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arXiv:2303.06161

Simulating non-unitary dynamics using quantum signal processing with unitary block encoding

Hans Hon Sang Chan, David Muñoz Ramo, Nathan Fitzpatrick

Published Mar 10, 2023• 3 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We adapt a recent advance in resource-frugal quantum signal processing - the Quantum Eigenvalue Transform with Unitary matrices (QET-U) - to explore non-unitary imaginary time evolution on early fault-tolerant quantum computers using exactly emulated quantum circuits. We test strategies for optimising the circuit depth and the probability of successfully preparing the desired imaginary-time evolved states. For the task of ground state preparation, we confirm that the probability of successful post-selection is quadratic in the initial reference state overlap $γ$ as $O(γ^2)$. When applied instead to thermal state preparation, we show QET-U can directly estimate partition functions at exponential cost. Finally, we combine QET-U with Trotter product formula to perform non-normal Hamiltonian simulation in the propagation of Lindbladian open quantum system dynamics. We find that QET-U for non-unitary dynamics is flexible, intuitive and straightforward to use, and suggest ways for delivering quantum advantage in simulation tasks.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2303.06161

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We adapt a recent advance in resource-frugal quantum signal processing - the Quantum Eigenvalue Transform with Unitary matrices (QET-U) - to explore non-unitary imaginary time evolution on early fault-tolerant quantum computers using exactly emulated quantum circuits. We test strategies for optimising the circuit depth and the probability of successfully preparing the desired imaginary-time evolved states. For the task of ground state preparation, we confirm that the probability of successful post-selection is quadratic in the initial reference state overlap γγγ as O(γ2)O(γ^2)O(γ2). When applied instead to thermal state preparation, we show QET-U can directly estimate partition functions at exponential cost. Finally, we combine QET-U with Trotter product formula to perform non-normal Hamiltonian simulation in the propagation of Lindbladian open quantum system dynamics. We find that QET-U for non-unitary dynamics is flexible, intuitive and straightforward to use, and suggest ways for delivering quantum advantage in simulation tasks.
Under suitable assumptions, the algorithms in [Lin, Tong, Quantum 2020] can estimate the ground state energy and prepare the ground state of a quantum Hamiltonian with near-optimal query complexities. However, this is based on a block encoding input model of the Hamiltonian, whose implementation is known to require a large resource overhead. We develop a tool called quantum eigenvalue transformation of unitary matrices with real polynomials (QET-U), which uses a controlled Hamiltonian evolution as the input model, a single ancilla qubit and no multi-qubit control operations, and is thus suitable for early fault-tolerant quantum devices. This leads to a simple quantum algorithm that outperforms all previous algorithms with a comparable circuit structure for estimating the ground state energy. For a class of quantum spin Hamiltonians, we propose a new method that exploits certain anti-commutation relations and further removes the need of implementing the controlled Hamiltonian evolution. Coupled with Trotter based approximation of the Hamiltonian evolution, the resulting algorithm can be very suitable for early fault-tolerant quantum devices. We demonstrate the performance of the algorithm using IBM Qiskit for the transverse field Ising model. If we are further allowed to use multi-qubit Toffoli gates, we can then implement amplitude amplification and a new binary amplitude estimation algorithm, which increases the circuit depth but decreases the total query complexity. The resulting algorithm saturates the near-optimal complexity for ground state preparation and energy estimating using a constant number of ancilla qubits (no more than 3).
Efficient low-energy state preparation is a key objective in quantum computation and quantum simulation. Quantum imaginary-time evolution replaces real-time dynamics with imaginary-time dynamics, exponentially suppressing higher-energy eigenstates. We introduce deterministic unitary protocols that approximate imaginary-time evolution for ground state preparation. The protocols require multiple copies of the system, real-time evolution under the system Hamiltonian, and controlled-SWAP operations (or more general SWAP-generated unitaries). Our analysis focuses on two concrete circuit families: a tree architecture with provable polynomial-in-depth convergence but rapidly growing width, and a compact "hedge" architecture that achieves comparable accuracy with only polynomial width in a heuristic construction supported by numerics. Numerical evidence indicates that mid-circuit post-selection can accelerate convergence with practical success probabilities. Separately, we demonstrate that circuit volume can be traded for the shot complexity of post-circuit observable estimation in the ground state preparation setting. Finally, we outline concrete platform-specific implementations in which multi-copy registers and SWAP-mediated couplings are natural, illustrating how these hybrid analog-digital circuits can complement existing state-preparation methods in the near term.
We present several improvements to the recently developed ground-state preparation algorithm based on the quantum eigenvalue transformation for unitary matrices (QETU), apply this algorithm to a lattice formulation of U(1) gauge theory in (2+1)(2+1)(2+1) dimensions, as well as propose an alternative application of QETU, a highly efficient preparation of Gaussian distributions. The QETU technique was originally proposed as an algorithm for nearly optimal ground-state preparation and ground-state energy estimation on early fault-tolerant devices. It uses the time-evolution input model, which can potentially overcome the large overall prefactor in the asymptotic gate cost arising in similar algorithms based on the Hamiltonian input model. We present modifications to the original QETU algorithm that significantly reduce the cost for the cases of both exact and Trotterized implementation of the time evolution circuit. We use QETU to prepare the ground state of a U(1) lattice gauge theory in two spatial dimensions, explore the dependence of computational resources on the desired precision and system parameters, and discuss the applicability of our results to general lattice gauge theories. We also demonstrate how the QETU technique can be utilized for preparing Gaussian distributions and wave packets in a way which outperforms existing algorithms for as little as ${n}_{q}\ensuremath{\gtrsim}2--5$ qubits.
We propose an imaginary time equivalent of the well-established Pauli gadget primitive for Trotter-decomposed real time evolution, using mid-circuit measurements on a single ancilla qubit. Imaginary time evolution (ITE) is widely used for obtaining the ground state of a system on classical hardware, computing thermal averages, and as a component of quantum algorithms that perform non-unitary evolution. Near-term implementations on quantum hardware rely on heuristics, compromising their accuracy. As a result, there is growing interest in the development of more natively quantum algorithms. Since it is not possible to implement a non-unitary gate deterministically, we resort to the implementation of probabilistic imaginary time evolution (PITE) algorithms, which rely on a unitary quantum circuit to simulate a block encoding of the ITE operator - that is, they rely on successful ancillary measurements to evolve the system non-unitarily. Compared with previous PITE proposals, the suggested block encoding in this paper results in shorter circuits and is simpler to implement, requiring only a slight modification of the Pauli gadget primitive. This scheme was tested on the transverse Ising model and the fermionic Hubbard model and is demonstrated to converge to the ground state of the system.
We propose an imaginary time equivalent of the well-established Pauli gadget primitive for Trotter-decomposed real time evolution, using mid-circuit measurements on a single ancilla qubit. Imaginary time evolution (ITE) is widely used for obtaining the ground state (GS) of a system on classical hardware, computing thermal averages, and as a component of quantum algorithms that perform non-unitary evolution. Near-term implementations on quantum hardware rely on heuristics, compromising their accuracy. As a result, there is growing interest in the development of more natively quantum algorithms. Since it is not possible to implement a non-unitary gate deterministically, we resort to the implementation of probabilistic ITE (PITE) algorithms, which rely on a unitary quantum circuit to simulate a block encoding of the ITE operator-that is, they rely on successful ancillary measurements to evolve the system non-unitarily. Compared with previous PITE proposals, our suggested block encoding results in shorter circuits and is simpler to implement, requiring only a slight modification of the Pauli gadget primitive. This scheme was tested on the fermionic Hubbard model and is demonstrated to converge to the GS of the system [1].
Abstract We propose an imaginary time equivalent of the well-established Pauli gadget primitive for Trotter-decomposed real time evolution, using mid-circuit measurements on a single ancilla qubit. Imaginary time evolution (ITE) is widely used for obtaining the ground state (GS) of a system on classical hardware, computing thermal averages, and as a component of quantum algorithms that perform non-unitary evolution. Near-term implementations on quantum hardware rely on heuristics, compromising their accuracy. As a result, there is growing interest in the development of more natively quantum algorithms. Since it is not possible to implement a non-unitary gate deterministically, we resort to the implementation of probabilistic ITE (PITE) algorithms, which rely on a unitary quantum circuit to simulate a block encoding of the ITE operator—that is, they rely on successful ancillary measurements to evolve the system non-unitarily. Compared with previous PITE proposals, the suggested block encoding in this paper results in shorter circuits and is simpler to implement, requiring only a slight modification of the Pauli gadget primitive. This scheme was tested on the transverse Ising model and the fermionic Hubbard model and is demonstrated to converge to the GS of the system.