English

Sampling from the thermal quantum Gibbs state and evaluating partition functions with a quantum computer

Quantum Physics 2013-05-29 v2

Abstract

We present a quantum algorithm to prepare the thermal Gibbs state of interacting quantum systems. This algorithm sets a universal upper bound D^alpha on the thermalization time of a quantum system, where D is the system's Hilbert space dimension and alpha < 1/2 is proportional to the Helmholtz free energy density of the system. We also derive an algorithm to evaluate the partition function of a quantum system in a time proportional to the system's thermalization time and inversely proportional to the targeted accuracy squared.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0905.2199,
  title  = {Sampling from the thermal quantum Gibbs state and evaluating partition functions with a quantum computer},
  author = {David Poulin and Pawel Wocjan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0905.2199},
  year   = {2013}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-21T13:01:58.232Z