Ground state energy and phase transitions of Long-range XXZ using VQE

Abstract

The variational quantum eigen solver (VQE), has been widely used to find the ground state energy of different Hamiltonians with no analytical solutions and are classically difficult to compute. In our work, we have used VQE to identify the phase transition boundary for an infinite order phase transition. We use long-range XXZ (LRXXZ) chain for our study. In order to probe infinite order phase transition, we propose to utilise the ground state energy obtained from VQE. The idea rests on the argument that VQE requires an ansatz circuit; therefore, the accuracy of the VQE will rely on this ansatz circuit. We have designed this circuit such that the estimated ground state energy is sensitive to the phase it is evaluated in. It is achieved by applying the constraint that the net spin remains constant throughout the optimisation process. Consequently, the ansatz works in a certain phase where it gives relatively small random error, as it should, when compared to the error in ground state energy calculations of the other phases, where the ansatz fails. By identifying these changes in the behaviour of the error in ground state energy using VQE, we were able to determine the phase boundaries. Using exact diagonalisation, we also compare the behaviour of the energy gradient and energy gap across both the phase transition boundaries for this model. Further, by increasing the depth of the optimisation circuit, we also accurately evaluate the ground energy of the LRXXZ chain for the value of coupling constant, J equal to -1