Generalized framework for fermion-to-qubit mappings through Clifford transformations

In order to simulate interacting fermionic systems on quantum computers, the first step is to encode the physical Hamiltonian into qubit operators. Existing encoding procedures such as the Jordan-Wigner transformation and Bravyi-Kitaev transformation are not resource efficient because they encode each second-quantized fermionic operator into a Pauli string without incorporating the structure of the Hamiltonian in question. We present a general framework that encompasses all encoding schemes that map n fermions to n qubits, and develop an optimization algorithm with Clifford transformations on top of this framework. This successfully recovers known optimal results for solvable models, and consistently reduces the Pauli weight by 15–20% for other models.

Pizza and drinks will be served after the seminar in ATL 2117.