Variational quantum simulation of time-local quantum master equations via quantum jump
Strong coupling and environmental memory render many open quantum systems intractable to classical computation. To overcome this barrier, we present a variational quantum algorithm capable of solving generalized form time-local quantum master equations directly on noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) processors. Our approach combines four key innovations: (1) a pair-vector stochastic Schrödinger equation to unravel time-local quantum master equations, (2) deterministic evolution projected onto parameterized circuits via McLachlan's principle and stochastic jump implementation via singular-value decomposition, (3) using Hadamard tests circuits to measure the jump rates and the element of reduced density matrices, and (4) using no-evolution sampling to sample trajectories. The resulting protocol remains resilient under realistic hardware noise. We validate it on both classical simulators and a 66-qubit superconducting processor for solving the Redfield master equation and fourth-order time-local non-Markovian master equation and find that it can successfully capture key features of complex open quantum dynamics-including non-Markovian oscillations and strong-coupling effects. Our approach establishes a practical pathway toward scalable simulations of open quantum systems in the NISQ era.
Authors
- WanZhen Liang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5931-2901)
- Zhihao Lan
- Jie Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8140-9144)
- Zhenyu Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2112-9834)
Institutions
- University of Science and Technology of China (CN)
- Xiamen University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- The Journal of Chemical Physics
- Published
- 2025-10-09
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0291793
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Quantum Computing Algorithms and Architecture
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.48