Towards determining the presence of barren plateaus in some chemically inspired variational quantum algorithms

In quantum chemistry, the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) is a promising algorithm for molecular simulations on near-term quantum computers. However, VQEs using hardware-efficient circuits face scaling challenges due to the barren plateau problem. This raises the question of whether chemically inspired circuits from unitary coupled cluster (UCC) methods can avoid this issue. Here we provide theoretical evidence indicating they may not. By examining alternated dUCC ansätzes and relaxed Trotterized UCC ansätzes, we find that in the infinite depth limit, a separation occurs between particle-hole one- and two-body unitary operators. While one-body terms yield a polynomially concentrated energy landscape, adding two-body terms leads to exponential concentration. Numerical simulations support these findings, suggesting that popular 1-step Trotterized unitary coupled-cluster with singles and doubles (UCCSD) ansätze may not scale. Our results emphasize the link between trainability and circuit expressiveness, raising doubts about VQEs’ ability to surpass classical methods. The variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) is a promising approach for molecular simulations on quantum computers but faces scaling issues due to the barren plateau problem. The authors’ findings indicate that unitary coupled cluster circuits may not overcome these challenges, raising doubts about VQE’s ability to outperform classical methods.