arXiv subjects

Luca Ion

Publications and source records attributed to Luca Ion.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Emergence of a Macroscopic Cat State and Multi-Channel Entanglement in a Frustrated Cluster Spin Chain

We study a one-dimensional frustrated spin chain, which combines cluster-Ising and anisotropic next-nearest neighbor Ising models. We first offer a historical perspective that justifies the studied model. Then we study in detail the two quantum phases and prove that they are separated by a first order quantum phase transition. On one side, the ground state corresponds to a ferromagnetic phase, shows the presence of macroscopic cat states, and a small gap that closes in the thermodynamic limit. On the other phase, competing interactions avoid the establishment of a topological phase, though it conserves large incommensurate quantum correlations. We prove it is fundamentally distinct from a simple paramagnet, and we name it an incommensurate phase. This is a gapped phase, which gap does not close in the thermodynamic limit. While in the ferromagnetic phase there are two dominant Schmidt coefficients, in the incommensurate phase there are four. This corresponds to four distinct bipartite entanglement channels contributing substantially to the ground state. Finally, we discuss the utility of the macroscopic cat states for quantum metrology applications and the experimental feasibility of the system.

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arXiv2025

Variational quantum eigensolver for chemical molecules

Solving interacting multi-particle systems is a central challenge in quantum chemistry and condensed matter physics. In this work, we investigate the computation of ground states and ground-state energies for the He-H+ and H2O molecules using quantum computing techniques. We employ the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE), implemented both on a quantum computer simulator and on an IBM quantum device. The resulting energies are benchmarked against exact ground-state energies obtained via classical methods. Simulations of the H2O molecule were performed on Nottingham's High Performance Computing (HPC) facilities.

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arXiv2025

Adaptive time Compressed QITE (ACQ) and its geometrical interpretation

Imaginary time evolution (ITE) is a well-established method for ground-state preparation, a fundamental problem in many fields such as materials science, chemistry, and optimization. Quantum ITE (QITE) approximates this evolution on quantum hardware but suffers from high circuit depth and numerous measurements. In this work we introduce adaptive-time compressed QITE (ACQ), a novel algorithm that reduces resource-cost by combining adaptive time steps with circuit compression. This approach leverages geometric insights by characterizing its relationship to geodesic trajectories with a measure that distinguishes trajectories in CPN. Recalling that ITE is a gradient flow on the complex projective plane $\mathbb{CP}^N$, such trajectory measures allow one to measure the deviation from geodesicity of said flow. For Hamiltonians with only two distinct eigenvalues (spectral cardiality), ITE and QITE exactly trace geodesics, this fact motivates an adaptive strategy for systems whose corresponding spectral cardinality is greater than 2, where QITE unitaries are reused until an energy increase signals departure from the ITE path. This is implemented via a line search for energy minimization. Circuit compression is achieved by approximating the sequence of QITE unitaries with a single element of a one-parameter group. Numerical simulations on the transverse field Ising model and the Heisenberg model demonstrate that ACQ achieves comparable fidelity to standard QITE while significantly reducing the number of QITE optimizations and maintaining fixed circuit depth during propagation. Gate-count estimates and an analysis of the fidelity scaling with truncation parameters are provided. A gate count and performance comparison with the state of the art method double bracket QITE is also performed.

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arXiv2025

Understanding Quantum Imaginary Time Evolution and its Variational form

Many computationally hard problems can be encoded in quantum Hamiltonians. The solution to these problems is given by the ground states of these Hamiltonians. A state-of-the-art algorithm for finding the ground state of a Hamiltonian is the so-called Quantum Imaginary Time Evolution (QITE) which approximates imaginary time evolution by a unitary evolution that can be implemented in quantum hardware. In this paper, we review the original algorithm together with a comprehensive computer program, as well as, the variational version of it.

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