Quantum Finite Volume Method for Computational Fluid Dynamics with Classical Input and Output

Abstract: Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical methods to solve fluid flows. The finite volume method (FVM) is an important one. In FVM, space is discretized to many grid cells. When the number of grid cells grows, massive computing resources are needed correspondingly. Recently, quantum computing has been proven to outperform a classical computer on specific computational tasks. However, the quantum CFD (QCFD) solver remains a challenge because the conversion between the classical and quantum data would become the bottleneck for the time complexity. Here we propose a QCFD solver with exponential speedup over classical counterparts and focus on how a quantum computer handles classical input and output. By utilizing quantum random access memory, the algorithm realizes sublinear time at every iteration step. The QCFD solver could allow new frontiers in the CFD area by allowing a finer mesh and faster calculation.