Modeling and Simulation Group Meeting

Solving fluid flow PDEs with Quantum Computing

Speaker: Sachin S. Bharadwaj, Tandon

Location: Warren Weaver Hall 1302

Date: Thursday, March 14, 2024, 12:30 p.m.

Synopsis:

With the promise of computational advantage in memory and speed, quantum computing has emerged as a potential counterpart to classical machines, for numerically solving problems in a wide range of applications, each with a unique computational challenge. We discuss one such unique domain -- fluid dynamics, whose study involves solving well defined, governing partial differential equations, derived from the underlying flow physics. First we give a brief introduction to some fundamental concepts of quantum computing. Then we proceed to an overview of different algorithms developed in this field, while also highlighting the challenges involved in simulating practical nonlinear PDEs. We will then delve into some specific non-linear embedding methods, state-of-the-art quantum algorithms, their computational complexities and the flow simulation results with a hybrid quantum-classical scheme. We will also highlight here, a high-performance, open-source quantum simulator package called QFlowS, that was developed in-house as part of this work. We then give a pragmatic outlook on current quantum hardware capabilities by solving a one-dimensional, linear advection-diffusion problem on a real IBM quantum device. Finally an outline of future directions and bottlenecks that need attention in this area of research will be discussed.