Quantum simulation algorithms based on quantum trajectories

Quantum 10, 2063 (2026).

https://doi.org/10.22331/q-2026-04-13-2063

Quantum simulation has emerged as a key application of quantum computing, with significant progress made in algorithms for simulating both closed and open quantum systems. The simulation of open quantum systems, particularly those governed by the Lindblad master equation, has received attention recently with the current state-of-the-art algorithms having an input model query complexity of $O(Tmathrm{polylog}(T/epsilon))$, where $T$ and $epsilon$ are the desired time and precision of the simulation respectively. For the Hamiltonian simulation problem it has been show that the optimal Hamiltonian query complexity is $O(T + log(1/epsilon))$, which is additive in the two parameters, but for Lindbladian simulation this question remains open. In this work we show that the additive query complexity to a Lindbladian’s jump operators is reachable for the simulation of a large class of Lindbladians by constructing a novel quantum algorithm based on quantum trajectories.