Optimal certification of constant-local Hamiltonians
This solves a certification problem in quantum computing, providing an optimal method for verifying Hamiltonian models without inverse evolution or controlled operations, though it is incremental as it builds on prior work in restricted settings.
The paper tackles the problem of certifying local Hamiltonians from real-time dynamics, introducing the first intolerant protocol that achieves optimal performance for all constant-locality Hamiltonians, with total evolution time scaling as Θ(1/ε) for O(1)-local cases, matching known lower bounds.
We study the problem of certifying local Hamiltonians from real-time access to their dynamics. Given oracle access to $e^{-itH}$ for an unknown $k$-local Hamiltonian $H$ and a fully specified target Hamiltonian $H_0$, the goal is to decide whether $H$ is exactly equal to $H_0$ or differs from $H_0$ by at least $\varepsilon$ in normalized Frobenius norm, while minimizing the total evolution time. We introduce the first intolerant Hamiltonian certification protocol that achieves optimal performance for all constant-locality Hamiltonians. For general $n$-qubit, $k$-local, traceless Hamiltonians, our procedure uses $O(c^k/\varepsilon)$ total evolution time for a universal constant $c$, and succeeds with high probability. In particular, for $O(1)$-local Hamiltonians, the total evolution time becomes $Θ(1/\varepsilon)$, matching the known $Ω(1/\varepsilon)$ lower bounds and achieving the gold-standard Heisenberg-limit scaling. Prior certification methods either relied on implementing inverse evolution of $H$, required controlled access to $e^{-itH}$, or achieved near-optimal guarantees only in restricted settings such as the Ising case ($k=2$). In contrast, our algorithm requires neither inverse evolution nor controlled operations: it uses only forward real-time dynamics and achieves optimal intolerant certification for all constant-locality Hamiltonians.