Quantum Algorithm for Radiative Transfer Equation

Abstract

The radiation transfer equation is widely used for simulating such as heat transfer in engineering, diffuse optical tomography in healthcare, and radiation hydrodynamics in astrophysics. By combining the lattice Boltzmann method, we propose a quantum algorithm for radiative transfer. This algorithm encompasses all the essential physical processes of radiative transfer: absorption, scattering, and emission. Although a sufficient number of measurements are required to precisely estimate the quantum state, and the initial encoding of the quantum state remains a challenging problem, our quantum algorithm exponentially accelerates radiative transfer calculations compared to classical algorithms. In order to verify the quantum algorithm, we perform quantum circuit simulation using IBM Qiskit Aer and find good agreement between our numerical result and the exact solution. The algorithm opens new application of fault-tolerant quantum computers for plasma engineering, telecommunications, nuclear fusion technology, healthcare and astrophysics.