Weakly-Driven Quantum Walks for Memory-Constrained Pauli Channel Learning

Abstract: Accurate characterization of quantum noise, exemplified by the Pauli channel, is a cornerstone for building fault-tolerant quantum computers. A recent protocol (PRX Quantum 6, 020323 (2025)) combining channel concatenation and quantum memory has achieved an exponential reduction in measurement complexity for Pauli channel estimation. This efficiency, however, hinges on using logarithmic quantum memory to suppress hypothesis test errors. In this work, we introduce a mechanism termed the weakly-driven quantum walk'' to mitigate the demand for high-quality quantum memory. By exploiting the distinct dynamical properties of quantum walks under biased versus unbiased driving, our algorithm lowers the quantum memory overhead to a constant order while preserving the exponential advantage in measurement complexity. By analogy with weak measurement, our introduced concept ofweak driving'' preserves pointer coherence even when driven by classical probabilistic information, a principle that may inspire new approaches to similar quantum algorithm design and quantum sensing of weak signals in resource-constrained scenarios.