Methods, systems and apparatus for targeting many-body states on a quantum computer. In one aspect, a method includes an adaptive phase shift method that includes preparing the quantum system in an initial state, wherein the initial state has non-zero overlap with the target eigenstate; preparing an ancilla qubit in a zero computational basis state; and iteratively applying a quantum eigenstate locking circuit to the quantum system and ancilla qubit until the state of the quantum system approximates the target eigenstate, wherein the quantum eigenstate locking circuit comprises a phase gate that, at each n-th iteration, is updated using a current average energy estimate of the quantum system.