arXiv subjects

Philipp Pfeffer

Publications and source records attributed to Philipp Pfeffer.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

The potential of quantum computers for Particle Image Velocimetry

Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) is the prime image-processing technique to measure and visualize velocity fields of laminar and turbulent flows. The velocity field vectors are obtained with sub-pixelaccuracy by analyzing cross-correlations, empowered by Fast Fourier Transforms (FFT). Here, we present a quantum algorithm with multidimensional quantum Fourier Transforms, termed Quantum-based PIV (QuPIV), to replace the classical computation of up to millions of velocity vectors. Our end-to-end quantum algorithm includes a novel state preparation, modified amplitude amplification, and the output extraction. We enhance amplitude amplification by a contracted ground-state projector, which allows a significant reduction of the number of gates in the quantum circuit. We justify the end-to-end capability with numerical studies on all stages of the algorithm on both synthetic and experimental data.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Variational quantum algorithm for anion exchange across electrolyzer membrane

We present a variational quantum algorithm that solves the one-dimensional diffusion problem with a space-dependent diffusion constant $D(x)$. This problem is relevant for the exchange of hydroxide ions across a two-layer membrane in an alkaline electrolyzer, where the concentration of OH$^-$ ion determines the chemical stability for longer time periods. We use $16$ to $64$ grid points across the membrane, resulting from $n=4$ to 6 data qubits for the ideal statevector and shot-based quantum simulations implemented using Qiskit. For these qubit numbers, the depth of the parametric quantum circuit has been chosen to ensure sufficient expressibility. The state preparation requires particular attention since the diffusivity $D$ is piecewise constant in the different layers with discontinuities at the interface. Furthermore, we compare different classical optimization schemes with respect to their convergence in the VQA method. We demonstrate the applicability of the quantum algorithm to a problem with non-trivial boundary conditions and jump conditions of the diffusion constant and outline possible extensions of the proof-of-concept application case of quantum computing. Our simulations show that pronounced hydroxide ion concentration gradients, and thus chemical instabilities, can occur only when the ratio of diffusivity in both layers of the membrane exceeds approximately 50.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2025

High-order splitting of non-unitary operators on quantum computers

Dissipation and irreversibility are central to many physical systems, yet they lead to non-unitary dynamics that are challenging to realise on quantum processors. High-order operator splitting is an attractive approach for simulating unitary dynamics, yet conventional product formulas introduce negative time steps at high orders that are ill-conditioned for dissipative dynamics. We show how block encodings of complex-coefficient product formulas can be constructed by a sequence of simple Hamiltonian evolutions in real and imaginary time with high-order accuracy. The unitary substages use positive real coefficients, while the dissipative substages use complex coefficients with positive real parts; the real parts preserve the contractive evolution, and the imaginary parts are additional unitary evolutions. We use known formulas of orders 4 and 6 and give a new symmetric formula of order 8 in this restricted class. We apply the approach to the classical problem of lossy mechanical wave propagation in statevector simulations and on a trapped-ion quantum processor. Orders 4 and 6 require comparable CNOT gates to orders 1 and 2 at large error tolerances, but quickly become more efficient as the tolerance is reduced. On the quantum hardware, a single step of order 4 achieves lower error than order 1 and comparable error to order 2, while order 6 is noise-limited. Our results show that operator splitting can combine practical circuit constructions with high-order convergence for non-unitary dissipative dynamics.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Spectral quantum algorithm for passive scalar transport in shear flows

The mixing of scalar substances in fluid flows by stirring and diffusion is ubiquitous in natural flows, chemical engineering, and microfluidic drug delivery. Here, we present a spectral quantum algorithm for scalar mixing by solving the advection-diffusion equation in a quantum computational fluid dynamics framework. The exact gate decompositions of the advection and diffusion operators in spectral space are derived. For all but the simplest one-dimensional flows, these operators do not commute. Therefore, we use operator splitting to construct quantum circuits capable of simulating arbitrary polynomial velocity profiles in multiple dimensions, such as the Blasius profile of a laminar boundary layer. Periodic, Neumann, and Dirichlet boundary conditions can be imposed with the appropriate quantum spectral transform. We evaluate the approach in statevector simulations of a Couette flow, plane Poiseuille flow, and a polynomial Blasius profile approximation. For an advection-diffusion problem in one dimension, we compare the time evolution of an ideal quantum simulation with those of real quantum computers with superconducting and trapped-ion qubits. The required number of two-qubit gates grows with the logarithm of the number of grid points raised to one higher power than the order of the polynomial velocity profile.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Second quantization for classical nonlinear dynamics

Using techniques from many-body quantum theory, we propose a framework for representing the evolution of observables of measure-preserving ergodic flows through infinite-dimensional rotation systems on tori. This approach is based on a class of weighted Fock spaces $F_w(\mathcal H_\tau)$ generated by a 1-parameter family of reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces $\mathcal H_\tau$, and endowed with commutative Banach algebra structure under the symmetric tensor product using a subconvolutive weight $w$. We describe the construction of the spaces $F_w(\mathcal H_\tau)$ and show that their Banach algebra spectra, $\sigma(F_w(\mathcal H_\tau))$, decompose into a family of tori of potentially infinite dimension. Spectrally consistent unitary approximations $U^t_\tau$ of the Koopman operator acting on $\mathcal H_\tau$ are then lifted to rotation systems on these tori akin to the topological models of ergodic systems with pure point spectra in the Halmos--von Neumann theorem. Our scheme also employs a procedure for representing observables of the original system by polynomial functions on finite-dimensional tori in $\sigma(F_w(\mathcal H_\tau))$ of arbitrarily large degree, with coefficients determined from pointwise products of eigenfunctions of $U^t_\tau$. This leads to models for the Koopman evolution of observables on $L^2$ built from tensor products of finite collections of approximate Koopman eigenfunctions. Numerically, the scheme is amenable to consistent data-driven implementation using kernel methods. We illustrate it with applications to Stepanoff flows on the 2-torus and the Lorenz 63 system. Connections with quantum computing are also discussed.

math.DS↗

arXiv2025

Slim multi-scale convolutional autoencoder-based reduced-order models for interpretable features of a complex dynamical system

In recent years, data-driven deep learning models have gained significant interest in the analysis of turbulent dynamical systems. Within the context of reduced-order models (ROMs), convolutional autoencoders (CAEs) pose a universally applicable alternative to conventional approaches. They can learn nonlinear transformations directly from data, without prior knowledge of the system. However, the features generated by such models lack interpretability. Thus, the resulting model is a black-box which effectively reduces the complexity of the system, but does not provide insights into the meaning of the latent features. To address this critical issue, we introduce a novel interpretable CAE approach for high-dimensional fluid flow data that maintains the reconstruction quality of conventional CAEs and allows for feature interpretation. Our method can be easily integrated into any existing CAE architecture with minor modifications of the training process. We compare our approach to Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) and two existing methods for interpretable CAEs. We apply all methods to three different experimental turbulent Rayleigh-B\'enard convection datasets with varying complexity. Our results show that the proposed method is lightweight, easy to train, and achieves relative reconstruction performance improvements of up to 6.4% over POD for 64 modes. The relative improvement increases to up to 229.8% as the number of modes decreases. Additionally, our method delivers interpretable features similar to those of POD and is significantly less resource-intensive than existing CAE approaches, using less than 2% of the parameters. These approaches either trade interpretability for reconstruction performance or only provide interpretability to a limited extend.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2024

Tensor network approximation of Koopman operators

We propose a tensor network framework for approximating the evolution of observables of measure-preserving ergodic systems. Our approach is based on a spectrally-convergent approximation of the skew-adjoint Koopman generator by a diagonalizable, skew-adjoint operator $W_\tau$ that acts on a reproducing kernel Hilbert space $\mathcal H_\tau$ with coalgebra structure and Banach algebra structure under the pointwise product of functions. Leveraging this structure, we lift the unitary evolution operators $e^{t W_\tau}$ (which can be thought of as regularized Koopman operators) to a unitary evolution group on the Fock space $F(\mathcal H_\tau)$ generated by $\mathcal H_\tau$ that acts multiplicatively with respect to the tensor product. Our scheme also employs a representation of classical observables ($L^\infty$ functions of the state) by quantum observables (self-adjoint operators) acting on the Fock space, and a representation of probability densities in $L^1$ by quantum states. Combining these constructions leads to an approximation of the Koopman evolution of observables that is representable as evaluation of a tree tensor network built on a tensor product subspace $\mathcal H_\tau^{\otimes n} \subset F(\mathcal H_\tau)$ of arbitrarily high grading $n \in \mathbb N$. A key feature of this quantum-inspired approximation is that it captures information from a tensor product space of dimension $(2d+1)^n$, generated from a collection of $2d + 1$ eigenfunctions of $W_\tau$. Furthermore, the approximation is positivity preserving. The paper contains a theoretical convergence analysis of the method and numerical applications to two dynamical systems on the 2-torus: an ergodic torus rotation as an example with pure point Koopman spectrum and a Stepanoff flow as an example with topological weak mixing.

math.DS↗

arXiv2023

Two quantum algorithms for solving the one-dimensional advection-diffusion equation

Two quantum algorithms are presented for the numerical solution of a linear one-dimensional advection-diffusion equation with periodic boundary conditions. Their accuracy and performance with increasing qubit number are compared point-by-point with each other. Specifically, we solve the linear partial differential equation with a Quantum Linear Systems Algorithms (QLSA) based on the Harrow--Hassidim--Lloyd method and a Variational Quantum Algorithm (VQA), for resolutions that can be encoded using up to 6 qubits, which corresponds to $N=64$ grid points on the unit interval. Both algorithms are of hybrid nature, i.e., they involve a combination of classical and quantum computing building blocks. The QLSA and VQA are solved as ideal statevector simulations using the in-house solver QFlowS and open-access Qiskit software, respectively. We discuss several aspects of both algorithms which are crucial for a successful performance in both cases. These are the sizes of an additional quantum register for the quantum phase estimation for the QLSA and the choice of the algorithm of the minimization of the cost function for the VQA. The latter algorithm is also implemented in the noisy Qiskit framework including measurement and decoherence circuit noise. We reflect the current limitations and suggest some possible routes of future research for the numerical simulation of classical fluid flows on a quantum computer.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2023

Reduced-order modeling of two-dimensional turbulent Rayleigh-B\'enard flow by hybrid quantum-classical reservoir computing

Two hybrid quantum-classical reservoir computing models are presented to reproduce low-order statistical properties of a two-dimensional turbulent Rayleigh-B\'enard convection flow at a Rayleigh number Ra=1e+5 and a Prandtl number Pr=10. These properties comprise the mean vertical profiles of the root mean square velocity and temperature and the turbulent convective heat flux. Both quantum algorithms differ by the arrangement of the circuit layers of the quantum reservoir, in particular the entanglement layers. The second of the two quantum circuit architectures, denoted as H2, enables a complete execution of the reservoir update inside the quantum circuit without the usage of external memory. Their performance is compared with that of a classical reservoir computing model. Therefore, all three models have to learn the nonlinear and chaotic dynamics of the turbulent flow at hand in a lower-dimensional latent data space which is spanned by the time-dependent expansion coefficients of the 16 most energetic Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) modes. These training data are generated by a POD snapshot analysis from direct numerical simulations of the original turbulent flow. All reservoir computing models are operated in the reconstruction mode. We analyse different measures of the reconstruction error in dependence on the hyperparameters which are specific for the quantum cases or shared with the classical counterpart, such as the reservoir size and the leaking rate. We show that both quantum algorithms are able to reconstruct the essential statistical properties of the turbulent convection flow successfully with similar performance compared to the classical reservoir network. Most importantly, the quantum reservoirs are by a factor of 4 to 8 smaller in comparison to the classical case.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2023

Multidimensional Quantum Fourier Transformation

The Quantum Fourier Transformation (QFT) is a well-known subroutine for algorithms on qubit-based universal quantum computers. In this work, the known QFT circuit is used to derive an efficient circuit for the multidimensional QFT. The complexity of the algorithm is $\mathcal{O}( \log^2(M)/d )$ for an array with $M=(2^n)^d$ elements $(n \in \mathbb{N})$ equally separated along $d$ dimensions. Relevant properties for application are discussed. An example on current hardware is depicted by a 6 qubit 2D-QFT with an IBM quantum computer.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Hybrid quantum-classical reservoir computing of thermal convection flow

We simulate the nonlinear chaotic dynamics of Lorenz-type models for a classical two-dimensional thermal convection flow with 3 and 8 degrees of freedom by a hybrid quantum--classical reservoir computing model. The high-dimensional quantum reservoir dynamics are established by universal quantum gates that rotate and entangle the individual qubits of the tensor product quantum state. A comparison of the quantum reservoir computing model with its classical counterpart shows that the same prediction and reconstruction capabilities of classical reservoirs with thousands of perceptrons can be obtained by a few strongly entangled qubits. We demonstrate that the mean squared error between model output and ground truth in the test phase of the quantum reservoir computing algorithm increases when the reservoir is decomposed into separable subsets of qubits. Furthermore, the quantum reservoir computing model is implemented on a real noisy IBM quantum computer for up to 7 qubits. Our work thus opens the door to model the dynamics of classical complex systems in a high-dimensional phase space effectively with an algorithm that requires a small number of qubits.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Embedding classical dynamics in a quantum computer

We develop a framework for simulating measure-preserving, ergodic dynamical systems on a quantum computer. Our approach provides a new operator-theoretic representation of classical dynamics by combining ergodic theory with quantum information science. The resulting quantum embedding of classical dynamics (QECD) enables efficient simulation of spaces of classical observables with exponentially large dimension using a quadratic number of quantum gates. The QECD framework is based on a quantum feature map for representing classical states by density operators on a reproducing kernel Hilbert space, $\mathcal H $, and an embedding of classical observables into self-adjoint operators on $\mathcal H$. In this scheme, quantum states and observables evolve unitarily under the lifted action of Koopman evolution operators of the classical system. Moreover, by virtue of the reproducing property of $\mathcal H$, the quantum system is pointwise-consistent with the underlying classical dynamics. To achieve an exponential quantum computational advantage, we project the state of the quantum system to a density matrix on a $2^n$-dimensional tensor product Hilbert space associated with $n$ qubits. By employing discrete Fourier-Walsh transforms, the evolution operator of the finite-dimensional quantum system is factorized into tensor product form, enabling implementation through a quantum circuit of size $O(n)$. Furthermore, the circuit features a state preparation stage, also of size $O(n)$, and a quantum Fourier transform stage of size $O(n^2)$, which makes predictions of observables possible by measurement in the standard computational basis. We prove theoretical convergence results for these predictions as $n\to\infty$. We present simulated quantum circuit experiments in Qiskit Aer, as well as actual experiments on the IBM Quantum System One.

quant-ph↗