This paper proposes a method of quantum Monte Carlo integration that retains the full quadratic quantum advantage, without requiring any arithmetic or quantum phase estimation to be performed on the quantum computer. No previous proposal for quantum Monte Carlo integration has achieved all of these at once. The heart of the proposed method is a Fourier series decomposition of the sum that approximates the expectation in Monte Carlo integration, with each component then estimated individually using quantum amplitude estimation. The main result is presented as theoretical statement of asymptotic advantage, and numerical results are also included to illustrate the practical benefits of the proposed method. The method presented in this paper is the subject of a patent application [Quantum Computing System and Method: Patent application GB2102902.0 and SE2130060-3].
This paper proposes a method of quantum Monte Carlo integration that retains the full quadratic quantum advantage, without requiring any arithmetic or quantum phase estimation to be performed on the quantum computer. No previous proposal for quantum Monte Carlo integration has achieved all of these at once. The heart of the proposed method is a Fourier series decomposition of the sum that approximates the expectation in Monte Carlo integration, with each component then estimated individually using quantum amplitude estimation. The main result is presented as theoretical statement of asymptotic advantage, and numerical results are also included to illustrate the practical benefits of the proposed method. The method presented in this paper is the subject of a patent application [Quantum Computing System and Method: Patent application GB2102902.0 and SE2130060-3].
The approximation of an integral with numerical integration methods is a relevant problem in many fields, from finance to chemistry. Monte Carlo methods are a family of methods widely used for numerical integration but which are not always applicable to industrial tasks. Instead, there are quantum computing methods such as Quantum Amplitude Estimation able to offer a speed-up compared to the Monte Carlo methods for numerical integration which promise a significant impact, especially in finance. The Quantum Amplitude Estimation algorithm is a fundamental quantum algorithm with the potential to achieve a quadratic speed-up. Unfortunately, being competitive over classical Monte Carlo methods would require hardware performances currently not available. Therefore, alternative methods have been developed in order to exploit fewer resources while maintaining an advantageous theoretical scaling. We present a comparison between the standard QAE algorithm and two NISQ-friendly versions of the QAE on a numerical integration task. The Monte Carlo technique of Metropolis-Hastings instead is used as a classical benchmark. The scaling of the different algorithms are evaluated in terms of estimation error as a function of the number of samples, computational time, and length of the quantum circuits required by the quantum solutions. The conclusion highlights that an alternative approach is preferable with respect to employng the phase estimation routine. Indeed, the maximum likelihood estimation guarantees the best trade-off between the length of the quantum circuits and the precision in the integral estimation.
Numerical integration with Monte Carlo methods is a central computational task in many scientific and industrial applications, including financial derivative pricing and risk management. Classical Monte Carlo algorithms are computationally demanding: achieving an accuracy ε typically requires a number of function evaluations scaling as O(1/ε2). Quantum-accelerated Monte Carlo methods based on quantum amplitude estimation can in principle quadratically improve this dependence. However, \textit{quasi}-Monte Carlo methods have not been explored in the quantum context. In this work, we introduce a quantum quasi-Monte Carlo algorithm that combines low-discrepancy nets with quantum amplitude estimation. The proposed method prepares the quasi-random point set coherently in superposition. The method does not yield an asymptotic improvement over classical quasi-Monte Carlo, since the total error separates into a discretization error, determined by the finite net, and a quantum estimation error. Instead, we explore a pre-asymptotic advantage window: for a target accuracy that would classically require 2q low discrepancy points, one can prepare a higher-resolution net of size 2Q, with Q>q, in superposition and reach the same accuracy using significantly fewer function queries. This window can be controlled by tuning the circuit resolution and amplitude-estimation parameters, making the approach relevant for practical regimes where the number of queries is finite rather than asymptotically large.
This work investigates in detail the performance and advantages of a new quantum Monte Carlo integrator, dubbed quantum Fourier iterative amplitude estimation (QFIAE), to numerically evaluate for the first time loop Feynman integrals in a near-term quantum computer and a quantum simulator. In order to achieve a quadratic speedup, QFIAE introduces a quantum neural network (QNN) that efficiently decomposes the multidimensional integrand into its Fourier series. For a one-loop tadpole Feynman diagram, we have successfully implemented the quantum algorithm on a real quantum computer and obtained a reasonable agreement with the analytical values. One-loop Feynman diagrams with more external legs have been analyzed in a quantum simulator. These results thoroughly illustrate how our quantum algorithm effectively estimates loop Feynman integrals and the method employed could also find applications in other fields such as finance, artificial intelligence, or other physical sciences. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Abstract Quantum computers have the potential to provide quadratic speedup for Monte Carlo methods currently used in various classical applications. In this work, we examine the advantage of quantum computers for financial option pricing with the Monte Carlo method. Systematic and statistical errors are handled in a joint framework, and a relationship to quantum gate error is established. New metrics are introduced for the assessment of quantum advantage based on sample count and optimized error handling. We implement and analyze a Fourier series based approach and demonstrate its benefit over the more traditional rescaling method in function approximation. Our numerical calculations reveal the unpredictable nature of systematic errors, making consistent quantum advantage difficult with current quantum hardware. Our results indicate that very low noise levels, a two-qubit gate error rate below 10−6, are necessary for the quantum method to outperform the classical one, but a low number of logical qubits (ca. 20) may be sufficient to see quantum advantage already.
The Quantum Amplitude Estimation (QAE) algorithm is a major quantum algorithm designed to achieve a quadratic speed-up. Until fault-tolerant quantum computing is achieved, being competitive over classical Monte Carlo (MC) remains elusive. Alternative methods have been developed so as to require fewer resources while maintaining an advantageous theoretical scaling. We compared the standard QAE algorithm with two Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ)-friendly versions of QAE on a numerical integration task, with the Monte Carlo technique of Metropolis–Hastings as a classical benchmark. The algorithms were evaluated in terms of the estimation error as a function of the number of samples, computational time, and length of the quantum circuits required by the solutions, respectively. The effectiveness of the two QAE alternatives was tested on an 11-qubit trapped-ion quantum computer in order to verify which solution can first provide a speed-up in the integral estimation problems. We concluded that an alternative approach is preferable with respect to employing the phase estimation routine. Indeed, the Maximum Likelihood estimation guaranteed the best trade-off between the length of the quantum circuits and the precision in the integral estimation, as well as greater resistance to noise.
Monte Carlo integration is a widely used numerical method for approximating integrals, which is often computationally expensive. In recent years, quantum computing has shown promise for speeding up Monte Carlo integration, and several quantum algorithms have been proposed to achieve this goal. In this paper, we present an application of Quantum Machine Learning (QML) and Grover's amplification to build a new quantum algorithm for estimating Monte Carlo integrals. Our method, which we call Quantum Fourier Iterative Amplitude Estimation (QFIAE), decomposes the target function into its Fourier series using a Parametrized Quantum Circuit (PQC), specifically a Quantum Neural Network (QNN), and then inte- grates each trigonometric component using Iterative Quantum Amplitude Estimation (IQAE). This approach builds on Fourier Quantum Monte Carlo Integration (FQMCI) method, which also decomposes the target function into its Fourier series, but QFIAE avoids the need for numerical integration of Fourier coefficients. This approach reduces the computational load while maintaining the quadratic speedup achieved by IQAE. To evaluate the performance of QFIAE, we apply it to a test function corresponding to a particle physics scattering process and compare its accuracy with other quantum integration methods and the analytic result. Our results show that QFIAE achieves comparable accuracy while being suitable for execution on real hardware. We also demonstrate how the accuracy of QFIAE improves by increasing the number of terms in the Fourier series.