Numerical simulation of turbulent fluid dynamics needs to either parametrize turbulence—which introduces large uncertainties—or explicitly resolve the smallest scales—which is prohibitively expensive. Here, we provide evidence through analytic bounds and numerical studies that a potential quantum speedup can be achieved to simulate fluid dynamics using quantum computing. Specifically, we provide a lattice Boltzmann formulation of fluid dynamics for which we give evidence that low-order Carleman linearization is much more accurate than previously believed for these systems. This is achieved via a combination of reformulating the Navier-Stokes nonlinearity ( u · ∇ u ) to lattice-Boltzmann nonlinearity ( u 2 ) and accurately linearizing the dynamical equations, which effectively trades nonlinearity for additional degrees of freedom that add negligible expense in the quantum solver. Based on this, we apply a quantum algorithm for simulating the Carleman-linearized lattice Boltzmann equation and provide evidence that its cost scales logarithmically with system size compared with polynomial scaling in the best known classical algorithms. In this paper, we suggest that a quantum advantage may exist for simulating fluid dynamics, paving the way for simulating nonlinear multiscale transport phenomena in a wide range of disciplines using quantum computing.
Numerical simulation of turbulent fluid dynamics needs to either parametrize turbulence—which introduces large uncertainties—or explicitly resolve the smallest scales—which is prohibitively expensive. Here, we provide evidence through analytic bounds and numerical studies that a potential quantum speedup can be achieved to simulate fluid dynamics using quantum computing. Specifically, we provide a lattice Boltzmann formulation of fluid dynamics for which we give evidence that low-order Carleman linearization is much more accurate than previously believed for these systems. This is achieved via a combination of reformulating the Navier-Stokes nonlinearity ( u · ∇ u ) to lattice-Boltzmann nonlinearity ( u 2 ) and accurately linearizing the dynamical equations, which effectively trades nonlinearity for additional degrees of freedom that add negligible expense in the quantum solver. Based on this, we apply a quantum algorithm for simulating the Carleman-linearized lattice Boltzmann equation and provide evidence that its cost scales logarithmically with system size compared with polynomial scaling in the best known classical algorithms. In this paper, we suggest that a quantum advantage may exist for simulating fluid dynamics, paving the way for simulating nonlinear multiscale transport phenomena in a wide range of disciplines using quantum computing.
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a cornerstone of classical scientific computing, and there is growing interest in whether quantum computers can accelerate such simulations. The existing proposals for fault-tolerant quantum algorithms for CFD have almost exclusively been based on the Carleman embedding method, used to encode nonlinearities on a quantum computer. Here, we first identify several key challenges that must be addressed in order to establish quantum advantage using this method, including Carleman convergence, time-stepping requirements, condition-number scaling, and data extraction. Building on this analysis, we develop a novel algorithm for the incompressible lattice Boltzmann equation that addresses them, and provide its detailed analysis, including all potential sources of algorithmic complexity, as well as gate count estimates. We find that for an end-to-end problem, a modest quantum advantage may be preserved for selected observables in the high-error-tolerance regime. We establish a lower bound for the Reynolds number scaling of our quantum algorithm in dimension D at Kolmogorov microscale resolution with O(Re43(1+2D)×qM), where qM is a multiplicative overhead for data extraction with qM=O(Re83) for the drag force. This upper bounds the scaling improvement over classical algorithms by O(Re83D). However, our numerical investigations suggest a lower speedup, with a scaling estimate of O(Re1.936×qM) for D=2. Our results give robust evidence that small, but nontrivial, quantum advantages can be achieved in the context of CFD, and motivate the need for additional rigorous end-to-end quantum algorithm development.
Quantum computing holds transformative potential for simulating nonlinear physical systems, such as fluid turbulence. However, mapping nonlinear dynamics to the linear operations required by quantum hardware remains a fundamental challenge. Here, we bridge this gap by introducing a novel node-level ensemble description of a lattice gas, which enables the simulation of nonlinear fluid dynamics on quantum computers. This approach combines the advantages of the lattice Boltzmann method with low-dimensional representation (computational cost) and lattice gas cellular automata with linear collision treatment (quantum compatibility). Building on this framework, we propose a quantum lattice Boltzmann method that relies on linear operations with medium dimensionality, offering the potential for quantum speedup. We validated the algorithm through simulations of vortex-pair merging and decaying turbulence on up to 16.8 million computational grid points. The results demonstrate remarkable agreement with direct numerical simulation, effectively capturing the essential nonlinear mechanisms of fluid dynamics. This work potentially advances the development of quantum algorithms for other nonlinear problems across various transport phenomena in engineering.
The implementation of quantum algorithms for the simulation of classical fluid dynamics poses a fundamental challenge due to the nonlinearity of the fluid equations. In this work, we provide a pedagogical introduction to quantum computing algorithms for simulating classical fluids, with a special focus on the Carleman-Lattice Boltzmann algorithm, which has captured significant attention in the last couple of years. While this algorithm demonstrates satisfactory convergence to analytical solutions for systems at low-to-moderate Reynolds numbers, it also shows an exponential depth of the corresponding quantum circuit. As a result much further analysis is needed to assess the availability of the Carleman-Lattice Boltzmann method on a quantum computer.
Quantum computation of fluid dynamics has attracted growing attention as a key application of fault-tolerant quantum computers anticipated in the coming decade, with lattice Boltzmann methods emerging as a particularly promising approach. Explicit and efficient elementary-gate-level circuit simulations, however, have so far been demonstrated only in the linear case. Here we include the leading nonlinearity through second-order Carleman linearization of the one-dimensional Boltzmann equation, and demonstrate, via explicit quantum-circuit simulation, the preparation of the final-time state using a Taylor-expansion-based ODE solver based on the quantum singular value transformation. With this construction, we analyze the gate and qubit complexities, which scale logarithmically with the grid size, the nonlinearity captured by the higher-order Carleman linearization, and the practical utility of higher-order expansions in the Taylor ODE solver. The construction provides a concrete baseline for computational cost reduction and further developments such as extensions to higher dimensions, complex geometries, and the extraction of physical quantities, towards industrially useful quantum CFD.
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a specialized branch of fluid mechanics that utilizes numerical methods and algorithms to solve and analyze fluid-flow problems. One promising avenue to enhance CFD is the use of quantum computing, which has the potential to resolve nonlinear differential equations more efficiently than classical computers. Here, we try to answer the question of which regimes of nonlinear partial differential equations for fluid dynamics can have an efficient quantum algorithm. We propose a connection between the numerical parameter R , which guarantees efficiency in the truncation of the Carleman linearization, and the physical parameters that describe the fluid flow. This link can be made thanks to the Kolmogorov scale, which determines the minimum size of the grid needed to properly resolve the energy cascade induced by the nonlinear term. Additionally, we introduce the formalism for vector field simulation in different spatial dimensions, providing the discretization of the operators and the boundary conditions.
We discuss the Carleman linearization approach to the quantum simulation of classical fluids based on Grad's generalized hydrodynamics and compare it to previous investigations based on lattice Boltzmann and Navier-Stokes formulations. We show that the Carleman-Grad procedure exhibits intermediate properties between the two. Namely, convergence of the Carleman iteration over a few tens of timesteps and a potentially viable quantum circuit implementation using quantum linear algebra solvers. However, both features still need substantial improvements to yield a viable quantum algorithm for fluid flows.