Simulation of Fermionic circuits using Majorana Propagation

Abstract

We introduce Majorana Propagation, an algorithmic framework for the classical simulation of Fermionic circuits. Inspired by Pauli Propagation, Majorana Propagation operates by applying successive truncations throughout the Heisenberg evolution of the observable. We identify monomial length as an effective truncation strategy for typical, unstructured circuits by proving that high-length Majorana monomials are exponentially unlikely to contribute to expectation values and the backflow of high-length monomials to lower-length monomials is quadratically suppressed. We provide performance guarantees by proving analytically that approximation errors decrease exponentially with the truncation threshold and that only polynomial resources are required to compute the expectation value of observables up to a fixed error for an ensemble of circuits relevant to quantum chemistry. Majorana Propagation can be used either independently, or in conjunction with quantum hardware, to simulate Fermionic systems relevant to quantum chemistry and condensed matter. We exemplify this by using Majorana Propagation to find circuits that approximate ground states for strongly correlated systems of up to 52 Fermionic modes. Our results indicate that Majorana Propagation is orders of magnitude faster and more accurate than state-of-the-art tensor-network-based circuit simulators.