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arXiv:2604.06077

Simulating Thermal Properties of Bose-Hubbard Models on a Quantum Computer

Simon Becker, Cambyse Rouzé, Robert Salzmann

quant-phmath-phSubmitted Apr 7, 2026• Announced Apr 8, 2026• 0 citations• Revised Oct 5, 2026 (v2)
v1 · Apr 7, 2026v2 · Oct 5, 2026
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Abstract

While recent advances have established efficient quantum algorithms for preparing Gibbs states of finite-dimensional systems, comparable complexity results for bosonic and other infinite-dimensional models remain unexplored. We introduce the first general rigorous Gibbs sampling framework for bosonic many-body systems, showing that physically relevant bosonic models admit gapped dissipative generators, enabling efficient preparation of thermal states, provided that the spectral gap scales favourably with the number of modes. Although our results hold for broad classes of models, we illustrate them using Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonians, both within and beyond the mean-field regime. In both cases, we show that the associated dissipative generators maintain a positive spectral gap, thereby implying exponential convergence to the thermal state. For the Gibbs sampler corresponding to the full Bose-Hubbard model, we obtain a spectral-gap lower bound $Ce^{-cn}$, where $n$ is the number of modes. We apply our results to provide a Gibbs-state preparation algorithm on qubit hardware, with runtime polynomial in the number of modes and the inverse spectral gap, and thereby obtain a quantum algorithm to compute thermal properties of the model. This provides the first mathematically controlled route to Gibbs sampling in infinite-dimensional systems, with implications for quantum simulation, thermalization, and many-body complexity, where quantum advantages may arise.

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While recent advances have established efficient quantum algorithms for preparing Gibbs states of finite-dimensional systems, comparable complexity results for bosonic and other infinite-dimensional models remain unexplored. We introduce the first general rigorous Gibbs sampling framework for bosonic many-body systems, showing that physically relevant bosonic models admit gapped dissipative generators, enabling efficient preparation of thermal states, provided that the spectral gap scales favourably with the number of modes. Although our results hold for broad classes of models, we illustrate them using Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonians, both within and beyond the mean-field regime. In both cases, we show that the associated dissipative generators maintain a positive spectral gap, thereby implying exponential convergence to the thermal state. For the Gibbs sampler corresponding to the full Bose-Hubbard model, we obtain a spectral-gap lower bound Ce−cnCe^{-cn}Ce−cn, where nnn is the number of modes. We apply our results to provide a Gibbs-state preparation algorithm on qubit hardware, with runtime polynomial in the number of modes and the inverse spectral gap, and thereby obtain a quantum algorithm to compute thermal properties of the model. This provides the first mathematically controlled route to Gibbs sampling in infinite-dimensional systems, with implications for quantum simulation, thermalization, and many-body complexity, where quantum advantages may arise.
We develop a rigorous and implementable framework for Gibbs sampling of infinite-dimensional quantum systems governed by unbounded Hamiltonians. Extending dissipative Gibbs samplers beyond finite dimensions raises fundamental obstacles, including ill-defined generators, the absence of spectral gaps on natural Banach spaces, and tensions between implementability and convergence guarantees. We overcome these issues by constructing KMS-symmetric quantum Markov semigroups on separable Hilbert spaces that are both well-posed and efficiently implementable on qubit hardware. Our generation theory is based on the abstract framework of Dirichlet forms, adapted here to the case of algebras of bounded operators over separable Hilbert spaces. Leveraging the spectral properties of our self-adjoint generators, we establish quantitative convergence results in trace distance, including regimes of fast thermalization. In contrast, we also identify Hamiltonians for which a naive choice of generators guaranteeing implementability generally comes at the cost of losing uniform exponential convergence guarantees for the associated evolutions, thereby establishing a strong trade-off between implementability and convergence. Our framework applies to a wide class of models - including Schrödinger operators, Gaussian systems, and Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonians - and provides a unified approach linking rigorous infinite-dimensional analysis with algorithmic Gibbs state preparation.
Many physical phenomena, including thermalization in open quantum systems and quantum Gibbs sampling, are modeled by Lindbladians approximating a system weakly coupled to a bath. Understanding the convergence speed of these Lindbladians to their steady states is crucial for bounding algorithmic runtimes and thermalization timescales. We study two such families of processes: one characterizing a repeated-interaction Gibbs sampling algorithm, and another modeling open many-body quantum thermalization. We prove that both converge in polynomial time for several non-commuting systems, including high-temperature local lattices, weakly interacting fermions, and 1D spin chains. These results demonstrate that simple dissipative quantum algorithms can prepare complex Gibbs states and that Lindblad dynamics accurately capture thermal relaxation. Our proofs rely on a novel technical result that extrapolates spectral gap lower bounds from quasi-local Lindbladians to the non-local generators governing these dynamics.
Quantum computers hold the potential to revolutionise the simulation of quantum many-body systems, with profound implications for fundamental physics and applications like molecular and material design. However, demonstrating quantum advantage in simulating quantum systems of practical relevance remains a significant challenge. In this work, we introduce a quantum algorithm for preparing Gibbs states of interacting fermions on a lattice with provable polynomial resource requirements. Our approach builds on recent progress in theoretical computer science that extends classical Markov chain Monte Carlo methods to the quantum domain. We derive a bound on the mixing time for quantum Gibbs state preparation by showing that the generator of the quantum Markovian evolution is gapped at any temperature up to a maximal interaction strength. This enables the efficient preparation of low-temperature states of weakly interacting fermions and the calculation of their free energy. We present exact numerical simulations for small system sizes that support our results and identify well-suited algorithmic choices for simulating the Fermi-Hubbard model beyond our rigorous guarantees.
Preparing Gibbs states through dissipative dynamics requires controlling convergence for the chosen Hamiltonian HHH and coupling operators. However, efficient implementation requires convergence guarantees from the spectral gap of the generator of the dynamics, which remains a crucial challenge. Recent results address the challenge by restricting the dynamics with structural assumptions about the Hamiltonian and its interactions. For the Chen-Kastoryano-Gilyen (CKG) construction and arbitrary finite-dimensional Hamiltonians, we prove an explicit comparison that converts a spectral gap estimate for the infinite-temperature generator into a lower bound on the spectral gap of the CKG quantum Gibbs sampler at every finite positive inverse temperature βββ. It allows a single spectral gap estimate at infinite temperature to certify convergence across Hamiltonians and temperatures. Such an estimate is often known from a classical spectral gap estimate, such as the classical random walk spectral gap. For Hodge Laplacians of simplicial complexes as Hamiltonians, we construct coupling operators whose generator at infinite temperature has the same spectral gap as a classical simplicial down-up walk. A positive spectral gap of the walk and bounded spectral width W=λmax⁡(H)−λmin⁡(H)W=λ_{\max}(H)-λ_{\min}(H)W=λmax​(H)−λmin​(H) give a generator spectral gap independent of the number of simplices at every fixed temperature. We then establish conditions under which the sampler approximately prepares zero-energy (harmonic) states in polynomial evolution time. This provides a conditional convergence guarantee for the state preparation in the thermal approach to quantum topological data analysis.
Dissipative quantum algorithms for state preparation in many-body systems are increasingly recognised as promising candidates for achieving large quantum advantages in application-relevant tasks. Recent advances in algorithmic, detailed-balance Lindbladians enable the efficient simulation of open-system dynamics converging towards desired target states. However, the overall complexity of such schemes is governed by system-size dependent mixing times. In this work, we analyse algorithmic Lindbladians for Gibbs state preparation and prove that they exhibit rapid mixing, i.e., convergence in time poly-logarithmic in the system size. We first establish this for non-interacting spin systems, free fermions, and free bosons, and then show that these rapid mixing results are stable under perturbations, covering weakly interacting qudits and perturbed non-hopping fermions. Further, we adapt the techniques from separable qudits to the fermionic setting and prove rapid mixing of the strongly-interacting regime of the Fermi-Hubbard model, for which we also explicitly evaluate the guaranteed parameter regimes. Our results constitute the first efficient mixing bounds for non-commuting qudit models and bosonic systems at arbitrary temperatures. Compared to prior spectral-gap-based results for fermions, we achieve exponentially faster mixing, further featuring explicit constants on the maximal allowed interaction strength. This not only improves the overall polynomial runtime for quantum Gibbs state preparation, but also enhances robustness against noise. Our analysis relies on oscillator norm techniques from mathematical physics, where we introduce tailored variants adapted to specific Lindbladians $\unicode{x2014}$ an innovation that we expect to significantly broaden the scope of these methods.
Preparing ground states and thermal states is essential for simulating quantum systems on quantum computers. Despite the hope for practical quantum advantage in quantum simulation, popular state preparation approaches have been challenged. Monte Carlo-style quantum Gibbs samplers have emerged as an alternative, but prior proposals have been unsatisfactory due to technical obstacles rooted in energy-time uncertainty. We introduce simple continuous-time quantum Gibbs samplers that overcome these obstacles by efficiently simulating Nature-inspired quantum master equations (Lindbladians). In addition, we construct the first provably accurate and efficient algorithm for preparing certain purified Gibbs states (called thermal field double states in high-energy physics) of rapidly thermalizing systems; this algorithm also benefits from a quantum walk speedup. Our algorithms' costs have a provable dependence on temperature, accuracy, and the mixing time (or spectral gap) of the relevant Lindbladian. We complete the first rigorous proof of finite-time thermalization for physically derived Lindbladians by developing a general analytic framework for nonasymptotic secular approximation and approximate detailed balance. Given the success of classical Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms and the ubiquity of thermodynamics, we anticipate that quantum Gibbs sampling will become indispensable in quantum computing.