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1. Efficient quantum algorithm for dissipative nonlinear differential equations

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2026805118  

   Liu, Jin-Peng; Kolden, Herman Øie; Krovi, Hari K.; Loureiro, Nuno F.; Trivisa, Konstantina; Childs, Andrew M. (August 2021, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   null (Ed.)

   Nonlinear differential equations model diverse phenomena but are notoriously difficult to solve. While there has been extensive previous work on efficient quantum algorithms for linear differential equations, the linearity of quantum mechanics has limited analogous progress for the nonlinear case. Despite this obstacle, we develop a quantum algorithm for dissipative quadratic n-dimensional ordinary differential equations. Assuming R < 1 , where R is a parameter characterizing the ratio of the nonlinearity and forcing to the linear dissipation, this algorithm has complexity T 2 q   poly ( log ⁡ T , log ⁡ n , log ⁡ 1 / ϵ ) / ϵ , where T is the evolution time, ϵ is the allowed error, and q measures decay of the solution. This is an exponential improvement over the best previous quantum algorithms, whose complexity is exponential in T. While exponential decay precludes efficiency, driven equations can avoid this issue despite the presence of dissipation. Our algorithm uses the method of Carleman linearization, for which we give a convergence theorem. This method maps a system of nonlinear differential equations to an infinite-dimensional system of linear differential equations, which we discretize, truncate, and solve using the forward Euler method and the quantum linear system algorithm. We also provide a lower bound on the worst-case complexity of quantum algorithms for general quadratic differential equations, showing that the problem is intractable for R ≥ 2 . Finally, we discuss potential applications, showing that the R < 1 condition can be satisfied in realistic epidemiological models and giving numerical evidence that the method may describe a model of fluid dynamics even for larger values of R. 

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2. Quantum algorithms for escaping from saddle points

   https://doi.org/10.22331/q-2021-08-20-529  

   Zhang, Chenyi; Leng, Jiaqi; Li, Tongyang (August 2021, Quantum)

   null (Ed.)

   We initiate the study of quantum algorithms for escaping from saddle points with provable guarantee. Given a function f : R n → R , our quantum algorithm outputs an ϵ -approximate second-order stationary point using 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 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. 

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3. Quantum simulation in the semi-classical regime

   https://doi.org/10.22331/q-2022-06-17-739  

   Jin, Shi; Li, Xiantao; Liu, Nana (June 2022, Quantum)

   Solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation is an important application area for quantum algorithms. We consider Schrödinger's equation in the semi-classical regime. Here the solutions exhibit strong multiple-scale behavior due to a small parameter ℏ , in the sense that the dynamics of the quantum states and the induced observables can occur on different spatial and temporal scales. Such a Schrödinger equation finds many applications, including in Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics and Ehrenfest dynamics. This paper considers quantum analogues of pseudo-spectral (PS) methods on classical computers. Estimates on the gate counts in terms of ℏ and the precision ε are obtained. It is found that the number of required qubits, m , scales only logarithmically with respect to ℏ . When the solution has bounded derivatives up to order ℓ , the symmetric Trotting method has gate complexity O ( ( ε ℏ ) − 1 2 p o l y l o g ( ε − 3 2 ℓ ℏ − 1 − 1 2 ℓ ) ) , provided that the diagonal unitary operators in the pseudo-spectral methods can be implemented with p o l y ( m ) operations. When physical observables are the desired outcomes, however, the step size in the time integration can be chosen independently of ℏ . The gate complexity in this case is reduced to O ( ε − 1 2 p o l y l o g ( ε − 3 2 ℓ ℏ − 1 ) ) , with ℓ again indicating the smoothness of the solution. 

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4. New High-Order Numerical Methods for Hyperbolic Systems of Nonlinear PDEs with Uncertainties

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s42967-024-00392-z  

   Chertock, Alina; Herty, Michael; Iskhakov, Arsen S; Janajra, Safa; Kurganov, Alexander; Lukáčová-Medvid’ová, Mária (September 2024, Communications on Applied Mathematics and Computation)

   In this paper, we develop new high-order numerical methods for hyperbolic systems of non- linear partial differential equations (PDEs) with uncertainties. The new approach is realized in the semi-discrete finite-volume framework and is based on fifth-order weighted essen- tially non-oscillatory (WENO) interpolations in (multidimensional) random space combined with second-order piecewise linear reconstruction in physical space. Compared with spectral approximations in the random space, the presented methods are essentially non-oscillatory as they do not suffer from the Gibbs phenomenon while still achieving high-order accuracy. The new methods are tested on a number of numerical examples for both the Euler equations of gas dynamics and the Saint-Venant system of shallow-water equations. In the latter case, the methods are also proven to be well-balanced and positivity-preserving. 

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5. On the reduction in accuracy of finite difference schemes on manifolds without boundary

   https://doi.org/10.1093/imanum/drad048  

   Hamfeldt, Brittany Froese; Turnquist, Axel G_R (July 2023, IMA Journal of Numerical Analysis)

   Abstract We investigate error bounds for numerical solutions of divergence structure linear elliptic partial differential equations (PDEs) on compact manifolds without boundary. Our focus is on a class of monotone finite difference approximations, which provide a strong form of stability that guarantees the existence of a bounded solution. In many settings including the Dirichlet problem, it is easy to show that the resulting solution error is proportional to the formal consistency error of the scheme. We make the surprising observation that this need not be true for PDEs posed on compact manifolds without boundary. We propose a particular class of approximation schemes built around an underlying monotone scheme with consistency error $$O(h^{\alpha })$$. By carefully constructing barrier functions, we prove that the solution error is bounded by $$O(h^{\alpha /(d+1)})$$ in dimension $$d$$. We also provide a specific example where this predicted convergence rate is observed numerically. Using these error bounds, we further design a family of provably convergent approximations to the solution gradient. 

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