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arXiv:2208.06941 · Quantum

Time-marching based quantum solvers for time-dependent linear differential equations

Di Fang, Lin Lin, Yu Tong

Published Mar 20, 2023• 61 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The time-marching strategy, which propagates the solution from one time step to the next, is a natural strategy for solving time-dependent differential equations on classical computers, as well as for solving the Hamiltonian simulation problem on quantum computers. For more general homogeneous linear differential equations ddt|ψ(t)⟩=A(t)|ψ(t)⟩,|ψ(0)⟩=|ψ0⟩ , a time-marching based quantum solver can suffer from exponentially vanishing success probability with respect to the number of time steps and is thus considered impractical. We solve this problem by repeatedly invoking a technique called the uniform singular value amplification, and the overall success probability can be lower bounded by a quantity that is independent of the number of time steps. The success probability can be further improved using a compression gadget lemma. This provides a path of designing quantum differential equation solvers that is alternative to those based on quantum linear systems algorithms (QLSA). We demonstrate the performance of the time-marching strategy with a high-order integrator based on the truncated Dyson series. The complexity of the algorithm depends linearly on the amplification ratio, which quantifies the deviation from a unitary dynamics. We prove that the linear dependence on the amplification ratio attains the query complexity lower bound and thus cannot be improved in the worst case. This algorithm also surpasses existing QLSA based solvers in three aspects: (1) A(t) does not need to be diagonalizable. (2) A(t) can be non-smooth, and is only of bounded variation. (3) It can use fewer queries to the initial state |ψ0⟩ . Finally, we demonstrate the time-marching strategy with a first-order truncated Magnus series, which simplifies the implementation compared to high-order truncated Dyson series approach, while retaining the aforementioned benefits. Our analysis also raises some open questions concerning the differences between time-marching and QLSA based methods for solving differential equations.

DOI
10.22331/q-2023-03-20-955

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The time-marching strategy, which propagates the solution from one time step to the next, is a natural strategy for solving time-dependent differential equations on classical computers, as well as for solving the Hamiltonian simulation problem on quantum computers. For more general homogeneous linear differential equations ddt|ψ(t)⟩=A(t)|ψ(t)⟩,|ψ(0)⟩=|ψ0⟩ , a time-marching based quantum solver can suffer from exponentially vanishing success probability with respect to the number of time steps and is thus considered impractical. We solve this problem by repeatedly invoking a technique called the uniform singular value amplification, and the overall success probability can be lower bounded by a quantity that is independent of the number of time steps. The success probability can be further improved using a compression gadget lemma. This provides a path of designing quantum differential equation solvers that is alternative to those based on quantum linear systems algorithms (QLSA). We demonstrate the performance of the time-marching strategy with a high-order integrator based on the truncated Dyson series. The complexity of the algorithm depends linearly on the amplification ratio, which quantifies the deviation from a unitary dynamics. We prove that the linear dependence on the amplification ratio attains the query complexity lower bound and thus cannot be improved in the worst case. This algorithm also surpasses existing QLSA based solvers in three aspects: (1) A(t) does not need to be diagonalizable. (2) A(t) can be non-smooth, and is only of bounded variation. (3) It can use fewer queries to the initial state |ψ0⟩ . Finally, we demonstrate the time-marching strategy with a first-order truncated Magnus series, which simplifies the implementation compared to high-order truncated Dyson series approach, while retaining the aforementioned benefits. Our analysis also raises some open questions concerning the differences between time-marching and QLSA based methods for solving differential equations.
Time-dependent linear differential equations are a common type of problem that needs to be solved in classical physics. Here we provide a quantum algorithm for solving time-dependent linear differential equations with logarithmic dependence of the complexity on the error and derivative. As usual, there is an exponential improvement over classical approaches in the scaling of the complexity with the dimension, with the caveat that the solution is encoded in the amplitudes of a quantum state. Our method is to encode the Dyson series in a system of linear equations, then solve via the optimal quantum linear equation solver. Our method also provides a simplified approach in the case of time-independent differential equations.
This thesis describes quantum algorithms for Hamiltonian simulation, ordinary differential equations (ODEs), and partial differential equations (PDEs). Product formulas are used to simulate Hamiltonians which can be expressed as a sum of terms which can each be simulated individually. By simulating each of these terms in sequence, the net effect approximately simulates the total Hamiltonian. We find that the error of product formulas can be improved by randomizing over the order in which the Hamiltonian terms are simulated. We prove that this approach is asymptotically better than ordinary product formulas and present numerical comparisons for small numbers of qubits. The ODE algorithm applies to the initial value problem for time-independent first order linear ODEs. We approximate the propagator of the ODE by a truncated Taylor series, and we encode the initial value problem in a large linear system. We solve this linear system with a quantum linear system algorithm (QLSA) whose output we perform a post-selective measurement on. The resulting state encodes the solution to the initial value problem. We prove that our algorithm is asymptotically optimal with respect to several system parameters. The PDE algorithms apply the finite difference method (FDM) to Poisson's equation, the wave equation, and the Klein-Gordon equation. We use high order FDM approximations of the Laplacian operator to develop linear systems for Poisson's equation in cubic volumes under periodic, Neumann, and Dirichlet boundary conditions. Using QLSAs, we output states encoding solutions to Poisson's equation. We prove that our algorithm is exponentially faster with respect to the spatial dimension than analogous classical algorithms. We also consider how high order Laplacian approximations can be used for simulating the wave and Klein-Gordon equations. We consider under what conditions it suffices to use Hamiltonian simulation for time evolution, and we propose an algorithm for these cases that uses QLSAs for state preparation and post-processing.
We present an efficient, nearly optimal quantum algorithm for solving linear matrix differential equations, with applications to the simulation of open quantum systems and beyond. For unitary or dissipative dynamics, the algorithm computes an entry of the solution matrix with query complexity O~(νLt/ε)\widetilde{\mathcal{O}}(ν\mathcal{L} t/ε)O(νLt/ε), where the constant ννν depends on the problem parameters, L\mathcal{L}L involves a time integral of upper bounds on the norms of evolution operators, and εεε is the error. In particular, νLν\mathcal{L}νL is linear in ttt for unitary dynamics and can be a constant for dissipative dynamics. Our result contrasts prior quantum approaches for differential equations that typically require exponential time for this problem due to the encoding in a quantum state, which can lead to exponentially small amplitudes. We demonstrate the utility of the algorithm through an end-to-end application, namely the simulation of dissipative dynamics for non-interacting fermions, which can be extended to other quantum and classical systems. We compare with classical algorithms and give evidence of polynomial quantum speedups for systems in a lattice, which become more pronounced for systems with long-range interactions and can be shown to be exponential in general. We also provide a lower bound of Ω(νLt/ε)Ω(ν\mathcal{L} t/ε)Ω(νLt/ε) for unitary or dissipative dynamics that proves our algorithm is optimal up to logarithmic factors.
Quantum algorithms for Hamiltonian simulation and linear differential equations more generally have provided promising exponential speed-ups over classical computers on a set of problems with high real-world interest. However, extending this to a nonlinear problem has proven challenging, with exponential lower bounds having been demonstrated for the time scaling. We provide a quantum algorithm matching these bounds. Specifically, we find that for a non-linear differential equation of the form d|u⟩dt=A|u⟩+B|u⟩⊗2 for evolution of time T , error tolerance ϵ and c dependent on the strength of the nonlinearity, the number of queries to the differential operators that approaches the scaling of the quantum lower bound of eo(T‖B‖) queries in the limit of strong non-linearity. Finally, we introduce a classical algorithm based on the Euler method allowing comparably scaling to the quantum algorithm in a restricted case, as well as a randomized classical algorithm based on path integration that acts as a true analogue to the quantum algorithm in that it scales comparably to the quantum algorithm in cases where sign problems are absent.
Quantum linear systems algorithms (QLSAs) aim to solve linear systems $A\bb{x}=\bb{b}$ exponentially faster than classical methods under certain conditions. In this work, we develop quantum algorithms for solving linear algebraic equations from an ODE-based perspective. Inspired by the linear combination of Hamiltonian simulation (LCHS) representation in the Fourier approach \cite{Childs2017QLSA}, we express the solution $\bb{x}$ as a linear combination of solutions to a system of linear convection equations, which become Schrödinger-type equations with unitary evolutions in the Fourier domain. We refer to this representation as LC-Schrödingerization. Based on this result, we construct an LCHS-based quantum algorithm with two LCHS instances: one for time-marching and one for numerical integration. The key construction uses the derivative of a Gaussian-smoothed hat function and recovers the solution over a fixed auxiliary interval. This permits a truncation time independent of the target accuracy and avoids the loss in success probability from selecting a single grid point. Periodization and explicit Fourier coefficients provide the corresponding projection error bounds. Under the stated oracle assumptions and given a constant-factor estimate of the solution norm, direct simulation of the select operators and block preconditioning achieve the optimal matrix-query complexity O(κAlog⁡1ε)\mathcal{O}(κ_A\log\frac1\varepsilon)O(κA​logε1​) without using variable-time amplitude amplification (VTAA). The same upper bound holds for queries to the right-hand-side preparation oracle.
Finding the solution to linear ordinary differential equations of the form ∂tu(t)=−A(t)u(t)\partial_t u(t) = -A(t)u(t)∂t​u(t)=−A(t)u(t) has been a promising theoretical avenue for \textit{asymptotic} quantum speedups. However, despite the improvements to existing quantum differential equation solvers over the years, little is known about \textit{constant factor} costs of such quantum algorithms. This makes it challenging to assess the prospects for using these algorithms in practice. In this work, we prove constant factor bounds for a promising new quantum differential equation solver, the linear combination of Hamiltonian simulation (LCHS) algorithm. Our bounds are formulated as the number of queries to a unitary UAU_AUA​ that block encodes the generator AAA. In doing so, we make several algorithmic improvements such as tighter truncation and discretization bounds on the LCHS kernel integral, a more efficient quantum compilation scheme for the SELECT operator in LCHS, as well as use of a constant-factor bound for oblivious amplitude amplification, which may be of general interest. To the best of our knowledge, our new formulae improve over previous state of the art by at least two orders of magnitude, where the speedup can be far greater if state preparation has a significant cost. Accordingly, for any previous resource estimates of time-independent linear differential equations for the most general case whereby the dynamics are not \textit{fast-forwardable}, these findings provide a 100-200x reduction in runtime costs. This analysis contributes towards establishing more promising applications for quantum computing.