Exactly solvable Hamiltonian fragments obtained from a direct sum of Lie algebras

Abstract

Exactly solvable Hamiltonians are useful in the study of quantum many-body systems using quantum computers. In the variational quantum eigensolver, a decomposition of the target Hamiltonian into exactly solvable fragments can be used for evaluation of the energies via repeated quantum measurements. In this work, we apply more general classes of exactly solvable qubit Hamiltonians than previously considered to address the Hamiltonian measurement problem. The most general exactly solvable Hamiltonians are defined by the condition that, within each simultaneous eigenspace of a set of Pauli symmetries, the Hamiltonian acts effectively as an element of a direct sum of so(N) Lie algebras, and can therefore be measured using a combination of unitaries in the associated Lie group, Clifford unitaries, and mid-circuit measurements. Application of such Hamiltonians to decomposing molecular electronic Hamiltonians via graph partitioning techniques shows a reduction in the total number of measurements required to estimate the expectation value compared with previously used exactly solvable qubit Hamiltonians.