Variational Hamiltonian simulation for translational invariant systems via classical pre-processing

The simulation of time evolution of large quantum systems is a classically challenging and in general intractable task, making it a promising application for quantum computation. A Trotter-Suzuki approximation yields an implementation thereof, where a higher approximation accuracy can be traded for an increased gate count. In this work, we introduce a variational algorithm which uses solutions of classical optimizations to predict efficient quantum circuits for time evolution of translationally invariant quantum systems. Our strategy can improve upon the Trotter-Suzuki accuracy by several orders of magnitude. It translates into a reduction in gate count and hence gain in overall fidelity at the same algorithmic accuracy. This is important in noisy intermediate scale quantum-applications where the fidelity of the output state decays exponentially with the number of gates. The performance advantage of our classical assisted strategy can be extended to open boundaries with translational symmetry in the bulk. We can extrapolate our method to beyond classically simulatable system sizes, maintaining its total fidelity advantage over a Trotter-Suzuki approximation making it an interesting candidate for beyond classical time evolution.

Automated summary

In this work, a variational algorithm is introduced to predict efficient quantum circuits for time evolution of translationally invariant quantum systems using solutions of classical optimizations. This strategy can significantly improve upon the accuracy of Trotter-Suzuki approximation, reducing gate count and increasing overall fidelity. This is important in noisy intermediate scale quantum-applications where the fidelity decays exponentially with the number of gates.