Introduction to Quantum Algorithms for Physics and Chemistry

Abstract

An enormous number of model chemistries are used in computational chemistry to solve or approximately solve the Schrodinger equation; each with their own drawbacks. One key limitation is that the hardware used in computational chemistry is based on classical physics, and is often not well suited for simulating models in quantum physics. In this review, we focus on applications of quantum computation to chemical physics problems. We describe the algorithms that have been proposed for the electronic- structure problem, the simulation of chemical dynamics, thermal state preparation, density functional theory and adiabatic quantum simulation.