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Main Authors: Li, Zhan, Yu, Wuqing, Wu, Yusen, Wang, Chuan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.09486
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author Li, Zhan
Yu, Wuqing
Wu, Yusen
Wang, Chuan
author_facet Li, Zhan
Yu, Wuqing
Wu, Yusen
Wang, Chuan
contents Graph Neural Networks (GNN) and Transformer-based architectures have achieved remarkable progress in graph learning, yet they still struggle to capture both global structural dependencies and model the dynamic information propagation. In this paper, we propose CTQWformer, a hybrid graph learning framework that integrates continuous-time quantum walks (CTQW) with GNN. CTQWformer employs a trainable Hamiltonian that fuses graph topology and node features, enabling physically grounded modeling of quantum walk dynamics that captures rich and intricate graph structure information. The extracted CTQW-based representations are incorporated into two complementary modules:(i) a Graph Transformer module that embeds final-time propagation probabilities as structural biases in the self-attention mechanism, and (ii) a Graph Recurrent Module that captures temporal evolution patterns with bidirectional recurrent networks. Extensive experiments on benchmark graph classification datasets demonstrate that CTQWformer outperforms graph kernel and GNN-based methods, demonstrating the potential of integrating quantum dynamics into trainable deep learning frameworks for graph representation learning. To the best of our knowledge, CTQWformer is the first hybrid CTQW-based Transformer, integrating CTQW-derived structural bias with temporal evolution modeling to advance graph learning.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_09486
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle CTQWformer: A CTQW-based Transformer for Graph Classification
Li, Zhan
Yu, Wuqing
Wu, Yusen
Wang, Chuan
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Quantum Physics
Graph Neural Networks (GNN) and Transformer-based architectures have achieved remarkable progress in graph learning, yet they still struggle to capture both global structural dependencies and model the dynamic information propagation. In this paper, we propose CTQWformer, a hybrid graph learning framework that integrates continuous-time quantum walks (CTQW) with GNN. CTQWformer employs a trainable Hamiltonian that fuses graph topology and node features, enabling physically grounded modeling of quantum walk dynamics that captures rich and intricate graph structure information. The extracted CTQW-based representations are incorporated into two complementary modules:(i) a Graph Transformer module that embeds final-time propagation probabilities as structural biases in the self-attention mechanism, and (ii) a Graph Recurrent Module that captures temporal evolution patterns with bidirectional recurrent networks. Extensive experiments on benchmark graph classification datasets demonstrate that CTQWformer outperforms graph kernel and GNN-based methods, demonstrating the potential of integrating quantum dynamics into trainable deep learning frameworks for graph representation learning. To the best of our knowledge, CTQWformer is the first hybrid CTQW-based Transformer, integrating CTQW-derived structural bias with temporal evolution modeling to advance graph learning.
title CTQWformer: A CTQW-based Transformer for Graph Classification
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.09486