  Strongly-correlated quantum many-body systems are difficult to study and
simulate classically. Our recent work [arXiv:2108.13401] proposed a variational
quantum eigensolver (VQE) based on the multiscale entanglement renormalization
ansatz (MERA) with tensors constrained to certain Trotter circuits. Here, we
extend the theoretical analysis, testing different initialization and
convergence schemes, determining the scaling of computation costs for various
critical spin models, and establishing a quantum advantage. For the Trotter
circuits being composed of single-qubit and two-qubit rotations, it is
experimentally advantageous to have small rotation angles. We find that the
average angle amplitude can be reduced substantially with negligible effect on
the energy accuracy. Benchmark simulations show that choosing TMERA tensors as
brick-wall circuits or parallel random-pair circuits yields very similar energy
accuracies.
