Turning qubit noise into a blessing: Automatic state preparation and long-time dynamics for impurity models on quantum computers

Abstract: Noise is often regarded as a limitation of quantum computers. In this work, we show that in the dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) approach to strongly-correlated systems, it can actually be harnessed to our advantage. Indeed, DMFT maps a lattice model onto an impurity model, namely a finite system coupled to a dissipative bath. While standard approaches require a large number of high-quality qubits in a unitary context, we propose a circuit that harvests amplitude damping to reproduce the dynamics of this model with a blend of noisy and noiseless qubits. We find compelling advantages with this approach: a substantial reduction in the number of qubits, the ability to reach longer time dynamics, and no need for ground state search and preparation. This method would naturally fit in a partial quantum error correction framework.