Simulating and sampling from quantum circuits with 2D tensor networks

Abstract

Classical simulations of quantum circuits play a vital role in the development of quantum computers and for taking the temperature of the field. Here, we classically simulate various physically-motivated circuits using 2D tensor network ansätze for the many-body wavefunction which match the geometry of the underlying quantum processor. We then employ a generalized version of the boundary Matrix Product State contraction algorithm to controllably generate samples from the resultant tensor network states. Our approach allows us to systematically converge both the quality of the final state and the samples drawn from it to the true distribution defined by the circuit, with GPU hardware providing us with significant speedups over CPU hardware. With these methods, we simulate the largest local unitary Jastrow ansatz circuit taken from recent IBM experiments to numerical precision. We also study a domain-wall quench in a two-dimensional discrete-time Heisenberg model on large heavy-hex and rotated square lattices, which reflect IBM's and Google's latest quantum processors respectively. We observe a rapid buildup of complex loop correlations on the Google Willow geometry which significantly impact the local properties of the system. Meanwhile, we find loop correlations build up extremely slowly on heavy-hex processors and have almost negligible impact on the local properties of the system, even at large circuit depths. Our results underscore the role the geometry of the quantum processor plays in classical simulability.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. npj Quantum Information, 2026 · DOI ↗