Simulating unsteady fluid flows on a superconducting quantum processor
Abstract
Recent advancements of intermediate-scale quantum processors have triggered tremendous interest in the exploration of practical quantum advantage. The simulation of fluid dynamics, a highly challenging problem in classical physics but vital for practical applications, emerges as a good candidate for showing quantum utility. Here, we report an experiment on the digital simulation of unsteady flows, which consists of quantum encoding, evolution, and detection of flow states, with a superconducting quantum processor. The quantum algorithm is based on the Hamiltonian simulation using the hydrodynamic formulation of the Schr\"odinger equation. With the median fidelities of 99.97% and 99.67% for parallel single- and two-qubit gates respectively, we simulate the dynamics of a two-dimensional (2D) compressible diverging flow and a 2D decaying vortex with ten qubits. The experimental results well capture the temporal evolution of averaged density and momentum profiles, and qualitatively reproduce spatial flow fields with moderate noises. This work demonstrates the potential of quantum computing in simulating more complex flows, such as turbulence, for practical applications.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2404.15878,
title = {Simulating unsteady fluid flows on a superconducting quantum processor},
author = {Zhaoyuan Meng and Jiarun Zhong and Shibo Xu and Ke Wang and Jiachen Chen and Feitong Jin and Xuhao Zhu and Yu Gao and Yaozu Wu and Chuanyu Zhang and Ning Wang and Yiren Zou and Aosai Zhang and Zhengyi Cui and Fanhao Shen and Zehang Bao and Zitian Zhu and Ziqi Tan and Tingting Li and Pengfei Zhang and Shiying Xiong and Hekang Li and Qiujiang Guo and Zhen Wang and Chao Song and H. Wang and Yue Yang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.15878},
year = {2024}
}