Analysis of Carleman Linearization of Lattice Boltzmann

We explore the Carleman linearization of the collision term of the lattice Boltzmann formulation, as a first step towards formulating a quantum lattice Boltzmann algorithm. Specifically, we deal with the case of a single, incompressible fluid with the Bhatnagar Gross and Krook equilibrium function. Under this assumption, the error in the velocities is proportional to the square of the Mach number. Then, we showcase the Carleman linearization technique for the system under study. We compute an upper bound to the number of variables as a function of the order of the Carleman linearization. We study both collision and streaming steps of the lattice Boltzmann formulation under Carleman linearization. We analytically show why linearizing the collision step sacrifices the exactness of streaming in lattice Boltzmann, while also contributing to the blow up in the number of Carleman variables in the classical algorithm. The error arising from Carleman linearization has been shown analytically and numerically to improve exponentially with the Carleman linearization order. This bodes well for the development of a corresponding quantum computing algorithm based on the Lattice Boltzmann equation.