Classically Prepared, Quantumly Evolved: Hybrid Algorithm for Molecular Spectra

Abstract: We introduce a hybrid classical-quantum algorithm to compute dynamical correlation functions and excitation spectra in many-body quantum systems, with a focus on molecular systems. The method combines classical preparation of a perturbed ground state with short-time quantum evolution of product states sampled from it. The resulting quantum samples define an effective subspace of the Hilbert space, onto which the Hamiltonian is projected to enable efficient classical simulation of long-time dynamics. This subspace-based approach achieves high-resolution spectral reconstruction using shallow circuits and few samples. Benchmarks on molecular systems show excellent agreement with exact diagonalization and demonstrate access to dynamical timescales beyond the reach of purely classical methods, highlighting its suitability for near-term and early fault-tolerant quantum hardware.