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Updated: Sep 15, 2025

Spatial Separation of Molecular Conformers and Clusters
Published on: January 9, 2014
Polynomial Scaling Localized Active Space Unitary Selective Coupled Cluster Singles and Doubles
Shreya Verma1, Ruhee D'Cunha1, Abhishek Mitra1
1Department of Chemistry, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, United States.
Abstract:
We present a polynomial-scaling algorithm for the localized active space unitary selective coupled cluster singles and doubles (LAS-USCCSD) method. In this approach, cluster excitations are selected based on a threshold ϵ determined by the absolute gradients of the LAS-UCCSD energy with respect to cluster amplitudes. Using the generalized Wick's theorem for multireference wave functions, we derive the gradient expression as a polynomial function of one-, two-, and three-body reduced density matrices and 1- and 2-electron integrals, valid for any multireference wave function. The resulting gradient implementation exhibits a memory scaling of (N6), with N spin orbitals in the combined active space of all fragments. The variational quantum eigensolver is used to optimize the selected cluster excitations on a quantum simulator. By plotting the energy error, defined as the difference between the LAS-USCCSD and corresponding CASCI energies, against the inverse cluster amplitude selection threshold (ϵ-1) for polyene chains containing 2 to 5 π-bond units, we establish a relationship between the energy error and the threshold. To further validate the accuracy of LAS-USCCSD, we computed the cis-trans isomerization energy of stilbene (a 20-qubit system) and the magnetic coupling constant of the tris-hydroxo-bridged chromium dimer [Cr2(OH)3(NH3)6]3+ (evaluated as both 12- and 20-qubit systems) using the Qiskit-Qulacs simulator. Assessing such examples is important to determine the practical feasibility of quantum simulations for chemically realistic systems. Toward this goal, with the LAS-USCCSD algorithm we estimated the quantum resources required for simulating an active space of (30e,22o) in [Cr2(OH)3(NH3)6]3+, a size that remains beyond the reach of current quantum simulators for accurate treatment.
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