We extend the ability of an unitary quantum circuit by interfacing it with a classical autoregressive neural network. The combined model parametrizes a variational density matrix as a classical mixture of quantum pure states, where the autoregressive network generates bitstring samples as input states to the quantum circuit. We devise an efficient variational algorithm to jointly optimize the classical neural network and the quantum circuit to solve quantum statistical mechanics problems. One can obtain thermal observables such as the variational free energy, entropy, and specific heat. As a byproduct, the algorithm also gives access to low energy excitation states. We demonstrate applications of the approach to thermal properties and excitation spectra of the quantum Ising model with resources that are feasible on near-term quantum computers.

We extend the ability of unitary quantum circuits by interfacing it with classical autoregressive neural networks. The combined model parametrizes a variational density matrix as a classical mixture of quantum pure states, where the autoregressive network generates bitstring samples as input states to the quantum circuit. We devise an efficient variational algorithm to jointly optimize the classical neural network and the quantum circuit for quantum statistical mechanics problems. One can obtain thermal observables such as the variational free energy, entropy, and specific heat. As a by product, the algorithm also gives access to low energy excitation states. We demonstrate applications to thermal properties and excitation spectra of the quantum Ising model with resources that are feasible on near-term quantum computers.

The non-Hermitian skin effect, namely, that the eigenvalues and eigenstates of a non-Hermitian tight-binding Hamiltonian have significant differences under open or periodic boundary conditions, is a remarkable phenomenon of non-Hermitian systems. Inspired by the presence of the non-Hermitian skin effect, we study the evolution of wave packets in non-Hermitian systems, which can be determined using the single-particle Green's function. Surprisingly, we find that in the thermodynamic limit, the Green's function does not depend on boundary conditions, despite the presence of skin effect. We provide a general proof for this statement in arbitrary dimension with finite hopping range, with an explicit illustration in the non-Hermitian Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model. We also explore its applications in noninteracting open quantum systems described by the master equation. We demonstrate that the evolution of the density matrix is independent of the boundary condition.

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