The Energy Conserving Descent (ECD) algorithm was recently proposed (De Luca & Silverstein, 2022) as a global non-convex optimization method. Unlike gradient descent, appropriately configured ECD dynamics escape strict local minima and converge to a global minimum, making it appealing for machine learning optimization. We present the first analytical study of ECD, focusing on the one-dimensional setting for this first installment. We formalize a stochastic ECD dynamics (sECD) with energy-preserving noise, as well as a quantum analog of the ECD Hamiltonian (qECD), providing the foundation for a quantum algorithm through Hamiltonian simulation. For positive double-well objectives, we compute the expected hitting time from a local to the global minimum. We prove that both sECD and qECD yield exponential speedup over respective gradient descent baselines--stochastic gradient descent and its quantization. For objectives with tall barriers, qECD achieves a further speedup over sECD.

Phase classification has become a prototypical benchmark for data-driven analysis of condensed matter physics. The type and complexity of the phase transition dictate the level of complexity of the algorithm one has to employ. This topic has been broadly explored, offering a menu of both supervised and unsupervised techniques ranging from simple clustering [1-3] to more complex machine learning methods [4-7]. The phase classification problem is most commonly posed like so: we allow our model to view a dataset that is both relevant and straightforwardly obtainable in the scenario we wish to study. We introduce this data set to a model that has no prior knowledge of underlying physics.

The Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model serves as a canonical example of a one-dimensional topological insulator, yet its behavior under more complex, realistic conditions remains a fertile ground for research. This paper presents a comprehensive computational investigation into generalized SSH models, exploring the interplay between topology, quasi-periodic disorder, non-Hermiticity, and time-dependent driving. Using exact diagonalization and specialized numerical solvers, we map the system's phase space through its spectral properties and localization characteristics, quantified by the Inverse Participation Ratio (IPR). We demonstrate that while the standard SSH model exhibits topologically protected edge states, these are destroyed by a localization transition induced by strong Aubry-André-Harper (AAH) modulation. Further, we employ unsupervised machine learning (PCA) to autonomously classify the system's phases, revealing that strong localization can obscure underlying topological signatures. Extending the model beyond Hermiticity, we uncover the non-Hermitian skin effect, a dramatic localization of all bulk states at a boundary. Finally, we apply a periodic Floquet drive to a topologically trivial chain, successfully engineering a Floquet topological insulator characterized by the emergence of anomalous edge states at the boundaries of the quasi-energy zone. These findings collectively provide a multi-faceted view of the rich phenomena hosted in generalized 1D topological systems.

Hefei National Laboratory, Hefei 230088, China The computation of excited states in strongly interacting quantum many-body systems is of fundamental importance. Y et, it is notoriously challenging due to the exponential scaling of the Hilbert space dimension with the system size. Here, we introduce a neural network-based algorithm that can simultaneously output multiple low-lying excited states of a quantum many-body spin system in an accurate and efficient fashion. This algorithm, dubbed the neural quantum excited-state (NQES) algorithm, requires no explicit orthogonalization of the states and is generally applicable to higher dimensions. We demonstrate, through concrete examples including the Haldane-Shastry model with all-to-all interactions, that the NQES algorithm is capable of efficiently computing multiple excited states and their related observable expectations. In addition, we apply the NQES algorithm to two classes of long-range interacting trapped-ion systems in a two-dimensional Wigner crystal. For non-decaying all-to-all interactions with alternating signs, our computed low-lying excited states bear spatial correlation patterns similar to those of the ground states, which closely match recent experimental observations that the quasi-adiabatically prepared state accurately reproduces analytical ground-state correlations. For a system of up to 300 ions with power-law decaying antiferromagnetic interactions, we successfully uncover its gap scaling and correlation features. Our results establish a scalable and efficient algorithm for computing excited states of interacting quantum many-body systems, which holds potential applications ranging from benchmarking quantum devices to photoisomerization. Understanding interacting quantum many-body systems is a central task in a wide range of disciplines, from condensed matter physics, quantum chemistry to materials science [ 1 ]. For low-dimensional systems with short-range interactions, tensor-network-based methods have been successful in finding their ground states with area-law entanglement [ 2 - 5 ].

Topological signals are variables or features associated with both nodes and edges of a network. Recently, in the context of Topological Machine Learning, great attention has been devoted to signal processing of such topological signals. Most of the previous topological signal processing algorithms treat node and edge signals separately and work under the hypothesis that the true signal is smooth and/or well approximated by a harmonic eigenvector of the Hodge-Laplacian, which may be violated in practice. Here we propose Dirac-equation signal processing, a framework for efficiently reconstructing true signals on nodes and edges, also if they are not smooth or harmonic, by processing them jointly. The proposed physics-inspired algorithm is based on the spectral properties of the topological Dirac operator. It leverages the mathematical structure of the topological Dirac equation to boost the performance of the signal processing algorithm. We discuss how the relativistic dispersion relation obeyed by the topological Dirac equation can be used to assess the quality of the signal reconstruction. Finally, we demonstrate the improved performance of the algorithm with respect to previous algorithms. Specifically, we show that Dirac-equation signal processing can also be used efficiently if the true signal is a non-trivial linear combination of more than one eigenstate of the Dirac equation, as it generally occurs for real signals.

Given many copies of an unknown quantum state $\rho$, we consider the task of learning a classical description of its principal eigenstate. Namely, assuming that $\rho$ has an eigenstate $|\phi\rangle$ with (unknown) eigenvalue $\lambda > 1/2$, the goal is to learn a (classical shadows style) classical description of $|\phi\rangle$ which can later be used to estimate expectation values $\langle \phi |O| \phi \rangle$ for any $O$ in some class of observables. We consider the sample-complexity setting in which generating a copy of $\rho$ is expensive, but joint measurements on many copies of the state are possible. We present a protocol for this task scaling with the principal eigenvalue $\lambda$ and show that it is optimal within a space of natural approaches, e.g., applying quantum state purification followed by a single-copy classical shadows scheme. Furthermore, when $\lambda$ is sufficiently close to $1$, the performance of our algorithm is optimal--matching the sample complexity for pure state classical shadows.

Artificial neural networks have achieved impressive results in very disparate tasks, both in science and in everyday life. The bottleneck in the optimization of artificial neural networks is the learning procedure, i.e., the process through which the internal parameters of the model are optimized to accomplish a desired task. The learning procedure used in the best networks today is gradient descent, in which the internal parameters are incrementally changed in order to improve performance, as measured by a cost function. In feed forward networks this procedure can be implemented efficiently, using error backpropagation. In more complex networks it is implemented by backpropagation through time. Biological systems that learn do not seem to use error backpropagation as the latter cannot be naturally performed by the internal dynamics of the system. Better understanding of biological learning systems could pass through developing learning algorithms in which the two phases of the model (the neuronal and the learning dynamics) can be implemented using similar procedures (or the same circuitry). Such approaches may also be particularly interesting for implementation in analog physical systems, which may lead to improvements in speed or energy consumption. Quantum versions of neural networks and more generally machine learning have attracted much attention recently, as they could offer improved performance over classical algorithms, see e.g.

Computing eigenvalue decomposition (EVD) of a given linear operator, or finding its leading eigenvalues and eigenfunctions, is a fundamental task in many machine learning and scientific computing problems. For high-dimensional eigenvalue problems, training neural networks to parameterize the eigenfunctions is considered as a promising alternative to the classical numerical linear algebra techniques. This paper proposes a new optimization framework based on the low-rank approximation characterization of a truncated singular value decomposition, accompanied by new techniques called nesting for learning the top-$L$ singular values and singular functions in the correct order. The proposed method promotes the desired orthogonality in the learned functions implicitly and efficiently via an unconstrained optimization formulation, which is easy to solve with off-the-shelf gradient-based optimization algorithms. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed optimization framework for use cases in computational physics and machine learning.

A promising strategy to protect quantum information from noise-induced errors is to encode it into the low-energy states of a topological quantum memory device. However, readout errors from such memory under realistic settings is less understood. We study the problem of decoding quantum information encoded in the groundspaces of topological stabilizer Hamiltonians in the presence of generic perturbations, such as quenched disorder. We first prove that the standard stabilizer-based error correction and decoding schemes work adequately well in such perturbed quantum codes by showing that the decoding error diminishes exponentially in the distance of the underlying unperturbed code. We then prove that Quantum Neural Network (QNN) decoders provide an almost quadratic improvement on the readout error. Thus, we demonstrate provable advantage of using QNNs for decoding realistic quantum error-correcting codes, and our result enables the exploration of a wider range of non-stabilizer codes in the near-term laboratory settings.

The Schr\"{o}dinger equation with random potentials is a fundamental model for understanding the behaviour of particles in disordered systems. Disordered media are characterised by complex potentials that lead to the localisation of wavefunctions, also called Anderson localisation. These wavefunctions may have similar scales of eigenenergies which poses difficulty in their discovery. It has been a longstanding challenge due to the high computational cost and complexity of solving the Schr\"{o}dinger equation. Recently, machine-learning tools have been adopted to tackle these challenges. In this paper, based upon recent advances in machine learning, we present a novel approach for discovering localised eigenstates in disordered media using physics-informed neural networks (PINNs). We focus on the spectral approximation of Hamiltonians in one dimension with potentials that are randomly generated according to the Bernoulli, normal, and uniform distributions. We introduce a novel feature to the loss function that exploits known physical phenomena occurring in these regions to scan across the domain and successfully discover these eigenstates, regardless of the similarity of their eigenenergies. We present various examples to demonstrate the performance of the proposed approach and compare it with isogeometric analysis.