High-Precision Variational Quantum SVD via Classical Orthogonality Correction
Evaluating the entanglement spectrum is essential for characterizing exotic quantum phases such as quantum criticality and topological order. However, for large quantum many-body systems, this task is hindered by the exponential measurement complexity of standard tomographic techniques. To address this challenge, we introduce a hybrid quantum-classical variational framework for partial singular value decomposition of bipartite states, built on the canonical form of matrix product states. We employ a deflation-based optimization approach to sequentially extract dominant and subdominant Schmidt components of target states. Because hardware noise and finite circuit depth can compromise the mutual orthogonality of these extracted vectors, we propose an improved deflation algorithm incorporating explicit classical orthogonality correction. This classical post-processing acts as an error-filtering mechanism, enabling shallow and suboptimal quantum circuits. As a result, numerical accuracy is decoupled from quantum circuit optimization, mitigating optimization difficulties caused by barren plateaus and hardware noise. Furthermore, shallow ansatzes enable a concurrent execution strategy. Overlap matrices are evaluated by classical tensor network contractions, while cross terms between the target state and the extracted vectors are computed using an auxiliary reference state. This concurrent hybrid design improves computational throughput and bypasses the overhead of controlled target-state preparation. Numerical benchmarks on the ground states of one- and two-dimensional Heisenberg models demonstrate improved accuracy and numerical stability. By mitigating hurdles of circuit depth, optimization hardness, and measurement complexity, our framework provides a robust pathway for large-scale entanglement spectrum estimation on advanced near-term quantum devices.