Reinforcement Learning Assisted Quantum Simulation of Many-Body Excited States and Real-Time Dynamics

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhang, Jiaji, Chen, Lipeng, Benavides-Riveros, Carlos L.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Zhang, Jiaji
Chen, Lipeng
Benavides-Riveros, Carlos L.
author_facet Zhang, Jiaji
Chen, Lipeng
Benavides-Riveros, Carlos L.
contents The computation of electronic excited states and real-time quantum dynamics of many-fermion systems is among the most promising applications of near-term quantum computing. In this work, we generalize the reinforcement learning contracted quantum eigensolver (RL-CQE), previously developed for ground-state problems, to electronic excited states and real-time quantum dynamics, in which a deep Q-network agent adaptively selects the two-body operators at each iteration, yielding more compact ansätze and improved robustness with respect to critical hyperparameters. A key feature of the algorithm is a scalable state representation based on the ACSE residuals, whose dimension grows with the one-particle basis but remains independent of the number of targeted excited states. We also verify the equivalence of sign-free qubit operators in the excited-state setting, extending a result previously established for ground-state problems. Our RL-CQE for time evolution derives from a constant-scaling ansatz that represents the wave function with a fixed number of unitary transformations independent of simulation time $t$, enabled by the shared unitary structure of the purified ensemble treatment of excited states. Benchmarks on chemical systems demonstrate chemical accuracy with minimal operator counts across a range of bond lengths.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_18569
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Reinforcement Learning Assisted Quantum Simulation of Many-Body Excited States and Real-Time Dynamics
Zhang, Jiaji
Chen, Lipeng
Benavides-Riveros, Carlos L.
Quantum Physics
Chemical Physics
The computation of electronic excited states and real-time quantum dynamics of many-fermion systems is among the most promising applications of near-term quantum computing. In this work, we generalize the reinforcement learning contracted quantum eigensolver (RL-CQE), previously developed for ground-state problems, to electronic excited states and real-time quantum dynamics, in which a deep Q-network agent adaptively selects the two-body operators at each iteration, yielding more compact ansätze and improved robustness with respect to critical hyperparameters. A key feature of the algorithm is a scalable state representation based on the ACSE residuals, whose dimension grows with the one-particle basis but remains independent of the number of targeted excited states. We also verify the equivalence of sign-free qubit operators in the excited-state setting, extending a result previously established for ground-state problems. Our RL-CQE for time evolution derives from a constant-scaling ansatz that represents the wave function with a fixed number of unitary transformations independent of simulation time $t$, enabled by the shared unitary structure of the purified ensemble treatment of excited states. Benchmarks on chemical systems demonstrate chemical accuracy with minimal operator counts across a range of bond lengths.
title Reinforcement Learning Assisted Quantum Simulation of Many-Body Excited States and Real-Time Dynamics
topic Quantum Physics
Chemical Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.18569