Differentiable quantum computational chemistry with PennyLane

Abstract

This work describes the theoretical foundation for all quantum chemistry functionality in PennyLane, a quantum computing software library specializing in quantum differentiable programming. We provide an overview of fundamental concepts in quantum chemistry, including the basic principles of the Hartree-Fock method. A flagship feature in PennyLane is the differentiable Hartree-Fock solver, allowing users to compute exact gradients of molecular Hamiltonians with respect to nuclear coordinates and basis set parameters. PennyLane provides specialized operations for quantum chemistry, including excitation gates as Givens rotations and templates for quantum chemistry circuits. Moreover, built-in simulators exploit sparse matrix techniques for representing molecular Hamiltonians that lead to fast simulation for quantum chemistry applications. In combination with PennyLane's existing methods for constructing, optimizing, and executing circuits, these methods allow users to implement a wide range of quantum algorithms for quantum chemistry. We discuss how PennyLane can be used to implement variational algorithms for calculating ground-state energies, excited-state energies, and energy derivatives, all of which can be differentiated with respect to both circuit and Hamiltonian parameters. We provide an example workflow describing how to jointly optimize circuit parameters, nuclear coordinates, and basis set parameters for quantum chemistry algorithms. We discuss a functionality for reducing the number of qubits by using symmetries and explain how PennyLane can be used to estimate quantum resources needed to implement several quantum algorithms. By combining insights from quantum computing, computational chemistry, and machine learning, PennyLane is the first library for differentiable quantum computational chemistry.

References in corpus (7)

• PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library
• Supplementary information for "Quantum supremacy using a programmable superconducting processor"
• Open source software in quantum computing
• DQC: a Python program package for Differentiable Quantum Chemistry
• Calculus on parameterized quantum circuits
• Fundamentals of Molecular Integrals Evaluation
• QForte: an efficient state simulator and quantum algorithms library for molecular electronic structure

Cited by in corpus (5)

• JARVIS-Leaderboard: A Large Scale Benchmark of Materials Design Methods
• Differentiable quantum chemistry with PySCF for molecules and materials at the mean-field level and beyond
• Recent progress in the JARVIS infrastructure for next-generation data-driven materials design
• Relative energies without electronic perturbations via Alchemical Integral Transform
• MOLPIPx: an end-to-end differentiable package for permutationally invariant polynomials in Python and Rust