Variational ansatz-based quantum simulation of imaginary time evolution

Understand

Imaginary time evolution is a powerful tool for studying quantum systems.

• While it is possible to simulate with a classical computer, the time and memory requirements generally scale exponentially with the system size.
• Conversely, quantum computers can efficiently simulate quantum systems, but not non-unitary imaginary time evolution.
• We propose a variational algorithm for simulating imaginary time evolution on a hybrid quantum computer.