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arXiv:2411.16233 · Physical Review Research

Divergence-free algorithms for solving nonlinear differential equations on quantum computers

Katsuhiro Endo, Kazuaki Z. Takahashi

Published Dec 15, 2025• 1 citation
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

From weather to neural networks, modeling is not only useful for understanding various phenomena but also has a wide range of potential applications. Although nonlinear differential equations are extremely useful tools in modeling, their solutions are difficult to obtain. Based on the expectation of quantum transcendence, quantum algorithms for efficiently solving nonlinear differential equations continue to be developed. However, even the latest promising algorithm has been pointed out to have an evolution time limit. This limit is the theoretically predestined divergence of solutions. We propose algorithms of divergence-free simulation for nonlinear differential equations in quantum computers. For Hamiltonian simulations, a pivot state s is introduced in the neighborhood of state x to be solved. Divergence of the solutions is prevented by moving s to a neighborhood of x whenever x leaves the neighborhood of s . Since updating s is directly related to computational cost, to minimize the number of updates, the nonlinear differential equations are approximated by nonlinear polynomials around s , which are then Carleman linearized. Hamiltonian simulations of nonlinear differential equations based on several representative models are performed to show that the proposed methods break through the theoretical evolution time limit. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the proposed methods work well on an actual quantum computer. The solution of nonlinear differential equations free from evolution time constraints opens the door to practical applications of quantum computers.

DOI
10.1103/2hfp-qyz1

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From weather to neural networks, modeling is not only useful for understanding various phenomena but also has a wide range of potential applications. Although nonlinear differential equations are extremely useful tools in modeling, their solutions are difficult to obtain. Based on the expectation of quantum transcendence, quantum algorithms for efficiently solving nonlinear differential equations continue to be developed. However, even the latest promising algorithm has been pointed out to have an evolution time limit. This limit is the theoretically predestined divergence of solutions. We propose algorithms of divergence-free simulation for nonlinear differential equations in quantum computers. For Hamiltonian simulations, a pivot state s is introduced in the neighborhood of state x to be solved. Divergence of the solutions is prevented by moving s to a neighborhood of x whenever x leaves the neighborhood of s . Since updating s is directly related to computational cost, to minimize the number of updates, the nonlinear differential equations are approximated by nonlinear polynomials around s , which are then Carleman linearized. Hamiltonian simulations of nonlinear differential equations based on several representative models are performed to show that the proposed methods break through the theoretical evolution time limit. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the proposed methods work well on an actual quantum computer. The solution of nonlinear differential equations free from evolution time constraints opens the door to practical applications of quantum computers.
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Nonlinear stochastic differential equations (NSDEs) are a pillar of mathematical modeling for scientific and engineering applications. Accurate and efficient simulation of large-scale NSDEs is prohibitive on classical computers due to the large number of degrees of freedom, and it is challenging on quantum computers due to the linear and unitary nature of quantum mechanics. We develop a quantum algorithm to tackle nonlinear differential equations driven by the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU) stochastic process. The query complexity of our algorithm scales logarithmically with the error tolerance and nearly quadratically with the simulation time. Our algorithmic framework comprises probabilistic Carleman linearization (PCL) to tackle nonlinearity coupled with stochasticity, and stochastic linear combination of Hamiltonian simulations (SLCHS) to simulate stochastic non-unitary dynamics. We obtain probabilistic exponential convergence for the Carleman linearization of Liu et al. [1], provided the NSDE is stable and reaches a steady state. We extend deterministic LCHS to stochastic linear differential equations, retaining near-optimal parameter scaling from An et al. [2] except for the nearly quadratic time scaling. This is achieved by using Monte Carlo integration for time discretization of both the stochastic inhomogeneous term in LCHS and the truncated Dyson series for each Hamiltonian simulation.
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