Hybrid quantum-gap-estimation algorithm using a filtered time series

Quantum simulation advantage over classical memory limitations would allow compact quantum circuits to yield insight into intractable quantum many-body problems, but the interrelated obstacles of large circuit depth in quantum time evolution and noise seem to rule out unbiased quantum simulation in the near term. We prove that classical postprocessing, i.e., long-time filtering of an offline time series, exponentially improves the circuit depth needed for quantum time evolution. We apply the filtering method to the construction of a hybrid quantum-classical algorithm to estimate energy gap, an important observable not governed by the variational theorem. We demonstrate, within an operating range of filtering, the success of the algorithm in a proof-of-concept simulation for finite-size scaling of a minimal spin model. Our findings set the stage for unbiased quantum simulation to offer memory advantage in the near term.