High-order Magnus Expansion for Hamiltonian Simulation

Abstract: Efficient simulation of quantum dynamics with time-dependent Hamiltonians is important not only for time-varying systems but also for time-independent Hamiltonians in the interaction picture. Such simulations are more challenging than their time-independent counterparts due to the complexity introduced by time ordering. Existing algorithms that aim to capture commutator-based scaling either exhibit polynomial cost dependence on the Hamiltonian's time derivatives or are limited to low-order accuracy. In this work, we establish the general commutator-scaling error bounds for the truncated Magnus expansion at arbitrary order, where only Hamiltonian terms appear in the nested commutators, with no time derivatives involved. Building on this analysis, we design a high-order quantum algorithm with explicit circuit constructions. The algorithm achieves cost scaling with the commutator structure in the high-precision regime and depends only logarithmically on the Hamiltonian's time variation, making it efficient for general time-dependent settings, including the interaction picture.