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arXiv:2507.06198

Quantum simulation of a noisy classical nonlinear dynamics

Sergey B. Bravyi, Robert Sawko, Mykhaylo Zayats, Sergiy M. Zhuk

Published Jul 8, 2025• 0 citations
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Abstract

We present an end-to-end quantum algorithm for simulating nonlinear dynamics described by a system of stochastic dissipative differential equations with a quadratic nonlinearity. The stochastic part of the system is modeled by a Gaussian noise in the equation of motion and in the initial conditions. Our algorithm can approximate the expected value of any correlation function that depends on $O(1)$ variables with rigorous bounds on the approximation error. The runtime scales polynomially with $\log{N}$, $t$, $J$, and $λ_1^{-1}$, where $N$ is the total number of variables, $t$ is the evolution time, $J$ is the nonlinearity strength, and $λ_1$ is the smallest dissipation rate. However, the runtime scales exponentially with a parameter quantifying inverse relative error in the initial conditions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first rigorous quantum algorithm capable of simulating strongly nonlinear systems with $J\gg λ_1$ at the cost poly-logarithmic in $N$ and polynomial in $t$. The considered simulation problem is shown to be BQP-complete, providing a strong evidence for a quantum advantage. We benchmark the quantum algorithm via numerical experiments by simulating a vortex flow in the 2D Navier Stokes equation.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2507.06198

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We present an end-to-end quantum algorithm for simulating nonlinear dynamics described by a system of stochastic dissipative differential equations with a quadratic nonlinearity. The stochastic part of the system is modeled by a Gaussian noise in the equation of motion and in the initial conditions. Our algorithm can approximate the expected value of any correlation function that depends on O(1)O(1)O(1) variables with rigorous bounds on the approximation error. The runtime scales polynomially with log⁡N\log{N}logN, ttt, JJJ, and λ1−1λ_1^{-1}λ1−1​, where NNN is the total number of variables, ttt is the evolution time, JJJ is the nonlinearity strength, and λ1λ_1λ1​ is the smallest dissipation rate. However, the runtime scales exponentially with a parameter quantifying inverse relative error in the initial conditions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first rigorous quantum algorithm capable of simulating strongly nonlinear systems with J≫λ1J\gg λ_1J≫λ1​ at the cost poly-logarithmic in NNN and polynomial in ttt. The considered simulation problem is shown to be BQP-complete, providing a strong evidence for a quantum advantage. We benchmark the quantum algorithm via numerical experiments by simulating a vortex flow in the 2D Navier Stokes equation.
Stochastic nonlinear dynamics underlie many models in engineering and computational physics, yet accurate high-dimensional simulation remains challenging. We present a quantum algorithm for a broad class of NNN-dimensional stochastic differential equations with dissipation and quadratic drift. The algorithm applies to strongly nonlinear systems with all-to-all interactions, thereby extending the scope of previously known quantum algorithms that were limited to weak nonlinearity and sparse systems. For norm-preserving drifts, a condition satisfied by key fluid dynamics discretizations, our method approximates expectation values of low-order correlation functions with rigorous error bounds at a cost polynomial in log⁡(N)\log{(N)}log(N) and linear in the evolution time. Our main technical advance is a subroutine for simulating an auxiliary system of NNN interacting quantum harmonic oscillators with cost polylogarithmic in NNN. Finally, we formulate turbulence models, including Navier-Stokes and damped Euler equations, within this framework, opening a route to quantum simulation of strongly nonlinear SDEs governing turbulence and nonlinear wave dynamics.
Stochastic differential equations (SDEs) model noisy dynamical systems across quantitative finance, chemistry, physics, and climate science. Classical solvers-Euler-Maruyama schemes, Monte Carlo methods, and finite-difference PDE solvers for Fokker-Planck equations-suffer from exponential growth in computational cost with dimension and accuracy requirements. We present a family of quantum algorithms for simulating and solving SDEs with improved scaling. Our approach combines Hamiltonian simulation for drift terms, quantum random number generation for noise increments, and quantum amplitude estimation for computing expectations. For linear and semilinear SDEs with Lipschitz coefficients, we prove that relevant quantities (option prices, expected hitting times, moments) can be estimated to accuracy ε in time Õ(poly(d)polylog(1/ε)), versus classical O(poly(d)/ε 2). For nonlinear SDEs, we introduce variational quantum schemes leveraging parameterized circuits, with a priori error bounds and trainability analysis avoiding barren plateaus. We analyze multi-asset Black-Scholes models, Heston stochastic volatility, and Langevin dynamics for molecular coarse-graining, quantifying resource requirements (qubits, gate depth, oracle calls). Numerical simulations on small instances demonstrate polynomial-to-super-polynomial empirical speedups in accuracy for fixed runtime, establishing SDE solving as a promising quantum-accelerated task with practical applications.
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Simulation of realistic classical mechanical systems is of great importance to many areas of engineering such as robotics, dynamics of rotating machinery and control theory. In this work, we develop quantum algorithms to estimate quantities of interest such as the kinetic energy in a given classical mechanical system in the presence of friction or damping as well as forcing or source terms, which makes the algorithm of practical interest. We show that for such systems, the quantum algorithm scales polynomially with the logarithm of the dimension of the system. We cast this problem in terms of Hamilton's equations of motion (equivalent to the first variation of the Lagrangian) and solve them using quantum algorithms for differential equations. We then consider the hardness of estimating the kinetic energy of a damped coupled oscillator system. We show that estimating the kinetic energy at a given time of this system to within additive precision is BQP hard when the strength of the damping term is bounded by an inverse polynomial in the number of qubits. We then consider the problem of designing optimal control of classical systems, which can be cast as the second variation of the Lagrangian. In this direction, we first consider the Riccati equation, which is a nonlinear differential equation ubiquitous in control theory. We give an efficient quantum algorithm to solve the Riccati differential equation well into the nonlinear regime. To our knowledge, this is the first example of any nonlinear differential equation that can be solved when the strength of the nonlinearity is asymptotically greater than the amount of dissipation. We then show how to use this algorithm to solve the linear quadratic regulator problem, which is an example of the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation.
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.
Nonlinear differential equations model diverse phenomena but are notoriously difficult to solve. While there has been extensive previous work on efficient quantum algorithms for linear differential equations, the linearity of quantum mechanics has limited analogous progress for the nonlinear case. Despite this obstacle, we develop a quantum algorithm for dissipative quadratic n-dimensional ordinary differential equations. Assuming [Formula: see text], where R is a parameter characterizing the ratio of the nonlinearity and forcing to the linear dissipation, this algorithm has complexity [Formula: see text], where T is the evolution time, ϵ is the allowed error, and q measures decay of the solution. This is an exponential improvement over the best previous quantum algorithms, whose complexity is exponential in T. While exponential decay precludes efficiency, driven equations can avoid this issue despite the presence of dissipation. Our algorithm uses the method of Carleman linearization, for which we give a convergence theorem. This method maps a system of nonlinear differential equations to an infinite-dimensional system of linear differential equations, which we discretize, truncate, and solve using the forward Euler method and the quantum linear system algorithm. We also provide a lower bound on the worst-case complexity of quantum algorithms for general quadratic differential equations, showing that the problem is intractable for [Formula: see text] Finally, we discuss potential applications, showing that the [Formula: see text] condition can be satisfied in realistic epidemiological models and giving numerical evidence that the method may describe a model of fluid dynamics even for larger values of R.