What is it about?
Smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is a computational method for simulating fluid mechanics. It is often used for solving astrophysics problems and a wide range of engineering areas. Despite its versatility, SPH is inherently slower than other popular simulation methods (e.g. finite-difference). Quantum computing methods can substantially increase the speed by rewriting the mathematical problem in terms of a quantum walk (QW) model. We solve the QW problem by performing the calculations on a quantum circuit.
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Why is it important?
By rewriting the SPH method as a QW model, we demonstrate one possible way to map a classical fluid simulation method to a quantum method. Although we present a proof-of-concept "quantum SPH" algorithm to solve a toy problem, it is an important first step towards building much more powerful algorithms to solve real-world fluid simulation problems (e.g. climate modelling, aerospace design). We also outline the future work required to refine our method and make it more suitable for solving more complicated problems.
Perspectives
This work was completed by an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the engineering and quantum computing communities. The aim of our current and future work is to explore how quantum computing can accelerate scientific applications to advance algorithms and use-cases. We are part of the UK's Hub for Quantum Computing via Integrated and Interconnected Implementations (QCi3, https://qci3.org/). Its mission is to bring together academic and industry partners to address key challenges in quantum computing.
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This page is a summary of: Quantum smoothed particle hydrodynamics algorithm inspired by quantum walks, Physics of Fluids, May 2025, American Institute of Physics,
DOI: 10.1063/5.0268240.
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