arXiv subjects

Jiaqi Leng

Publications and source records attributed to Jiaqi Leng.

29 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2025

Quantum Hamiltonian Descent for Non-smooth Optimization

Non-smooth optimization models play a fundamental role in various disciplines, including engineering, science, management, and finance. However, classical algorithms for solving such models often struggle with convergence speed, scalability, and parameter tuning, particularly in high-dimensional and non-convex settings. In this paper, we explore how quantum mechanics can be leveraged to overcome these limitations. Specifically, we investigate the theoretical properties of the Quantum Hamiltonian Descent (QHD) algorithm for non-smooth optimization in both continuous and discrete time. First, we propose continuous-time variants of the general QHD algorithm and establish their global convergence and convergence rate for non-smooth convex and strongly convex problems through a novel Lyapunov function design. Furthermore, we prove the finite-time global convergence of continuous-time QHD for non-smooth non-convex problems under mild conditions (i.e., locally Lipschitz). In addition, we propose discrete-time QHD, a fully digitized implementation of QHD via operator splitting (i.e., product formula). We find that discrete-time QHD exhibits similar convergence properties even with large time steps. Finally, numerical experiments validate our theoretical findings and demonstrate the computational advantages of QHD over classical non-smooth non-convex optimization algorithms.

math.OC↗

arXiv2025

FNIN: A Fourier Neural Operator-based Numerical Integration Network for Surface-form-gradients

Surface-from-gradients (SfG) aims to recover a three-dimensional (3D) surface from its gradients. Traditional methods encounter significant challenges in achieving high accuracy and handling high-resolution inputs, particularly facing the complex nature of discontinuities and the inefficiencies associated with large-scale linear solvers. Although recent advances in deep learning, such as photometric stereo, have enhanced normal estimation accuracy, they do not fully address the intricacies of gradient-based surface reconstruction. To overcome these limitations, we propose a Fourier neural operator-based Numerical Integration Network (FNIN) within a two-stage optimization framework. In the first stage, our approach employs an iterative architecture for numerical integration, harnessing an advanced Fourier neural operator to approximate the solution operator in Fourier space. Additionally, a self-learning attention mechanism is incorporated to effectively detect and handle discontinuities. In the second stage, we refine the surface reconstruction by formulating a weighted least squares problem, addressing the identified discontinuities rationally. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our method achieves significant improvements in both accuracy and efficiency compared to current state-of-the-art solvers. This is particularly evident in handling high-resolution images with complex data, achieving errors of fewer than 0.1 mm on tested objects.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2024

On the Computational Complexity of Schrödinger Operators

We study computational problems related to the Schrödinger operator $H = -Δ+ V$ in the real space under the condition that (i) the potential function $V$ is smooth and has its value and derivative bounded within some polynomial of $n$ and (ii) $V$ only consists of $O(1)$-body interactions. We prove that (i) simulating the dynamics generated by the Schrödinger operator implements universal quantum computation, i.e., it is BQP-hard, and (ii) estimating the ground energy of the Schrödinger operator is as hard as estimating that of local Hamiltonians with no sign problem (a.k.a. stoquastic Hamiltonians), i.e., it is StoqMA-complete. This result is particularly intriguing because the ground energy problem for general bosonic Hamiltonians is known to be QMA-hard and it is widely believed that $\texttt{StoqMA}\varsubsetneq \texttt{QMA}$.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Differentiable Quantum Computing for Large-scale Linear Control

As industrial models and designs grow increasingly complex, the demand for optimal control of large-scale dynamical systems has significantly increased. However, traditional methods for optimal control incur significant overhead as problem dimensions grow. In this paper, we introduce an end-to-end quantum algorithm for linear-quadratic control with provable speedups. Our algorithm, based on a policy gradient method, incorporates a novel quantum subroutine for solving the matrix Lyapunov equation. Specifically, we build a quantum-assisted differentiable simulator for efficient gradient estimation that is more accurate and robust than classical methods relying on stochastic approximation. Compared to the classical approaches, our method achieves a super-quadratic speedup. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first end-to-end quantum application to linear control problems with provable quantum advantage.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

A quantum central path algorithm for linear optimization

We propose a novel quantum algorithm for solving linear optimization problems by quantum-mechanical simulation of the central path. While interior point methods follow the central path with an iterative algorithm that works with successive linearizations of the perturbed KKT conditions, we perform a single simulation working directly with the nonlinear complementarity equations. This approach yields an algorithm for solving linear optimization problems involving $m$ constraints and $n$ variables to $\varepsilon$-optimality using $\mathcal{O} \left( \sqrt{m + n} \frac{R_{1}}{\varepsilon}\right)$ queries to an oracle that evaluates a potential function, where $R_{1}$ is an $\ell_{1}$-norm upper bound on the size of the optimal solution. In the standard gate model (i.e., without access to quantum RAM) our algorithm can obtain highly-precise solutions to LO problems using at most $$\mathcal{O} \left( \sqrt{m + n} \textsf{nnz} (A) \frac{R_1}{\varepsilon}\right)$$ elementary gates, where $\textsf{nnz} (A)$ is the total number of non-zero elements found in the constraint matrix.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

QHDOPT: A Software for Nonlinear Optimization with Quantum Hamiltonian Descent

We develop an open-source, end-to-end software (named QHDOPT), which can solve nonlinear optimization problems using the quantum Hamiltonian descent (QHD) algorithm. QHDOPT offers an accessible interface and automatically maps tasks to various supported quantum backends (i.e., quantum hardware machines). These features enable users, even those without prior knowledge or experience in quantum computing, to utilize the power of existing quantum devices for nonlinear and nonconvex optimization tasks. In its intermediate compilation layer, QHDOPT employs SimuQ, an efficient interface for Hamiltonian-oriented programming, to facilitate multiple algorithmic specifications and ensure compatible cross-hardware deployment. The detailed documentation of QHDOPT is available at https://github.com/jiaqileng/QHDOPT.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

A quantum-classical performance separation in nonconvex optimization

In this paper, we identify a family of nonconvex continuous optimization instances, each $d$-dimensional instance with $2^d$ local minima, to demonstrate a quantum-classical performance separation. Specifically, we prove that the recently proposed Quantum Hamiltonian Descent (QHD) algorithm [Leng et al., arXiv:2303.01471] is able to solve any $d$-dimensional instance from this family using $\widetilde{\mathcal{O}}(d^3)$ quantum queries to the function value and $\widetilde{\mathcal{O}}(d^4)$ additional 1-qubit and 2-qubit elementary quantum gates. On the other side, a comprehensive empirical study suggests that representative state-of-the-art classical optimization algorithms/solvers (including Gurobi) would require a super-polynomial time to solve such optimization instances.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Quantum Hamiltonian Descent

Gradient descent is a fundamental algorithm in both theory and practice for continuous optimization. Identifying its quantum counterpart would be appealing to both theoretical and practical quantum applications. A conventional approach to quantum speedups in optimization relies on the quantum acceleration of intermediate steps of classical algorithms, while keeping the overall algorithmic trajectory and solution quality unchanged. We propose Quantum Hamiltonian Descent (QHD), which is derived from the path integral of dynamical systems referring to the continuous-time limit of classical gradient descent algorithms, as a truly quantum counterpart of classical gradient methods where the contribution from classically-prohibited trajectories can significantly boost QHD's performance for non-convex optimization. Moreover, QHD is described as a Hamiltonian evolution efficiently simulatable on both digital and analog quantum computers. By embedding the dynamics of QHD into the evolution of the so-called Quantum Ising Machine (including D-Wave and others), we empirically observe that the D-Wave-implemented QHD outperforms a selection of state-of-the-art gradient-based classical solvers and the standard quantum adiabatic algorithm, based on the time-to-solution metric, on non-convex constrained quadratic programming instances up to 75 dimensions. Finally, we propose a "three-phase picture" to explain the behavior of QHD, especially its difference from the quantum adiabatic algorithm.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Quantum simulation of real-space dynamics

Quantum simulation is a prominent application of quantum computers. While there is extensive previous work on simulating finite-dimensional systems, less is known about quantum algorithms for real-space dynamics. We conduct a systematic study of such algorithms. In particular, we show that the dynamics of a $d$-dimensional Schrödinger equation with $η$ particles can be simulated with gate complexity $\tilde{O}\bigl(ηd F \text{poly}(\log(g'/ε))\bigr)$, where $ε$ is the discretization error, $g'$ controls the higher-order derivatives of the wave function, and $F$ measures the time-integrated strength of the potential. Compared to the best previous results, this exponentially improves the dependence on $ε$ and $g'$ from $\text{poly}(g'/ε)$ to $\text{poly}(\log(g'/ε))$ and polynomially improves the dependence on $T$ and $d$, while maintaining best known performance with respect to $η$. For the case of Coulomb interactions, we give an algorithm using $η^{3}(d+η)T\text{poly}(\log(ηdTg'/(Δε)))/Δ$ one- and two-qubit gates, and another using $η^{3}(4d)^{d/2}T\text{poly}(\log(ηdTg'/(Δε)))/Δ$ one- and two-qubit gates and QRAM operations, where $T$ is the evolution time and the parameter $Δ$ regulates the unbounded Coulomb interaction. We give applications to several computational problems, including faster real-space simulation of quantum chemistry, rigorous analysis of discretization error for simulation of a uniform electron gas, and a quadratic improvement to a quantum algorithm for escaping saddle points in nonconvex optimization.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Differentiable Analog Quantum Computing for Optimization and Control

We formulate the first differentiable analog quantum computing framework with a specific parameterization design at the analog signal (pulse) level to better exploit near-term quantum devices via variational methods. We further propose a scalable approach to estimate the gradients of quantum dynamics using a forward pass with Monte Carlo sampling, which leads to a quantum stochastic gradient descent algorithm for scalable gradient-based training in our framework. Applying our framework to quantum optimization and control, we observe a significant advantage of differentiable analog quantum computing against SOTAs based on parameterized digital quantum circuits by orders of magnitude.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Quantum algorithms for escaping from saddle points

We initiate the study of quantum algorithms for escaping from saddle points with provable guarantee. Given a function $f\colon\mathbb{R}^{n}\to\mathbb{R}$, our quantum algorithm outputs an $ε$-approximate second-order stationary point using $\tilde{O}(\log^{2} (n)/ε^{1.75})$ queries to the quantum evaluation oracle (i.e., the zeroth-order oracle). Compared to the classical state-of-the-art algorithm by Jin et al. with $\tilde{O}(\log^{6} (n)/ε^{1.75})$ queries to the gradient oracle (i.e., the first-order oracle), our quantum algorithm is polynomially better in terms of $\log n$ and matches its complexity in terms of $1/ε$. Technically, our main contribution is the idea of replacing the classical perturbations in gradient descent methods by simulating quantum wave equations, which constitutes the improvement in the quantum query complexity with $\log n$ factors for escaping from saddle points. We also show how to use a quantum gradient computation algorithm due to Jordan to replace the classical gradient queries by quantum evaluation queries with the same complexity. Finally, we also perform numerical experiments that support our theoretical findings.

quant-ph↗