A look at the truths and misconceptions of the variational quantum eigensolver and the implications of overparameterization*

In this work, we investigate loss landscapes of the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) by quantifying the number of local minima through empirical analyses. We focus on minimal models in chemistry and physics in order to do a complete analysis using computationally expensive tools. We employ Hessian eigenvalue calculations and the nudged elastic band algorithm to characterize these landscapes. Our results expand upon the existing literature by highlighting the optimization challenges faced by VQE. We find that, as the number of parameters in our ansatz increases, the number of basins increases while the corresponding loss function values converge toward the global minimum value. This observation implies that overparameterization may lead to an "effective convexity" in VQE loss landscapes, a phenomenon supported by theoretical and numerical work in classical machine learning.