Ladder Operator Block-Encoding

William A. Simon; Carter M. Gustin; Kamil Serafin; Alexis Ralli; Gary R. Goldstein; Peter J. Love

Paper

Ladder Operator Block-Encoding

Abstract

We describe and analyze LOBE (Ladder Operator Block-Encoding), a framework for block-encoding ladder operators that act upon fermionic and bosonic modes. In this framework, we achieve efficient block-encodings by applying the desired action of the operator onto the quantum state and pushing any undesired effects outside of the encoded subspace. This direct approach avoids any overhead caused by expanding the operators in another basis. We numerically benchmark these constructions using models arising in quantum field theories including the quartic harmonic oscillator, and

and Yukawa Hamiltonians on the light front. These benchmarks show that LOBE often produces block-encodings with fewer non-Clifford operations, fewer block-encoding ancillae and overall number of qubits, and lower rescaling factors for various operators as compared to frameworks that expand the ladder operators in the Pauli basis. LOBE constructions also demonstrate favorable scaling with respect to key parameters, including the maximum occupation of bosonic modes, the total number of fermionic and bosonic modes, and the locality of the operators. LOBE is implemented as an open-source python package to enable further applications.