Random unitaries that conserve energy

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Hauptverfasser: Mao, Liang, Cui, Laura, Schuster, Thomas, Huang, Hsin-Yuan
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Mao, Liang
Cui, Laura
Schuster, Thomas
Huang, Hsin-Yuan
author_facet Mao, Liang
Cui, Laura
Schuster, Thomas
Huang, Hsin-Yuan
contents Random unitaries sampled from the Haar measure serve as fundamental models for generic quantum many-body dynamics. Under standard cryptographic assumptions, recent works have constructed polynomial-size quantum circuits that are computationally indistinguishable from Haar-random unitaries, establishing the concept of pseudorandom unitaries (PRUs). While PRUs have found broad implications in many-body physics, they fail to capture the energy conservation that governs physical systems. In this work, we investigate the computational complexity of generating PRUs that conserve energy under a fixed and known Hamiltonian $H$. We provide an efficient construction of energy-conserving PRUs when $H$ is local and commuting with random coefficients. Conversely, we prove that for certain translationally invariant one-dimensional $H$, there exists an efficient quantum algorithm that can distinguish truly random energy-conserving unitaries from any polynomial-size quantum circuit. This establishes that energy-conserving PRUs cannot exist for these Hamiltonians. Furthermore, we prove that determining whether energy-conserving PRUs exist for a given family of one-dimensional local Hamiltonians is an undecidable problem. Our results reveal an unexpected computational barrier that fundamentally separates the generation of generic random unitaries from those obeying the basic physical constraint of energy conservation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_08448
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Random unitaries that conserve energy
Mao, Liang
Cui, Laura
Schuster, Thomas
Huang, Hsin-Yuan
Quantum Physics
Statistical Mechanics
Strongly Correlated Electrons
Computational Complexity
Mathematical Physics
Random unitaries sampled from the Haar measure serve as fundamental models for generic quantum many-body dynamics. Under standard cryptographic assumptions, recent works have constructed polynomial-size quantum circuits that are computationally indistinguishable from Haar-random unitaries, establishing the concept of pseudorandom unitaries (PRUs). While PRUs have found broad implications in many-body physics, they fail to capture the energy conservation that governs physical systems. In this work, we investigate the computational complexity of generating PRUs that conserve energy under a fixed and known Hamiltonian $H$. We provide an efficient construction of energy-conserving PRUs when $H$ is local and commuting with random coefficients. Conversely, we prove that for certain translationally invariant one-dimensional $H$, there exists an efficient quantum algorithm that can distinguish truly random energy-conserving unitaries from any polynomial-size quantum circuit. This establishes that energy-conserving PRUs cannot exist for these Hamiltonians. Furthermore, we prove that determining whether energy-conserving PRUs exist for a given family of one-dimensional local Hamiltonians is an undecidable problem. Our results reveal an unexpected computational barrier that fundamentally separates the generation of generic random unitaries from those obeying the basic physical constraint of energy conservation.
title Random unitaries that conserve energy
topic Quantum Physics
Statistical Mechanics
Strongly Correlated Electrons
Computational Complexity
Mathematical Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.08448