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Fail-safe quantum algorithm for the transport equation

Solve the transport equation — for variable grid sizes and discrete particle velocities, in two and three spatial dimensions — on a fault-tolerant universal quantum computer, including the reflection of particles at the walls, edges and corners of obstacles.

Attested & literatureUpdated

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  • Record typeLiterature reference
  • Reference implementationqlbm
  • Reported costQuadratic scaling, per the paper's own comparison, in the number of qubits needed to encode the grid and the number needed to encode the discrete velocities, stated for a single spatial dimension; the abstract calls this scaling superior to state-of-the-art approaches in the literature. Three further findings in the same abstract are each attached to a different subroutine and are qualitative rather than numeric: the streaming approach is said to reduce the number of CNOT gates against state-of-the-art quantum streaming methods; the object-encoding method for walls is said to make the CNOT-gate cost of encoding a wall independent of the wall's size; and the velocity encoding is said to give a linear speed-up in the cost of reflecting a particle's velocity and to make that cost independent of the number of velocities encoded. None of the four is accompanied by an explicit formula, a constant, or an error dependence in the abstract.
  • Papers1

Solve the transport equation — for variable grid sizes and discrete particle velocities, in two and three spatial dimensions — on a fault-tolerant universal quantum computer, including the reflection of particles at the walls, edges and corners of obstacles. Schalkers and Möller present a scalable algorithm for solving the transport equation in two and three spatial dimensions, for variable grid sizes and discrete velocities, on a fault-tolerant universal quantum computer. As a proof of concept of their quantum transport method (QTM), they describe a full-circuit start-to-end implementation in Qiskit and present numerical results for 2D flows. The QTM rests on a novel streaming approach that the authors say reduces the number of CNOT gates needed compared with state-of-the-art quantum streaming methods, a novel object-encoding method that makes the CNOT-gate cost of encoding a wall independent of the wall's size, and a novel encoding of the particles' discrete velocities that gives a linear speed-up in the cost of reflecting a particle's velocity and makes that cost independent of the number of velocities encoded. The paper's main contribution, by the authors' own description, is a detailed, fail-safe implementation of the reflection step that can be readily implemented on a physical quantum computer, handles a variety of initial conditions and particle velocities, and produces physically correct behavior around the walls, edges and corners of obstacles. Combining these pieces, the authors present a fail-safe, start-to-end quantum algorithm for the transport equation usable for a multitude of flow configurations, and report that it scales quadratically in the number of qubits needed to encode the grid and the number needed to encode the discrete velocities in a single spatial dimension, which they call superior to state-of-the-art approaches in the literature.

References

  • Efficient and fail-safe quantum algorithm for the transport equation

    Merel A. Schalkers, Matthias Möller · 2022

    Primary source: it presents the quantum transport method (QTM), a fail-safe, start-to-end algorithm for the transport equation, and reports that the approach is quadratic in the qubits needed to encode the grid and the discrete velocities in a single spatial dimension, that its streaming approach reduces CNOT gates against state-of-the-art quantum streaming methods, that its wall-encoding method makes CNOT cost independent of wall size, and that its velocity encoding gives a linear speed-up in reflection cost independent of the number of velocities. Consult it for the two- and three-dimensional scaling, the constants involved, and the Qiskit implementation and its 2D numerical results, none of which the abstract itself states in detail.

Attested & literature
  • Peer-reviewed paper
Method
Curation only. This record documents the algorithm a published reference implementation demonstrates, not the demonstration itself: nothing in Leona runs Qmod. The primary reference's title, authors and submission year were read from its arXiv abs page, and the complexity claim taken from a clause of that paper's abstract (The abstract of arXiv:2211.14269 states four separate scaling claims, each attached by the abstract to a different piece of the algorithm; this record keeps them separate rather than merging them into one figure. The qubit-count claim: "We finally show that our approach is quadratic in the amount of qubits necessary to encode the grid and the amount of qubits necessary to encode the discrete velocities in a single spatial dimension, which makes our approach superior to state-of-the-art approaches known in the literature." On the streaming approach: "Our QTM is based on a novel streaming approach which leads to a reduction in the amount of CNOT gates required in comparison to state-of-the-art quantum streaming methods." On wall encoding: "As a second highlight we present a novel object encoding method, that reduces the complexity of the amount of CNOT gates required to encode walls, which now becomes independent of the size of the wall." On velocity encoding: "Finally we present a novel quantum encoding of the particles' discrete velocities that enables a linear speed-up in the costs of reflecting the velocity of a particle, which now becomes independent of the amount of velocities encoded." None of the four is a big-O expression with an explicit exponent or constant beyond the words "quadratic" and "linear" themselves, and none carries an error or precision dependence. The demonstration this record covers states no complexity bound of its own.). No circuit was constructed, simulated or run.
Result
Pass · the record's problem statement and primary reference agree with the sources named above.
Caveat
This is a literature record. No circuit was built, compiled, simulated or run for it, no transport-equation instance was solved, and no flow was computed; the record documents the algorithm the paper presents and does not reproduce or verify the demonstration at applications/CFD/qlbm. The pinned index read for this record gives only that directory path and the file list qlbm.ipynb and qlbm.qmod, nothing about what those files contain. Every scaling claim above is the paper's own statement about its own algorithm, not a number produced for this record: the quadratic qubit-count scaling is stated for a single spatial dimension only, and the abstract does not say what it becomes in two or three dimensions, does not give a constant factor, and does not state how either bound depends on precision or on the physical parameters of the flow. The claims about CNOT-gate reduction, wall-size independence, and velocity-count independence are each qualitative — the abstract states a direction of improvement, not a formula — so nothing here quantifies by how much any of the three improves, or over what baseline beyond the general phrase state-of-the-art. The comparisons the abstract calls superior are the paper's own comparisons against a state of the art it does not name in detail, not a proven lower bound. The abstract does report the paper's own experiment: a full-circuit start-to-end implementation in Qiskit with numerical results for 2D flows; that is the paper's reported simulation, at the size and configuration the paper reports, and it is not repeated or checked here. The fail-safe reflection-step implementation the abstract calls the paper's main contribution is described only at the level the abstract states — that it handles a variety of initial conditions and particle velocities and produces physically correct behavior around walls, edges and corners — with no further detail on what fail-safe means operationally.
Efficient and fail-safe quantum algorithm for the transport equation ↗
Kind
curated reference
Reviewed by
Leona Quantum curation pass
License
Citation metadata only; source publication terms apply
transport equationfault-tolerant quantum computingcnot reductionparticle reflectionqubit encoding

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