
brought much attention to the potential of the Variational Quantum Eigensolver
(VQE) and related techniques to provide practical quantum advantage in
computational chemistry. However, it is not yet clear whether such algorithms,
even in the absence of device error, could achieve quantum advantage for
systems of practical interest and how large such an advantage might be. To
address these questions, we have performed an exhaustive set of benchmarks to
estimate number of qubits and number of measurements required to compute the
combustion energies of small organic molecules to within chemical accuracy
using VQE as well as state-of-the-art classical algorithms. We consider several
key modifications to VQE, including the use of Frozen Natural Orbitals, various
Hamiltonian decomposition techniques, and the application of fermionic marginal
constraints. Our results indicate that although Frozen Natural Orbitals and
low-rank factorizations of the Hamiltonian significantly reduce the qubit and
measurement requirements, these techniques are not sufficient to achieve
practical quantum computational advantage in the calculation of organic
molecule combustion energies. This suggests that new approaches to estimation
leveraging quantum coherence, such as Bayesian amplitude estimation
[arxiv:2006.09350, arxiv:2006.09349], may be required in order to achieve
practical quantum advantage with near-term devices. Our work also highlights
the crucial role that resource and performance assessments of quantum
algorithms play in identifying quantum advantage and guiding quantum algorithm
design.Comment: 27 pages, 18 figure