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Ordering of Trotterization: Impact on Errors in Quantum Simulation of Electronic Structure

Tranter, A; Love, PJ; Mintert, F; Wiebe, N; Coveney, PV; (2019) Ordering of Trotterization: Impact on Errors in Quantum Simulation of Electronic Structure. Entropy , 21 (12) , Article 1218. 10.3390/e21121218. Green open access

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Abstract

Trotter–Suzuki decompositions are frequently used in the quantum simulation of quantum chemistry. They transform the evolution operator into a form implementable on a quantum device, while incurring an error—the Trotter error. The Trotter error can be made arbitrarily small by increasing the Trotter number. However, this increases the length of the quantum circuits required, which may be impractical. It is therefore desirable to find methods of reducing the Trotter error through alternate means. The Trotter error is dependent on the order in which individual term unitaries are applied. Due to the factorial growth in the number of possible orderings with respect to the number of terms, finding an optimal strategy for ordering Trotter sequences is difficult. In this paper, we propose three ordering strategies, and assess their impact on the Trotter error incurred. Initially, we exhaustively examine the possible orderings for molecular hydrogen in a STO-3G basis. We demonstrate how the optimal ordering scheme depends on the compatibility graph of the Hamiltonian, and show how it varies with increasing bond length. We then use 44 molecular Hamiltonians to evaluate two strategies based on coloring their incompatibility graphs, while considering the properties of the obtained colorings. We find that the Trotter error for most systems involving heavy atoms, using a reference magnitude ordering, is less than 1 kcal/mol. Relative to this, the difference between ordering schemes can be substantial, being approximately on the order of millihartrees. The coloring-based ordering schemes are reasonably promising—particularly for systems involving heavy atoms—however further work is required to increase dependence on the magnitude of terms. Finally, we consider ordering strategies based on the norm of the Trotter error operator, including an iterative method for generating the new error operator terms added upon insertion of a term into an ordered Hamiltonian.

Type: Article
Title: Ordering of Trotterization: Impact on Errors in Quantum Simulation of Electronic Structure
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.3390/e21121218
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.3390/e21121218
Language: English
Additional information: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Keywords: Science & Technology, Physical Sciences, Physics, Multidisciplinary, Physics, quantum simulation, electronic structure theory, quantum computing
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Chemistry
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10091285
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