Critical Limitations in Quantum-Selected Configuration Interaction Methods

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Reinholdt, Peter, Ziems, Karl Michael, Kjellgren, Erik Rosendahl, Coriani, Sonia, Sauer, Stephan P. A., Kongsted, Jacob
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Reinholdt, Peter
Ziems, Karl Michael
Kjellgren, Erik Rosendahl
Coriani, Sonia
Sauer, Stephan P. A.
Kongsted, Jacob
author_facet Reinholdt, Peter
Ziems, Karl Michael
Kjellgren, Erik Rosendahl
Coriani, Sonia
Sauer, Stephan P. A.
Kongsted, Jacob
contents Quantum Selected Configuration Interaction (QSCI) methods (also known as Sample-based Quantum Diagonalization, SQD) have emerged as promising near-term approaches to solving the electronic Schr{ö}dinger equation with quantum computers. In this work, we perform numerical analysis to show that QSCI methods face critical limitations that severely hinder their practical applicability in chemistry. Using the nitrogen molecule and the iron-sulfur cluster [2Fe-2S] as examples, we demonstrate that while QSCI can, in principle, yield high-quality configuration interaction (CI) expansions similar to classical SCI heuristics in some cases, the method struggles with inefficiencies in finding new determinants as sampling repeatedly selects already seen configurations. This inefficiency becomes especially pronounced when targeting high-accuracy results or sampling from an approximate ansatz. In cases where the sampling problem is not present, the resulting CI expansions are less compact than those generated from classical heuristics, rendering QSCI an overall more expensive method. Our findings suggest a significant drawback in QSCI methods when sampling from the ground-state distribution as the inescapable trade-off between finding sufficiently many determinants and generating compact, accurate CI expansions. This ultimately hinders utility in quantum chemistry applications, as QSCI falls behind more efficient classical counterparts.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_07231
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Critical Limitations in Quantum-Selected Configuration Interaction Methods
Reinholdt, Peter
Ziems, Karl Michael
Kjellgren, Erik Rosendahl
Coriani, Sonia
Sauer, Stephan P. A.
Kongsted, Jacob
Chemical Physics
Quantum Physics
Quantum Selected Configuration Interaction (QSCI) methods (also known as Sample-based Quantum Diagonalization, SQD) have emerged as promising near-term approaches to solving the electronic Schr{ö}dinger equation with quantum computers. In this work, we perform numerical analysis to show that QSCI methods face critical limitations that severely hinder their practical applicability in chemistry. Using the nitrogen molecule and the iron-sulfur cluster [2Fe-2S] as examples, we demonstrate that while QSCI can, in principle, yield high-quality configuration interaction (CI) expansions similar to classical SCI heuristics in some cases, the method struggles with inefficiencies in finding new determinants as sampling repeatedly selects already seen configurations. This inefficiency becomes especially pronounced when targeting high-accuracy results or sampling from an approximate ansatz. In cases where the sampling problem is not present, the resulting CI expansions are less compact than those generated from classical heuristics, rendering QSCI an overall more expensive method. Our findings suggest a significant drawback in QSCI methods when sampling from the ground-state distribution as the inescapable trade-off between finding sufficiently many determinants and generating compact, accurate CI expansions. This ultimately hinders utility in quantum chemistry applications, as QSCI falls behind more efficient classical counterparts.
title Critical Limitations in Quantum-Selected Configuration Interaction Methods
topic Chemical Physics
Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.07231