Schrödingerization for quantum linear systems problems

Abstract: We develop a quantum algorithm for linear algebraic equations Ax=b from the perspective of Schr\"odingerization-form problems, which are characterized by a system of linear convection equations in one higher dimension. When A is positive definite, the solution x can be interpreted as the steady-state solution of linear ODEs. This ODE can be solved by using the LCHS method in [1], which serves as the continuous implementation of the Fourier transform in the Schr\"odingerization method from [2,3] Schr\"odingerization transforms linear PDEs and ODEs with non-unitary dynamics into Schr\"odinger-type systems via the warped phase transformation that maps the equation into one higher dimension. Compared to the LCHS method, Schr\"odingerization may be more appealing to the PDE community, as it is better suited for leveraging established computational PDE techniques to develop quantum algorithms. When A is a general Hermitian matrix, the inverse matrix can still be represented in the LCHS form in [1], but with a kernel function based on the Fourier approach in [4]. Although this LCHS form provides the steady-state solution of linear ODEs associated with the least-squares equation, applying Schr\"odingerization to this least-squares is not appropriate, as it results in a much larger condition number. We demonstrate that in both cases, the solution x can be expressed as the LCHS of Schr\"odingerization-form problems, or equivalently, as the steady-state solution to a Schr\"odingerization-form problem. This highlights the potential of Schr\"odingerization in quantum scientific computation. We provide a detailed, along with several numerical tests that validate the correctness of our proposed method. Furthermore, we develop a quantum preconditioning algorithm that combines the BPX multilevel preconditioner with our method to address the finite element discretization of the Poisson equation.