arXiv subjects

Nathan Wiebe

Publications and source records attributed to Nathan Wiebe.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Analytic Approach to Quantum Control Using Quantum Signal Processing

Realizing coherent quantum computation requires precise and robust manipulation of quantum systems through quantum control protocols. Most quantum control techniques rely on heuristic methods for designing the driving pulses that steer the system towards a target state. Such methods are often based on brute-force optimization and offer limited understanding of the solution landscape. In contrast, quantum algorithms offer a rich body of analytical methods with rigorous error guarantees for implementing unitary and non-unitary transformations, which suggests a promising direction for developing new approaches to quantum control. Among various such algorithms, quantum signal processing (QSP) has emerged as a powerful framework for quantum algorithm design, implementation, and optimization. However, its potential for quantum control remains largely unexplored. In this work, we establish QSP-Control, an analytical framework for quantum control of qubit-oscillator dynamics. We focus on dispersively coupled qubit-oscillator systems and employ the QSP formalism to mitigate unwanted nonlinear effects arising from cross-Kerr interactions. In addition, we develop constructions for precise manipulation of Fock states by designing Fock-state-selective operators, based on structural parallels between the Jaynes-Cummings interaction and QSP. These findings demonstrate how several practically relevant problems in quantum control can be mapped to forms amenable to QSP, offering both a systematic design framework and an interpretable perspective on quantum control.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Analytical Angle-Finding and Series Expansions for Quantum Signal Processing via Orthogonal Polynomial Theory

Quantum signal processing is a powerful framework in quantum algorithms, playing a central role in Hamiltonian simulation and related applications. The sequence of polynomials implemented at each step of this protocol provides a polynomial basis for block-encoding any polynomial of a unitary. We characterize the achievable polynomial bases in terms of their orthogonality or biorthogonality with respect to a linear functional admitting an integral representation. Explicit expressions for the quantum signal processing angles are derived for families of polynomial sequences, including Hermite, Jacobi, and Rogers-Szeg\H{o} polynomials. We show that $2n+2$ rotation angles are required to encode a sequence of polynomials in these classes up to degree $n$. We use this result to show that an $\epsilon$-approximation of a smooth function $f$ can be block-encoded using $O(\log(1/\epsilon))$ gates via its Hermite series expansion. The connections established with the theory of orthogonal and biorthogonal polynomials lead to a new method for solving the quantum signal processing angle-finding problem, yielding explicit expressions for the angles. They also provide a complete characterization of the polynomials achievable by $\mathrm{SU}(1,1)$-QSP in terms of their roots. Biorthogonality properties are shown to hold in the bivariate QSP setting, yielding a set of necessary conditions for achievable polynomials.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Encoded Quantum Signal Processing for Heisenberg-Limited Metrology

Entangled quantum probes can achieve Heisenberg-limited measurement precision, but this advantage is typically destroyed by noise. We address this issue by introducing a framework that we call encoded quantum signal processing, which unifies quantum error detection and quantum signal processing into an effective single-qubit framework, and provides a paradigm for constructing logical sensors that are robust to noise while remaining sensitive to the signal of interest. We show that encoding sensor qubits into a repetition code and using syndrome measurements as a signal-processing primitive restores Heisenberg scaling under realistic noise, without applying recovery operations. We prove that product-state sensing with syndrome post-processing is fundamentally limited to standard quantum limit (SQL) scaling, and develop four protocols that overcome this barrier through entanglement or sequential signal amplification, achieving Heisenberg-limited precision with exponential error suppression in code distance. For spatially inhomogeneous fields, Bayesian marginalization preserves Heisenberg scaling provided noise decreases sufficiently with system size. The underlying mechanism, which we formalize as encoded quantum signal processing, reduces multi-qubit metrology to an effective single-qubit problem where syndrome measurement implements nonlinear signal transformations. Numerical simulations validate the theoretical predictions: syndrome-based inference achieves near-Heisenberg scaling at noise levels where bare probes approach the SQL, and a concatenated protocol maintains this scaling under joint transverse noise and longitudinal inhomogeneities.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Efficient Quantum Simulation for Nonlinear Stochastic Differential Equations

Nonlinear stochastic differential equations (NSDEs) are a pillar of mathematical modeling for scientific and engineering applications. Accurate and efficient simulation of large-scale NSDEs is prohibitive on classical computers due to the large number of degrees of freedom, and it is challenging on quantum computers due to the linear and unitary nature of quantum mechanics. We develop a quantum algorithm to tackle nonlinear differential equations driven by the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU) stochastic process. The query complexity of our algorithm scales logarithmically with the error tolerance and nearly quadratically with the simulation time. Our algorithmic framework comprises probabilistic Carleman linearization (PCL) to tackle nonlinearity coupled with stochasticity, and stochastic linear combination of Hamiltonian simulations (SLCHS) to simulate stochastic non-unitary dynamics. We obtain probabilistic exponential convergence for the Carleman linearization of Liu et al. [1], provided the NSDE is stable and reaches a steady state. We extend deterministic LCHS to stochastic linear differential equations, retaining near-optimal parameter scaling from An et al. [2] except for the nearly quadratic time scaling. This is achieved by using Monte Carlo integration for time discretization of both the stochastic inhomogeneous term in LCHS and the truncated Dyson series for each Hamiltonian simulation.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Qudit stabiliser codes for $\mathbb{Z}_N$ lattice gauge theories with matter

In this work we extend the connection between Quantum Error Correction (QEC) and Lattice Gauge Theories (LGTs) by showing that a $\mathbb{Z}_N$ gauge theory with prime dimension $N$ coupled to dynamical matter can be expressed as a qudit stabilizer code. Using the stabilizer formalism we show how to formulate an exact mapping of the encoded $\mathbb{Z}_N$ gauge theory onto two different bosonic models, uncovering a logical duality generated by error correction itself. From this perspective, quantum error correction provides a unifying language to expose dual descriptions of lattice gauge theories. In addition, we generalize earlier $\mathbb{Z}_2$ constructions on qubits to $\mathbb{Z}_N$ on $N$-level qudits and demonstrate how universal fault-tolerant gates can be implemented via state injection between compatible qudit codes.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Quantum algorithm for simulating resonant inelastic X-ray scattering in battery materials

Resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) is the workhorse experimental technique for probing the structural degradation of higher-capacity cathode materials. However, the interpretation of experimental spectra is challenging due to the lack of accurate simulations. In this work, we propose a quantum algorithm for simulating the RIXS spectrum of molecular clusters hypothesized to form in Li-excess cathodes. The algorithm uses quantum phase estimation to sample the spectrum from a state encoding the scattering transition amplitudes of the cluster valence excitations. We prepare this state in the quantum computer using a block-encoding of the dipole operator and quantum signal processing to implement the Green's function propagator over intermediate core-excited states. To showcase the algorithm, we use a model cluster proposed in recent experimental works consisting of an oxygen dimer bonded to a manganese atom. Using the PennyLane software platform, we report resource estimation for simulating RIXS spectra for chemically motivated active spaces of increasing sizes. For a classically challenging active space with 20 orbitals, the algorithm requires $2.0 \times 10^{10}$ Toffoli gates and $414$ logical qubits.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Efficient Simulation of Pre-Born-Oppenheimer Dynamics on a Quantum Computer

In this work, we present a quantum algorithm for direct first-principles simulation of electron-nuclear dynamics on a first-quantized real-space grid. Our algorithm achieves best-in-class efficiency for block-encoding the pre-Born-Oppenheimer molecular Hamiltonian by harnessing the linear scaling of swap networks for implementing the quadratic number of particle interactions, while using a novel alternating sign implementation of the Coulomb interaction that exploits highly optimized arithmetic routines. We benchmark our approach for a series of scientifically and industrially relevant chemical reactions. We demonstrate over an order-of-magnitude reduction in costs compared to previous state-of-the-art for the $\rm NH_3+BF_3$ reaction, achieving a Toffoli cost of $8.7\times10^{9}$ per femtosecond using $1362$ logical qubits (system + ancillas). Our results significantly lower the resources required for fault-tolerant simulations of photochemical reactions, while providing a suite of algorithmic primitives that are expected to serve as foundational building blocks for a broader class of quantum algorithms.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Quantum Algorithm for Estimating Gibbs Free Energy and Entropy via Energy Derivatives

Estimating vibrational entropy is a significant challenge in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics due to its reliance on quantum mechanical properties. This paper introduces a quantum algorithm designed to estimate vibrational entropy via energy derivatives. Our approach block encodes the exact expression for the second derivative of the energy and uses quantum linear systems algorithms to deal with the reciprocal powers of the gaps that appear in the expression. We further show that if prior knowledge about the values of the second derivative is used then our algorithm can $\epsilon$-approximate the entropy using a number of queries that scales with the condition number $\kappa$, the temperature $T$, error tolerance $\epsilon$ and an analogue of the partition function $\mathcal{Z}$, as $\widetilde{O}\left(\frac{\mathcal{Z}\kappa^2 }{\epsilon T}\right)$. We show that if sufficient prior knowledge is given about the second derivative then the query scales quadratically better than these results. This shows that, under reasonable assumptions of the temperature and a quantum computer can be used to compute the vibrational contributions to the entropy faster than analogous classical algorithms would be capable of. Our findings highlight the potential of quantum algorithms to enhance the prediction of thermodynamic properties, paving the way for advancements in fields such as material science, molecular biology, and chemical engineering.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Quantum Algorithm for Subcellular Multiscale Reaction-Diffusion Systems

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.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

First-Quantized Quantum Simulation of Non-Relativistic QED with Emergent Topologically Protected Coulomb Interactions

We provide a simulation algorithm that properly addresses light matter interaction between non-relativistic first-quantized charged particles and quantum electromagnetic fields. Unlike previous work, our Hamiltonian does not include an explicit Coulomb interaction between particles. Rather, the Coulomb interaction emerges from the imposition of Gauss' law as a constraint upon the system in an appropriate non-relativistic limit. Furthermore, a form of topological protection emerges in our formalism, analogous to that of the Toric code Hamiltonian. This mechanism prevents simulation-induced electric field errors that can be contracted to a point from causing any deviations from Coulomb's law in the non-relativistic limit and any error that forms a non-contractable loop is energetically dissallowed in the limit of large volume. We find that, under appropriate continuity assumptions, the number of non-Clifford gates required by our algorithm scales in the thermodynamic limit as $\widetilde{O}(N^{2/3}\eta^{4/3} t \log^5(1/\epsilon))$ for $\eta$ particles, $N$ spatial grid points, simulation time $t$ and error tolerance $\epsilon$. In comparison, the more specific problem of simulating the Coulomb interaction scales as $\widetilde{O}(N^{1/3} \eta^{8/3} t \log^2(1/\epsilon))$. This suggests that if $N \in \tilde{o}(\eta^4)$ that our non-relativistic electrodynamic simulation method could provide a computational advantage for electronic structure problems in the thermodynamic limit under appropriate continuity assumptions as it obviates the need to compute the $O(\eta^2)$ pairwise interactions in the Coulomb Hamiltonian.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Fullqubit alchemist: Quantum algorithm for alchemical free energy calculations

Accurately computing the free energies of biological processes is a cornerstone of computer-aided drug design, but it is a daunting task. The need to sample vast conformational spaces and account for entropic contributions makes the estimation of binding free energies very expensive. While classical methods, such as thermodynamic integration and alchemical free energy calculations, have significantly contributed to reducing computational costs, they still face limitations in terms of efficiency and scalability. We tackle this through a quantum algorithm for the estimation of free energy differences by adapting the existing Liouvillian approach and introducing several key algorithmic improvements. We directly implement the Liouvillian operator and provide an efficient description of electronic forces acting on both nuclear and electronic particles on the quantum ground state potential energy surface. This leads to super-polynomial runtime scaling improvements in the precision of our Liouvillian simulation approach and quadratic improvements in the scaling with the number of particles relative to prior quantum algorithms. Second, our algorithm calculates free energy differences via a fully quantum implementation of thermodynamic integration and alchemy, thereby foregoing expensive entropy estimation subroutines used in prior works. Our results open new avenues towards the application of quantum computers in drug discovery.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Calibration of Quantum Devices via Robust Statistical Methods

Bayesian inference is a widely used technique for real-time characterization of quantum systems. It excels in experimental characterization in the low data regime, and when the measurements have degrees of freedom. A decisive factor for its performance is the numerical representation of the Bayesian probability distributions. In this work, we explore advanced statistical methods for this purpose, and numerically analyze their performance against the state-of-the-art in quantum parameter learning. In particular, we consider sequential importance resampling, tempered likelihood estimation, Markov Chain Monte Carlo, random walk Metropolis (RWM), Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) and variants (stochastic gradients with and without friction, energy conserving subsampling), block pseudo-marginal Metropolis-Hastings with subsampling, hybrid HMC-RWM approaches, and Gaussian rejection filtering. We demonstrate advantages of these approaches over existing ones, namely robustness under multi-modality and high dimensionality. We apply these algorithms to the calibration of superconducting qubits from IBMQ, surpassing the standard quantum limit and achieving better results than Qiskit's default tools. In Hahn echo and Ramsey experiments, we reduce the uncertainty by factors of 10 and 3 respectively, without increasing the number of measurements; conversely, we match the performance of Qiskit's methods while using up to to 99.5% less experimental data. We additionally investigate the roles of adaptivity, dataset ordering and heuristics in quantum characterization. Our findings have applications in challenging quantum characterization tasks, namely learning the dynamics of open quantum systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Arbitrary Boundary Conditions and Constraints in Quantum Algorithms for Differential Equations via Penalty Projections

Complicated boundary conditions are essential to accurately describe phenomena arising in nature and engineering. Recently, the investigation of a potential speedup through quantum algorithms in simulating the governing ordinary and partial differential equations of such phenomena has gained increasing attention. We design an efficient quantum algorithms for solving differential equations with arbitrary boundary conditions. Specifically, we propose an approach to enforce arbitrary boundary conditions and constraints through adding a penalty projection to the governing equations. Assuming a fast-forwardable representation of the projection to ensure an efficient interaction picture imulation, the cost of to enforce the constraints is at most $O(\log\lambda)$ in the strength of the penalty $\lambda$ in the gate complexity; in the worst case, this goes as $O([\|v(0)\|^2\|A_0\| + \|b\|_{L^1[0;t]}^2)]t^2/\varepsilon)$, for precision $\varepsilon$ and a dynamical system $\frac{\rm d}{{\rm d}t} v(t) = A_0(t) v(t) + b(t)$ with negative semidefinite $A_0(t)$ of size $n^d\times n^d$. E.g., for the heat equation, this leads to a gate complexity overhead of $\widetilde O(d\log n + \log t)$. We show constraint error bounds for the penalty approach and provide validating numerical experiments, and estimate the circuit complexity using the Linear Combination of Hamiltonian Simulation.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Constant-Factor Improvements in Quantum Algorithms for Linear Differential Equations

Finding the solution to linear ordinary differential equations of the form $\partial_t u(t) = -A(t)u(t)$ has been a promising theoretical avenue for \textit{asymptotic} quantum speedups. However, despite the improvements to existing quantum differential equation solvers over the years, little is known about \textit{constant factor} costs of such quantum algorithms. This makes it challenging to assess the prospects for using these algorithms in practice. In this work, we prove constant factor bounds for a promising new quantum differential equation solver, the linear combination of Hamiltonian simulation (LCHS) algorithm. Our bounds are formulated as the number of queries to a unitary $U_A$ that block encodes the generator $A$. In doing so, we make several algorithmic improvements such as tighter truncation and discretization bounds on the LCHS kernel integral, a more efficient quantum compilation scheme for the SELECT operator in LCHS, as well as use of a constant-factor bound for oblivious amplitude amplification, which may be of general interest. To the best of our knowledge, our new formulae improve over previous state of the art by at least two orders of magnitude, where the speedup can be far greater if state preparation has a significant cost. Accordingly, for any previous resource estimates of time-independent linear differential equations for the most general case whereby the dynamics are not \textit{fast-forwardable}, these findings provide a 100-200x reduction in runtime costs. This analysis contributes towards establishing more promising applications for quantum computing.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Productionizing Quantum Mass Production

For many practical applications of quantum computing, the most costly steps involve coherently accessing classical data. We help address this challenge by applying mass production techniques, which can reduce the cost of applying an operation multiple times in parallel. We combine these techniques with modern approaches for classical data loading based on "quantum read-only memory" (QROM). We find that we can polynomially reduce the total number of gates required for data loading, but we find no advantage in cost models that only count the number of non-Clifford gates. Furthermore, for realistic cost models and problem sizes, we find that it is possible to reduce the cost of parallel data loading by an order of magnitude or more. We present several applications of quantum mass production, including a scheme that uses parallel phase estimation to asymptotically reduce the gate complexity of state-of-the-art algorithms for estimating eigenvalues of the quantum chemical Hamiltonian, including both Clifford and non-Clifford gates, from $\widetilde{\mathcal{O}}\left(N_{orb}^2\right)$ to $\widetilde{\mathcal{O}}\left(N_{orb}^{\log_2 3}\right)$, where $N_{orb}$ denotes the number of orbitals. We also show that mass production can be used to reduce the cost of serial calls to the same data loading oracle by precomputing several copies of a novel QROM resource state.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Simulating Time Dependent and Nonlinear Classical Oscillators through Nonlinear Schr\"odingerization

We present quantum algorithms for simulating the dynamics of a broad class of classical oscillator systems containing $2^n$ coupled oscillators (Eg: $2^n$ masses coupled by springs), including those with time-dependent forces, time-varying stiffness matrices, and weak nonlinear interactions. This generalization of the Harmonic oscillator simulation algorithm is achieved through an approach that we call ``Nonlinear Schr\"{o}dingerization'', which involves reduction of the dynamical system to a nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger equation and then reduced to a time-independent Schrodinger Equation through perturbative techniques. The linearization of the equation is performed using an approach that allows the dynamics of a nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation to be approximated as a linear Schr\"odinger equation in a higher dimensional space. This allows Hamiltonian Simulation algorithms to be applied to simulate the dynamics of resulting system. When the properties of the classical dynamical systems can be efficiently queried, and when the initial state can be efficiently prepared, the complexity of our quantum algorithm is polynomial in $n$, and almost linear in evolution time for most dynamical systems. Our work extends the applicability of quantum algorithms to simulate the dynamics of non-conservative and nonlinear classical systems, addressing key limitations in previous approaches.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Interpreting Multipartite Entanglement through Topological Summaries

The study of multipartite entanglement is much less developed than the bipartite scenario. Recently, a string of results have proposed using tools from Topological Data Analysis (TDA) to attach topological quantities to multipartite states. However, these quantities are not directly connected to concrete information processing tasks making their interpretations vague. We take the first steps in connecting these abstract topological quantities to operational interpretations of entanglement in two scenarios. The first is we provide a bound on the Integrated Euler Characteristic defined by Hamilton and Leditzky via an average distillable entanglement, which we develop as a generalization of the Meyer-Wallach entanglement measure studied by A. J. Scott in 2004. This allows us to connect the distance of an error correcting code to the Integrated Euler Characteristic. The second is we provide a characterization of a class of graph states containing the GHZ state via the birth and death times of the connected components and 1-dimensional cycles of the entanglement complex. In other words, the entanglement distance behavior of the first Betti number $\beta_1(\varepsilon)$ allows us to determine if a state is locally equivalent to a GHZ state, potentially providing new verification schemes for highly entangled states.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Dividing and Conquering the Van Vleck Catastrophe

The quantum-computational cost of determining ground state energies through quantum phase estimation depends on the overlap between an easily preparable initial state and the targeted ground state. The Van Vleck orthogonality catastrophe has frequently been invoked to suggest that quantum computers may not be able to efficiently prepare ground states of large systems because the overlap with the initial state tends to decrease exponentially with the system size, even for non-interacting systems. We show that this intuition is not necessarily true. Specifically, we introduce 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 if the minimum success probability of each merge is lower bounded by a constant, then the query complexity of preparing the ground state of $N$ interacting systems is in $O(N^{\log\log(N)} {\rm poly}(N))$, which is quasi-polynomial in $N$, in contrast to the exponential scaling anticipated by the Van Vleck catastrophe. We also discuss sufficient conditions on the Hamiltonian that ensure a quasi-polynomial running time.

quant-ph↗