Operator relationship between conventional coupled cluster and unitary coupled cluster

TL;DR

This paper establishes an exact operator-level relationship between conventional and unitary coupled cluster methods using algebraic identities, aiding quantum chemistry computations.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic operator manipulation approach to relate and transform between conventional and unitary coupled cluster ansatzes.

Findings

Operator manipulations relate the two methods explicitly.

Trotter formula connects factorized forms to standard ansatz.

Higher-rank operators can convert between methods.

Abstract

The chemistry community has long sought the exact relationship between the conventional and the unitary coupled cluster ansatz for a single-reference system, especially given the interest in performing quantum chemistry on quantum computers. In this work, we show how one can use the operator manipulations given by the exponential disentangling identity and the Hadamard lemma to relate the factorized form of the unitary coupled-cluster approximation to a factorized form of the conventional coupled cluster approximation (the factorized form is required, because some amplitudes are operator-valued and do not commute with other terms). By employing the Trotter product formula, one can then relate the factorized form to the standard form of the unitary coupled cluster ansatz. The operator dependence of the factorized form of the coupled cluster approximation can also be removed at the expense of requiring even more higher-rank operators, finally yielding the conventional coupled cluster. The algebraic manipulations of this approach are daunting to carry out by hand, but can be automated on a computer for small enough systems.