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Updated: Sep 23, 2025

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Published on: May 27, 2020
Quantum computing of Hückel molecular orbitals of π-electron systems
Ryuhei Yoshida1, Erik Lötstedt1, Kaoru Yamanouchi1
1Department of Chemistry, School of Science, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan.
Abstract:
In order to demonstrate an applicability of quantum computing to fundamental electronic structure problems of molecules, we describe the Hückel Hamiltonian matrix in terms of quantum gates and obtain the orbital energies of fundamental π-electron molecules (C2H4, C3H4, C4H4, C4H6, and C6H6) using a superconducting-qubit-type quantum computer (ibm_kawasaki) with a post-selection error mitigation method. We show that the orbital energies are obtained with sufficiently high accuracy and small uncertainties and that characteristic features of the electronic structure of the π-electron molecules can be extracted by quantum computing in a straightforward manner.
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