Simulating response properties of molecules is crucial for interpreting experimental spectroscopies and accelerating materials design. However, it remains a long-standing computational challenge for electronic structure methods on classical computers. While quantum computers hold the promise to solve this problem more efficiently in the long run, existing quantum algorithms requiring deep quantum circuits are infeasible for near-term noisy quantum processors. Here, we introduce a pragmatic variational quantum response (VQR) algorithm for response properties, which circumvents the need for deep quantum circuits. Using this algorithm, we report the first simulation of linear response properties of molecules including dynamic polarizabilities and absorption spectra on a superconducting quantum processor. Our results indicate that a large class of important dynamical properties such as Green's functions are within the reach of near-term quantum hardware using this algorithm in combination with suitable error mitigation techniques.
@article{arxiv.2201.02426,
title = {Variational Quantum Computation of Molecular Linear Response Properties on a Superconducting Quantum Processor},
author = {Kaixuan Huang and Xiaoxia Cai and Hao Li and Zi-Yong Ge and Ruijuan Hou and Hekang Li and Tong Liu and Yunhao Shi and Chitong Chen and Dongning Zheng and Kai Xu and Zhi-Bo Liu and Zhendong Li and Heng Fan and Wei-Hai Fang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2201.02426},
year = {2022}
}