Quantum Algorithm for Subcellular Multiscale Reaction-Diffusion Systems
Lockwood, Margot, Nathan Wiebe, Connah Johnson +5 more
Computational modeling of cellular systems, where reactants are governed by biochemical equations and physical representations, requires extensive classical computing resources. These limitations significantly constrain the system size and spatiotemporal scales of simulations. A key challenge lies in the "curse of dimensionality", where the number of possible reaction terms grows exponentially with the number of species, and the computation of reaction rates involving many-body interactions becomes intractable in polynomial time on classical computers. In this work, we introduce a quantum algorithmic framework designed to overcome these challenges, leveraging the architecture of quantum computing to simultaneously compute reaction rates and track the spatiotemporal dynamical evolutions of subcellular systems. We generalize the reaction-diffusion equation (RDE) for multiscale systems with arbitrary species count, encompassing higher-order interactions. Our approach achieves two principal quantum advantages: (i) an exponential quantum speedup in reaction-rate computation, contingent on the efficient preparation of polynomially accurate ground states on a quantum computer, and (ii)) a quadratic scaling in spatial grid points and polynomial scaling in the number of species for solving nonlinear RDEs, contrasting sharply with classical methods that scale exponentially with the system's degrees of freedom. To our knowledge, this represents the first efficient quantum algorithm for solving multiscale reaction-diffusion systems. This framework opens the door to simulations of biologically relevant subcellular processes across previously inaccessible spatial and temporal scales, with profound implications for computational biology, soft matter physics, and biophysical modeling.
arXiv:2509.20668•Sep 25, 2025•0 citations