Nicolas Sawaya1
Intel Corporation1
Quantum computers are poised to massively speed up the simulation of materials and chemistry, if a sufficiently advanced one can be built. Notably, the use of quantum computers to study phononic and vibrational (as opposed to electronic) degrees of freedom has been a relatively unexplored area. Here we discuss a range of quantum algorithms for calculating light-absorption cross-sections, thermal properties, and other quantities resulting from the motion of nuclei. We introduce data encodings with tunable memory-operations trade-offs, as well as more efficient quantum subroutines for calculating light-absorption properties. We end by discussing which classes of materials and quantities of interest are likely to require a quantum computer for accurate simulation.