Quantum algorithm for weakly correlated molecular electronic ground states with sub-quintic scaling in the system size

arXiv:2611.00751v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Weakly correlated electronic structures are predominant among molecules, and are routinely solved with heuristic classical methods such as the ``gold standard'' CCSD(T) coupled cluster model, incurring a formal time complexity $O(n^7)$ in the number of molecular orbitals and with no guarantee of energy error $\varepsilon$ at or below chemical accuracy. In this work, a quantum algorithm is presented for ground state energy estimation of weakly correlated molecules using Trotterized time evolution, with an end-to-end quantum operations cost that scales as $\tilde{O}(n^{4.8}/\varepsilon^2)$ in the limit of high-order product formulae when run as a low-depth, shot-noise limited algorithm, or $\tilde{O}(n^{4.8} + n^{3.8}/\varepsilon)$ when…