Computations of nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs) are some of the most important problems in science and engineering, but come with tremendous costs. Quantum algorithms have the potential to speed up these computations, but current methods are bound to weak or polynomial nonlinearity, short time of validity, or display no quantum advantage otherwise. We construct new quantum algorithms–based on level set methods – for Hamilton-Jacobi and scalar hyperbolic PDEs that generate algorithms with advantages with respect to critical numerical parameters, even for computing the physical observables. These algorithms hold for arbitrary nonlinearity for the equations under study and are valid globally in time. In addition, we also introduce a new quantum encoding, called level set encoding, that allows the efficient computation of physical observables. These PDEs are important for many applications like geometric optics, semi-classical limit of the Schrödinger equations, and high-frequency limit of symmetric linear hyperbolic systems (for example the elastic wave and Maxwell equations). It can display up to exponential advantage –depending on the initial conditions and domain of the relevant observables– in both the dimension of the PDE and the error in computing its observables with respect to classical finite difference methods for these PDEs. Compared to classical finite difference methods, our algorithm also has an advantage with respect to the number of initial data, which has potential important applications in Monte Carlo simulations and uncertainty quantification. For more general PDEs, while an advantage with respect to a very large number of initial data is possible, this is mostly unrealistic for problems of practical interest, and new methods are required.
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