arXiv:2510.08500
Learning and certification of local time-dependent quantum dynamics and noise
Daniel Stilck França, Cambyse Rouzé, Albert H. Werner, Tim Möbus
Abstract
Hamiltonian learning protocols are becoming valuable tools for benchmarking and verifying quantum computers and simulators, yet few rigorous protocols address explicitly time-dependent dynamics. We give a scalable protocol for learning the time-dependent coefficients of a locally interacting $n$-qubit system on a graph $\mathsf{G}$ of effective dimension $D$. The unknown generator contains geometrically local Hamiltonian terms and weak onsite Pauli-dephasing terms with time-dependent, nonnegative rates. Its coefficient functions and their derivatives admit a certified simultaneous $C^1$ approximation in a known finite-dimensional function class that supports stable interpolation. The only experimental primitives are preparation of product Pauli eigenstates, evolution for chosen times, and product-Pauli measurements. Under an explicit weak-dissipation condition, the Lieb--Robinson estimates proved here, and a certified effective approximation/interpolation degree $m_{\rm eff}$, the protocol reconstructs every coefficient uniformly on a constant interval with error $ε$ and success probability $1-δ$ using $\widetilde{\mathcal{O}}\!\left(ε^{-2}\operatorname{poly}(m_{\rm eff})\log(nδ^{-1})\right)$ samples and polynomial classical processing. The method estimates derivatives of finite-time channel overlaps by stable interpolation, uses process shadows to learn the required local transfer matrices, and constructs sparse diagonally dominant systems through localized semidefinite programs.