Classical simulation of noisy quantum circuits via locally entanglement-optimal unravelings

[2508.05745] Classical simulation of noisy quantum circuits via locally entanglement-optimal unravelings Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Quantum Physics arXiv:2508.05745 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 7 Aug 2025 ( v1 ), last revised 16 Feb 2026 (this version, v2)] Title: Classical simulation of noisy quantum circuits via locally entanglement-optimal unravelings Authors: Simon Cichy , Paul K. Faehrmann , Lennart Bittel , Jens Eisert , Hakop Pashayan View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract: Classical simulations of noisy quantum circuits are instrumental to our understanding of the behavior of real-world quantum systems and the identification of regimes where one expects quantum advantage. In this work, we present a highly parallelizable tensor-network-based classical algorithm -- equipped with rigorous accuracy guarantees -- for simulating $n$-qubit quantum circuits with arbitrary single-qubit noise. Our algorithm represents the state of a noisy quantum system by a particular ensemble of matrix product states from which we stochastically sample. Each pure state evolved under a single qubit noise process is then represented by the ensemble of states that achieves the minimal average entanglement (the entanglement of formation) between the noisy qubit and the remainder. This approach lets us use a more compact representation of the quantum state for a given accuracy requirement and noise level. For a given maximum bond dimension $\chi$ and circuit, our algorithm comes with an upper bound on the simulation error, runs in $\mathrm{poly}(n,\chi)$-time and improves upon related prior work (1) in scope: by extending analytic methods from the three commonly considered noise models to general single qubit noise (2) in performance: by deriving an exact, closed-form solution to the local entanglement minimization problem -- previously approached via variational heuristics -- thereby guaranteeing local optimality without numerical optimization overhead, and (3) in conceptual contribution: by showing that the fixed unraveling used in prior work becomes equivalent to our choice of unraveling in the special case of depolarizing, dephasing and amplitude damping noise acting on a maximally entangled state. Comments: 24 pages + 39 page appendix, 15 figures, 4 tables. Small rephrasing. Adding link to code repository. Comments welcome Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2508.05745 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2508.05745v2 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2508.05745 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Journal reference: Phys. Rev. A 114, 022430 (2026) Related DOI : https://doi.org/10.1103/jj2r-y777 Focus to learn more DOI(s) linking to related resources Submission history From: Simon Cichy [ view email ] [v1] Thu, 7 Aug 2025 18:00:20 UTC (10,169 KB) [v2] Mon, 16 Feb 2026 12:43:11 UTC (10,185 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View PDF HTML (experimental) TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph < prev | next > new | recent | 2025-08 References & Citations INSPIRE HEP SciX Google Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer ( What is the Explorer? ) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers ( What is Connected Papers? ) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps ( What is Litmaps? ) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations ( What are Smart Citations? ) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv ( What is alphaXiv? ) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers ( What is CatalyzeX? ) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub ( What is DagsHub? ) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub ( What is GotitPub? ) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face ( What is Huggingface? ) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast ( What is ScienceCast? ) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate ( What is Replicate? ) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces ( What is Spaces? ) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI ( What is TXYZ.AI? ) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower ( What are Influence Flowers? ) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender ( What is CORE? ) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. 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