https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/s10050-022-00911-7
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Symmetry breaking/symmetry preserving circuits and symmetry restoration on quantum computers
A quantum many-body perspective
1
Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS/IN2P3, IJCLab, 91405, Orsay, France
2
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 53706, Madison, WI, USA
a
denis.lacroix@ijclab.in2p3.fr
Received:
5
September
2022
Accepted:
15
December
2022
Published online:
10
January
2023
We discuss here some aspects related to the symmetries of a quantum many-body problem when trying to treat it on a quantum computer. Several features related to symmetry conservation, symmetry breaking, and possible symmetry restoration are reviewed. After briefly discussing some of the standard symmetries relevant for many-particle systems, we discuss the advantage of encoding some symmetries directly in quantum ansätze, especially to reduce the quantum register size. It is, however, well-known that the use of symmetry-breaking states can also be a unique way to incorporate specific internal correlations when a spontaneous symmetry breaking occurs. These aspects are discussed in the quantum computing context. Ultimately, an accurate description of quantum systems can be achieved only when the initially broken symmetries are properly restored. We review several methods explored previously to perform symmetry restoration on a quantum computer, for instance, the ones based on symmetry filtering by quantum phase estimation and by an iterative independent set of Hadamard tests. We propose novel methods that pave the new directions to perform symmetry restoration, like those based on the purification of the state employing the linear combination of unitaries (LCU) approach.
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2023. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
