English

On the complexity of quantum numerical integration: an angle-structure characterization

Quantum Physics 2026-04-28 v1 Numerical Analysis Numerical Analysis

Abstract

We study numerical integration on [0,1][0,1] by quantum amplitude estimation (QAE), focusing on the cost of constructing the amplitude oracle. Although QAE improves the statistical component of the integration error, this advantage is relevant only when the integrand has low encoding complexity. We introduce a hierarchy of grid function classes Gn(d)\mathcal{G}_n^{(d)}, defined by requiring the angle map Θg:{0,1}n[0,π]\Theta_g:\{0,1\}^n\to[0,\pi] to be multilinear of degree at most dd. Membership is classically checkable in O(n2n)O(n2^n) time by the Walsh--Hadamard transform. For gGn(d)g\in\mathcal{G}_n^{(d)}, the encoding operator factorises into k=0d(nk)\sum_{k=0}^d\binom{n}{k} multi-controlled RYR_Y gates, interpolating between an affine O(n)O(n) regime and the generic exponential regime. Combining this structure with classical discretisation estimates for gCα[0,1]g\in C^\alpha[0,1], we obtain a depth-versus-accuracy trade-off: gate count O((log(1/ε))dε1)O((\log(1/\varepsilon))^d\varepsilon^{-1}) suffices to achieve ε\varepsilon-accuracy with constant probability. For d=1d=1 this becomes O(ε1log(1/ε))O(\varepsilon^{-1}\log(1/\varepsilon)), improving over classical Monte Carlo for every α1\alpha\ge1. We also prove an unconditional separation: Gn(1)\mathcal{G}_n^{(1)} contains functions of Sobolev regularity s<1/2s<1/2 for which the quantum oracle cost is O(1/ε)O(1/\varepsilon), whereas classical deterministic or randomised quadrature requires Ω(ε1/s)\Omega(\varepsilon^{-1/s}) evaluations. These results identify explicit integrand classes for which the full cost of QAE-based integration, including state preparation, is asymptotically better than classical methods. Experiments on SpinQ Triangulum and IBM Kingston illustrate the hierarchy at n=2n=2: circuits inside Gn(d)\mathcal{G}_n^{(d)} run successfully, while those exceeding the Triangulum coherence budget fail as predicted.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.24289,
  title  = {On the complexity of quantum numerical integration: an angle-structure characterization},
  author = {Francisco Chinesta and Antonio Falco and Daniela Falco-Pomares},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.24289},
  year   = {2026}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T12:36:49.823Z