Quantum Simulation of Non-unitary Dynamics via Contour-based Matrix Decomposition

Abstract: We introduce contour-based matrix decomposition (CBMD), a framework for scalable simulation of non-unitary dynamics. Unlike existing methods that follow the ``integrate-then-discretize" paradigm and rely heavily on numerical quadrature, CBMD generalizes Cauchy's residue theorem to matrix-valued functions and directly decomposes a non-Hermitian function into a linear combination of Hermitian ones, which can be implemented efficiently using techniques such as quantum singular value transformation (QSVT). For non-Hermitian dynamics, CBMD achieves optimal query complexity. With an additional eigenvalue-shifting technique, the improved complexity depends on the spectral range of the system instead of its spectral norm. For more general dynamics that can be approximated by non-Hermitian polynomials, where algorithms like QSVT face significant difficulties, CBMD remains applicable and avoids the assumptions of diagonalizability as well as the dependence on condition numbers that limit other approaches.