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arXiv:2508.20883 · npj Unconventional Computing

Lattice random walk discretisations of stochastic differential equations

Samuel Duffield, Maxwell Aifer, Denis Melanson, Zach Belateche, Patrick J. Coles

Published Aug 14, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

Abstract We introduce a lattice random walk discretisation scheme for stochastic differential equations (SDEs) that samples binary or ternary increments at each step, suppressing complex drift and diffusion computations to simple 1 or 2 bit random values. This approach is a significant departure from traditional floating point discretisations and offers several advantages; including compatibility with stochastic computing architectures that avoid floating-point arithmetic in place of directly manipulating the underlying probability distribution of a bitstream, elimination of Gaussian sampling requirements, robustness to quantisation errors, and handling of non-Lipschitz drifts. We prove weak convergence and demonstrate the advantages through experiments on various SDEs, including state-of-the-art diffusion models.

DOI
10.1038/s44335-026-00089-x

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Abstract We introduce a lattice random walk discretisation scheme for stochastic differential equations (SDEs) that samples binary or ternary increments at each step, suppressing complex drift and diffusion computations to simple 1 or 2 bit random values. This approach is a significant departure from traditional floating point discretisations and offers several advantages; including compatibility with stochastic computing architectures that avoid floating-point arithmetic in place of directly manipulating the underlying probability distribution of a bitstream, elimination of Gaussian sampling requirements, robustness to quantisation errors, and handling of non-Lipschitz drifts. We prove weak convergence and demonstrate the advantages through experiments on various SDEs, including state-of-the-art diffusion models.
In this thesis we study a variant of the quadrature problem for stochastic differential equations (SDEs), namely the approximation of expectations E(f(X))\mathrm{E}(f(X))E(f(X)), where X=(X(t))t∈[0,1]X = (X(t))_{t \in [0,1]}X=(X(t))t∈[0,1]​ is the solution of an SDE and f ⁣:C([0,1],Rr)→Rf \colon C([0,1],\mathbb{R}^r) \to \mathbb{R}f:C([0,1],Rr)→R is a functional, mapping each realization of XXX into the real numbers. The distinctive feature in this work is that we consider randomized (Monte Carlo) algorithms with random bits as their only source of randomness, whereas the algorithms commonly studied in the literature are allowed to sample from the uniform distribution on the unit interval, i.e., they do have access to random numbers from [0,1][0,1][0,1]. By assumption, all further operations like, e.g., arithmetic operations, evaluations of elementary functions, and oracle calls to evaluate fff are considered within the real number model of computation, i.e., they are carried out exactly. In the following, we provide a detailed description of the quadrature problem, namely we are interested in the approximation of \begin{align*} S(f) = \mathrm{E}(f(X)) \end{align*} for XXX being the rrr-dimensional solution of an autonomous SDE of the form \begin{align*} \mathrm{d}X(t) = a(X(t)) \, \mathrm{d}t + b(X(t)) \, \mathrm{d}W(t), \quad t \in [0,1], \end{align*} with deterministic initial value \begin{align*} X(0) = x_0 \in \mathbb{R}^r, \end{align*} and driven by a ddd-dimensional standard Brownian motion WWW. Furthermore, the drift coefficient a ⁣:Rr→Rra \colon \mathbb{R}^r \to \mathbb{R}^ra:Rr→Rr and the diffusion coefficient b ⁣:Rr→Rr×db \colon \mathbb{R}^r \to \mathbb{R}^{r \times d}b:Rr→Rr×d are assumed to be globally Lipschitz continuous. For the function classes \begin{align*} F_{\infty} = \bigl\{f \colon C([0,1],\mathbb{R}^r) \to \mathbb{R} \colon |f(x) - f(y)| \leq \|x-y\|_{\sup}\bigr\} \end{align*} and \begin{align*} F_p = \bigl\{f \colon C([0,1],\mathbb{R}^r) \to \mathbb{R} \colon |f(x) - f(y)| \leq \|x-y\|_{L_p}\bigr\}, \quad 1 \leq p < \infty. \end{align*} we have established the following. \[\] \(\textit{Theorem 1.}\) There exists a random bit multilevel Monte Carlo (MLMC) algorithm \(M\) using \[ L = L(\varepsilon,F) = \begin{cases}\lceil{\log_2(\varepsilon^{-2}}\rceil, &\text{if} \ F = F_p,\\ \lceil{\log_2(\varepsilon^{-2} + \log_2(\log_2(\varepsilon^{-1}))}\rceil, &\text{if} \ F = F_\infty \end{cases} \] and replication numbers Nℓ=Nℓ(ε,F)={⌈(L+1)⋅2−ℓ⋅ε−2⌉,if F=Fp,⌈(L+1)⋅2−ℓ⋅max⁡(ℓ,1)⋅ε−2⌉,if F=f∞ N_\ell = N_\ell(\varepsilon,F) = \begin{cases} \lceil{(L+1) \cdot 2^{-\ell} \cdot \varepsilon^{-2}}\rceil, & \text{if} \ F = F_p,\\ \lceil{(L+1) \cdot 2^{-\ell} \cdot \max(\ell,1) \cdot \varepsilon^{-2}}\rceil, & \text{if} \ F=f_\infty \end{cases} Nℓ​=Nℓ​(ε,F)={⌈(L+1)⋅2−ℓ⋅ε−2⌉,⌈(L+1)⋅2−ℓ⋅max(ℓ,1)⋅ε−2⌉,​if F=Fp​,if F=f∞​​ for ℓ=0,…,L\ell = 0,\ldots,Lℓ=0,…,L, for which exists a positive constant ccc such that \begin{align*} \mathrm{error}(M,F) = \sup_{f \in F} \bigl(\mathrm{E}(S(f) - M(f))^2\bigr)^{1/2} \leq c \cdot \varepsilon \end{align*} and \begin{align*} \mathrm{cost}(M,F) = \sup_{f \in F} \mathrm{E}(\mathrm{cost}(M,f)) \leq c \cdot \varepsilon^{-2} \cdot \begin{cases} (\ln(\varepsilon^{-1}))^2, &\text{if} \ F=F_p,\\ (\ln(\varepsilon^{-1}))^3, &\text{if} \ F=F_\infty \end{cases} \end{align*} for every ε∈]0,1/2[\varepsilon \in {]0,1/2[}ε∈]0,1/2[. \[\] Hence, in terms of the ε\varepsilonε-complexity \begin{align*} \mathrm{comp}(\varepsilon,F) = \inf\bigl\{\mathrm{cost}(M,F) \colon M \ \text{is a random bit MC algorithm}, \mathrm{error}(M,F) \leq \varepsilon\bigr\} \end{align*} we have established the upper bound \begin{align*} \mathrm{comp}(\varepsilon,F) \leq c \cdot \varepsilon^{-2} \cdot \begin{cases} (\ln(\varepsilon^{-1}))^2, &\text{if} \ F=F_p,\\ (\ln(\varepsilon^{-1}))^3, &\text{if} \ F=F_\infty \end{cases} \end{align*} for some positive constant ccc. That is, we have shown the same weak asymptotic upper bound as in the case of random numbers from [0,1][0,1][0,1]. Hence, in this sense, random bits are almost as powerful as random numbers for our computational problem. Moreover, we present numerical results for a non-analyzed adaptive random bit MLMC Euler algorithm, in the particular cases of the Brownian motion, the geometric Brownian motion, the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck SDE and the Cox-Ingersoll-Ross SDE. We also provide a numerical comparison to the corresponding adaptive random number MLMC Euler method. A key challenge in the analysis of the algorithm in Theorem 1 is the approximation of probability distributions by means of random bits. A problem very closely related to the quantization problem, i.e., the optimal approximation of a given probability measure (on a separable Hilbert space) by means of a probability measure with finite support size. Though we have shown that the random bit approximation of the standard normal distribution is 'harder' than the corresponding quantization problem (lower weak rate of convergence), we have been able to establish the same weak rate of convergence as for the corresponding quantization problem in the case of the distribution of a Brownian bridge on L2([0,1])L_2([0,1])L2​([0,1]), the distribution of the solution of a scalar SDE on L2([0,1])L_2([0,1])L2​([0,1]), and the distribution of a centered Gaussian random element in a separable Hilbert space.
Stochastic differential equation (SDE) and Fokker-Planck equation (FPE) are two general approaches to describe the stochastic drift-diffusion processes. Solving SDEs relies on the Monte Carlo samplings of individual system trajectory, whereas FPEs describe the time evolution of overall distributions via path integral alike methods. The large state space and required small step size are the major challenges of computational efficiency in solving FPE numerically. In this paper, a generic continuous-time quantum walk formulation is developed to simulate stochastic diffusion processes. Stochastic diffusion in one-dimensional state space is modeled as the dynamics of an imaginary-time quantum system. The proposed quantum computational approach also drastically accelerates the path integrals with large step sizes. The new approach is compared with the traditional path integral method and the Monte Carlo trajectory sampling.
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.
Stochastic diffusion is a general phenomenon observed in various national and engineering systems. It is typically modeled by either stochastic differential equation (SDE) or Fokker-Planck equation (FPE), which are equivalent approaches. Path integral is an accurate and effective method to solve FPEs. Yet, computational efficiency is the common challenge for path integral and other numerical methods, include time and space complexities. Previously, one-dimensional continuous-time quantum walk was used to simulate diffusion. By combining quantum diffusion and random diffusion, the new approach can accelerate the simulation with longer time steps than those in path integral. It was demonstrated that simulation can be dozens or even hundreds of times faster. In this paper, a new generic quantum operator is proposed to simulate drift-diffusion processes in high-dimensional space, which combines quantum walks on graphs with traditional path integral approaches. Probability amplitudes are computed efficiently by spectral analysis. The efficiency of the new method is demonstrated with stochastic resonance problems.
This paper presents one-step numerical schemes for solving quantum stochastic differential equation (QSDE). The algorithms are developed based on the definition of QSDE and the solution techniques yield rapidly convergent sequences which are readily computable. As well as developing the schemes, we perform some numerical experiments and the solutions obtained compete favorably with exact solutions. The solution techniques presented in this work can handle all class of QSDEs most especially when the exact solution does not exist.
This paper introduces Quantum-Inspired Stochastic Differential Equations (QSDEs), a novel approach to modeling stochastic systems by leveraging core concepts from quantum mechanics. Traditional Stochastic Differential Equations (SDEs) often rely on Gaussian noise, which can be a significant limitation when accurately representing complex, real-world phenomena. QSDEs propose a fundamental shift by incorporating superposition and entanglement principles to model noise, moving beyond Gaussian distributions. The core mechanism involves introducing a "quantum noise" term, denoted as *η(t, x, P)*, where *η* is a superposition of probability distributions dynamically adjusted based on the system's state *x*. This allows for a more nuanced representation of uncertainty, potentially leading to vastly improved simulations across diverse fields. We outline the theoretical framework, explore the key mathematical formulations, and discuss the potential impact of QSDEs on areas such as financial modeling, physics simulations, and control systems. The central claim of this work is that classical SDEs can be significantly enhanced by incorporating quantum mechanical principles.