Exponentially Reduced Circuit Depths Using Trotter Error Mitigation

Product formulas are a popular class of digital quantum simulation algorithms due to their conceptual simplicity, low overhead, and performance, which often exceeds theoretical expectations. Recently, Richardson extrapolation and polynomial interpolation have been proposed to mitigate the Trotter er...

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Main Authors: James D. Watson, Jacob Watkins
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Physical Society 2025-08-01
Series:PRX Quantum
Online Access:http://doi.org/10.1103/kw39-yxq5
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author James D. Watson
Jacob Watkins
author_facet James D. Watson
Jacob Watkins
author_sort James D. Watson
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description Product formulas are a popular class of digital quantum simulation algorithms due to their conceptual simplicity, low overhead, and performance, which often exceeds theoretical expectations. Recently, Richardson extrapolation and polynomial interpolation have been proposed to mitigate the Trotter error incurred by the use of these formulas. This work provides a rigorous, general analysis of these techniques for computing time-evolved observables, simplifying the interpolation algorithm in the process, and shows that extrapolation generically improves the performance of product formulas for this task. We demonstrate that, to achieve error ϵ in a simulation of time T using a pth-order product formula with extrapolation, circuit depths of O(T^{1+1/p}polylog⁡(1/ϵ)) are sufficient—an exponential improvement in the precision over product formulas alone. Furthermore, we prove that these algorithms achieve commutator scaling, and improve the T complexity for the interpolation algorithm. By relaxing the requirement of performing exact Chebyshev interpolation, our simplified algorithm eliminates the need for fractional implementations of Trotter steps, reducing computational overhead. Finally, we show these techniques can be combined with the classical shadows method to estimate many time-evolved local observables. Taken together, our findings provide the strongest evidence yet for the utility of Trotter error-mitigation techniques in algorithmic applications.
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spelling doaj-art-0f88348dde6f44a480fa846301aaa6812025-08-20T04:02:41ZengAmerican Physical SocietyPRX Quantum2691-33992025-08-016303032510.1103/kw39-yxq5Exponentially Reduced Circuit Depths Using Trotter Error MitigationJames D. WatsonJacob WatkinsProduct formulas are a popular class of digital quantum simulation algorithms due to their conceptual simplicity, low overhead, and performance, which often exceeds theoretical expectations. Recently, Richardson extrapolation and polynomial interpolation have been proposed to mitigate the Trotter error incurred by the use of these formulas. This work provides a rigorous, general analysis of these techniques for computing time-evolved observables, simplifying the interpolation algorithm in the process, and shows that extrapolation generically improves the performance of product formulas for this task. We demonstrate that, to achieve error ϵ in a simulation of time T using a pth-order product formula with extrapolation, circuit depths of O(T^{1+1/p}polylog⁡(1/ϵ)) are sufficient—an exponential improvement in the precision over product formulas alone. Furthermore, we prove that these algorithms achieve commutator scaling, and improve the T complexity for the interpolation algorithm. By relaxing the requirement of performing exact Chebyshev interpolation, our simplified algorithm eliminates the need for fractional implementations of Trotter steps, reducing computational overhead. Finally, we show these techniques can be combined with the classical shadows method to estimate many time-evolved local observables. Taken together, our findings provide the strongest evidence yet for the utility of Trotter error-mitigation techniques in algorithmic applications.http://doi.org/10.1103/kw39-yxq5
spellingShingle James D. Watson
Jacob Watkins
Exponentially Reduced Circuit Depths Using Trotter Error Mitigation
PRX Quantum
title Exponentially Reduced Circuit Depths Using Trotter Error Mitigation
title_full Exponentially Reduced Circuit Depths Using Trotter Error Mitigation
title_fullStr Exponentially Reduced Circuit Depths Using Trotter Error Mitigation
title_full_unstemmed Exponentially Reduced Circuit Depths Using Trotter Error Mitigation
title_short Exponentially Reduced Circuit Depths Using Trotter Error Mitigation
title_sort exponentially reduced circuit depths using trotter error mitigation
url http://doi.org/10.1103/kw39-yxq5
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