English

A Lov\'asz theta lower bound on Quantum Max Cut

Quantum Physics 2025-12-24 v1 Combinatorics

Abstract

We prove a lower bound to quantum Max Cut of a graph in terms of the Lov\'asz theta function of its complement. For a graph with mm edges, qmc(G)m4(1+83π1ϑ(Gˉ)1)\text{qmc}(G) \geq \tfrac{m}{4}\big( 1 + \tfrac{8}{3\pi}\tfrac{1}{\vartheta(\bar{G}) -1} \big), with the bound achieved by a product state. The proof extends a result by Balla, Janzer, and Sudakov on classical Max Cut and is also inspired by the randomized rounding method of Gharibian and Parekh. The bound outperforms the classical bound when applied to quantum Max Cut.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2512.20326,
  title  = {A Lov\'asz theta lower bound on Quantum Max Cut},
  author = {Felix Huber},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.20326},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

5 pages, comments welcome

R2 v1 2026-07-01T08:38:30.935Z