Multiconfiguration Pair-Density Functional Theory Calculations of Low-lying States of Complex Chemical Systems with Quantum Computers
Abstract
Accurately describing strong electron correlation in complex systems remains a prominent challenge in computational chemistry as near-term quantum algorithms treating total correlation often require prohibitively deep circuits. Here we present a hybrid strategy combining the Variational Quantum Eigensolver with Multiconfiguration Pair-Density Functional Theory to efficiently decouple correlation effects. This approach confines static correlation to a compact multireference quantum state while recovering dynamic correlation through a classical on-top density functional using reduced-density information. By enabling self-consistent orbital optimization, the method significantly reduces quantum resource overheads without sacrificing physical rigor. We demonstrate chemical accuracy on standard benchmarks by reproducing C equilibrium bond lengths and benzene excitation energies with mean absolute errors of 0.006 {\AA} and 0.048 eV respectively. Most notably, for the strongly correlated Cr dimer requiring a large complete active space (48e, 42o), the framework yields a bound potential-energy curve and recovers qualitative dissociation behavior despite realistic hardware noise. These results establish that separating correlation types provides a practical route to reliable predictions on near-term quantum hardware.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2602.10435,
title = {Multiconfiguration Pair-Density Functional Theory Calculations of Low-lying States of Complex Chemical Systems with Quantum Computers},
author = {Zhanou Liu and Yuhao Chen and Yingjin Ma and Xiao He and Yuxin Deng},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.10435},
year = {2026}
}