Experimental challenges for molecular simulation on noisy quantum computers

Abstract

Major strides in hardware have led to the exploration of quantum advantage for molecular simulation even with noisy quantum computers. In this context, several recent experiments have implemented variational algorithms for addressing ground state energy problems of small molecules, and further extended this to the computation of molecular excited states. In the absence of quantum error correction, the accuracy of these computations is largely limited by decoherence and control errors. In this talk I will highlight some of these experimental challenges, and discuss how error mitigation schemes could be useful in this regard.