Solving high-dimensional dynamical systems by encoding their state in the amplitudes of a quantum state is expected to be a core application of fault-tolerant quantum computers. However, the conditions under which this paradigm yields quantum advantage can be restrictive, motivating complementary approaches. Here, we introduce Quantum Koopman Algorithms, where quantum amplitudes encode approximately closed sets of observables for a linear or nonlinear dynamics. These amplitudes evolve under the Koopman operator, and we establish conditions for efficient quantum algorithms addressing both dynamical and spectral problems. With this approach, we show that classes of open-system dynamics involving exponentially large fermionic systems can be efficiently simulated on a quantum computer. For nonlinear dynamics, we introduce a novel nonlinear interaction picture that enables quantum simulation beyond existing weak-nonlinearity conditions, and extract late-time spectral data where quantum phase estimation is unavailable.
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6+31 pages, 3 figures. Refined presentation and a simplified, improved formulation of Spectral-QKA
Solving high-dimensional dynamical systems by encoding their state in the amplitudes of a quantum state is expected to be a core application of fault-tolerant quantum computers. However, the conditions under which this paradigm yields quantum advantage can be restrictive, motivating complementary approaches. Here, we introduce Quantum Koopman Algorithms, where quantum amplitudes encode approximately closed sets of observables for a linear or nonlinear dynamics. These amplitudes evolve under the Koopman operator, and we establish conditions for efficient quantum algorithms addressing both dynamical and spectral problems. With this approach, we show that classes of open-system dynamics involving exponentially large fermionic systems can be efficiently simulated on a quantum computer. For nonlinear dynamics, we introduce a novel nonlinear interaction picture that enables quantum simulation beyond existing weak-nonlinearity conditions, and extract late-time spectral data where quantum phase estimation is unavailable.
Quantum algorithms offer an exponential advantage with respect to the number of dependent variables for solving certain nonlinear ordinary differential equations (ODEs). These algorithms typically begin by transforming the original nonlinear ODE into a higher-dimensional linear ODE using a linearization technique, most commonly Carleman linearization. Existing works restrict their analysis to ODEs where the nonlinearities are polynomial functions of the dependent variables, significantly limiting their applicability. In this work we construct an efficient quantum algorithm for solving ODEs with `Fourier' nonlinear terms expressible as du/dt=G0+G1eiu, where u denotes a vector of n complex variables evolving with t, G0 is an n-dimensional complex vector, G1 is an n×n complex matrix and eiu denotes the vector with entries {eiuj}. To tackle the Fourier nonlinear term, which is not expressible as a finite sum of polynomials of u, our algorithm employs a generalization of the Carleman linearization technique known as Koopman linearization. We also make other methodological advances towards relaxing the stringent dissipativity condition required for efficient solution extraction and towards integrated readout of classical quantities from the solution state. Our results open avenues to the development of efficient quantum algorithms for a significantly wider class of high-dimensional nonlinear ODEs, thereby broadening the scope of their applications.
Quantum computers have the potential to efficiently solve a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations (ODEs), which play a crucial role in various industries and scientific fields. However, it remains unclear which system of nonlinear ODEs, and under what assumptions, can achieve exponential speedup using quantum computers. In this work, we introduce a class of systems of nonlinear ODEs that can be efficiently solved on quantum computers, where the efficiency is defined as solving the system with computational complexity of O(Tlog(N)polylog(1/ε)), where T is the evolution time, ε is the allowed error, and N is the number of variables in the system. Specifically, we employ the Koopman-von Neumann linearization to map the system of nonlinear ODEs to Hamiltonian dynamics and find conditions where the norm of the mapped Hamiltonian is preserved and the Hamiltonian is sparse. This allows us to use the optimal Hamiltonian simulation technique for solving the nonlinear ODEs with O(log(N)) overhead. Furthermore, we show that the nonlinear ODEs include a wide range of systems of nonlinear ODEs, such as the nonlinear harmonic oscillators and the short-range Kuramoto model. This is the first concrete example of solving systems of nonlinear ODEs with exponential quantum speedup by the Koopman-von Neumann linearization, although it is noted that this assumes efficient preparation of the initial state and computation of the output. These findings contribute significantly to the application of quantum computers in solving nonlinear problems.
Important nonlinear dynamics, such as those found in plasma and fluid systems, are typically hard to simulate on classical computers. Thus, if fault-tolerant quantum computers could efficiently solve such nonlinear problems, it would be a transformative change for many industries. In a recent breakthrough [Liu et al., PNAS 2021], the first efficient quantum algorithm for solving nonlinear differential equations was constructed, based on a single condition R<1, where R characterizes the ratio of nonlinearity to dissipation. This result, however, is limited to the class of purely dissipative systems with negative log-norm, which excludes application to many important problems. In this work, we correct technical issues with this and other prior analysis, and substantially extend the scope of nonlinear dynamical systems that can be efficiently simulated on a quantum computer in a number of ways. Firstly, we extend the existing results from purely dissipative systems to a much broader class of stable systems, and show that every quadratic Lyapunov function for the linearized system corresponds to an independent R-number criterion for the convergence of the Carleman scheme. Secondly, we extend our stable system results to physically relevant settings where conserved polynomial quantities exist. Finally, we provide extensive results for the class of non-resonant systems. With this, we are able to show that efficient quantum algorithms exist for a much wider class of nonlinear systems than previously known, and prove the BQP-completeness of nonlinear oscillator problems of exponential size. In our analysis, we also obtain several results related to the Poincaré-Dulac theorem and diagonalization of the Carleman matrix, which could be of independent interest.
Nonlinear dynamics is ubiquitous in nature, ranging from chemical pattern formation to ocean circulation, yet its simulation on quantum computers is fundamentally limited by the unitary nature of quantum evolution. We propose the quantum Koopman method, a data-driven framework that embeds nonlinear dynamics into a learned linear representation and implements the resulting evolution using shallow quantum circuits. This method learns Koopman observables from trajectory data, projects the lifted dynamics onto a finite-dimensional subspace, and decomposes the corresponding non-unitary propagator into parallel spectral channels. We utilize the Koopman method on a superconducting processor to simulate three distinct nonlinear systems, comprising reaction-diffusion dynamics, fluid motion on a sphere, and satellite-derived observations of Gulf Stream currents, employing up to 32 parallel circuits of 10 qubits. These quantum simulations capture the dominant multiscale patterns and statistical signatures of the underlying dynamics, and reveal a transition from performance limited by hardware noise in weakly nonlinear systems to performance limited by finite-dimensional Koopman representations as nonlinear scale interactions increase. This transition identifies a practical boundary for quantum-amenable nonlinear dynamics, establishing a hardware-validated route for simulating moderately nonlinear dynamics on near-term quantum hardware.
The quantum dense output problem is the process of evaluating time-accumulated observables from time-dependent quantum dynamics using quantum computers. This problem arises frequently in applications such as quantum control and spectroscopic computation. We present a range of algorithms designed to operate on both early and fully fault-tolerant quantum platforms. These methodologies draw upon techniques like amplitude estimation, Hamiltonian simulation, quantum linear Ordinary Differential Equation (ODE) solvers, and quantum Carleman linearization. We provide a comprehensive complexity analysis with respect to the evolution time T and error tolerance ε. Our results demonstrate that the linearization approach can nearly achieve optimal complexity O(T/ε) for a certain type of low-rank dense outputs. Moreover, we provide a linearization of the dense output problem that yields an exact and finite-dimensional closure which encompasses the original states. This formulation is related to the Koopman Invariant Subspace theory and may be of independent interest in nonlinear control and scientific machine learning.
Quantum computers are expected to significantly outperform classical computers for certain computational tasks. One of the most promising applications is the simulation of many-body systems such as complex molecules or materials. In this thesis, we present several quantum algorithms for simulating many-body systems that can provide considerably better scaling than prior approaches. First, we describe a fully coherent quantum algorithm for simulating molecular dynamics within the Born-Oppenheimer approximation that leads to super-polynomially better scaling with respect to the error tolerance than previous work. Our algorithm utilizes the Koopman-von Neumann formulation of classical mechanics. This allows us to express the classical equations of motion as unitary dynamics which can be efficiently simulated on a quantum computer. We demonstrate that these simulations can be performed either at constant energy or at constant temperature. The latter allows us to estimate thermodynamic properties such as the Helmholtz free energy of the system. Next, we present two closely related quantum algorithms for solving continuous optimization problems such as finding the equilibrium configurations of molecules. These algorithms do not require any explicit gradient estimations. Instead, we encode the optimization problem into the dynamics of a quantum or classical system with friction. The dynamics are governed by a carefully chosen time-dependent Hamiltonian and thus can be simulated using efficient Hamiltonian simulation algorithms. We provide evidence that our fully coherent quantum algorithms can, in certain cases, provide exponentially better asymptotic scaling than approaches based on gradient descent. Lastly, we present a quantum algorithm for preparing the ground state of a set of interacting systems that can circumvent the exponential scaling suggested by the Van Vleck catastrophe. Our algorithm utilizes a divide-and-conquer strategy that repeatedly uses phase estimation to merge ground states of increasingly larger subsystems. We provide rigorous bounds for this approach and show that, under certain assumptions, our algorithm scales only quasi-polynomially with the number of systems.