English

Quantum eigenvalue processing

Quantum Physics 2026-03-27 v3 Data Structures and Algorithms Numerical Analysis Numerical Analysis Chemical Physics

Abstract

Many problems in linear algebra -- such as those arising from non-Hermitian physics and differential equations -- can be solved on a quantum computer by processing eigenvalues of the non-normal input matrices. However, the existing Quantum Singular Value Transformation (QSVT) framework is ill-suited for this task, as eigenvalues and singular values are different in general. We present a Quantum EigenValue Transformation (QEVT) framework for applying arbitrary polynomial transformations on eigenvalues of block-encoded non-normal operators, and a related Quantum EigenValue Estimation (QEVE) algorithm for operators with real spectra. QEVT has query complexity to the block encoding nearly recovering that of the QSVT for a Hermitian input, and QEVE achieves the Heisenberg-limited scaling for diagonalizable input matrices. As applications, we develop a linear differential equation solver with strictly linear time query complexity for average-case diagonalizable operators, as well as a ground state preparation algorithm that upgrades previous nearly optimal results for Hermitian Hamiltonians to diagonalizable matrices with real spectra. Underpinning our algorithms is an efficient method to prepare a quantum superposition of Faber polynomials, which generalize the nearly-best uniform approximation properties of Chebyshev polynomials to the complex plane. Of independent interest, we also develop techniques to generate nn Fourier coefficients with O(polylog(n))\mathbf{O}(\mathrm{polylog}(n)) gates compared to prior approaches with linear cost.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2401.06240,
  title  = {Quantum eigenvalue processing},
  author = {Guang Hao Low and Yuan Su},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.06240},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

114 pages, 3 figures. Tabulated common measures of non-normality (Jordan condition number, numerical range, pseudospectrum) and the corresponding cost of eigenvalue processors. Improved complexity of initial state preparation using the block preconditioning technique from arXiv:2410.18178. Enhanced version of the paper presented at FOCS 2024 and published in SICOMP