Prime factorization using quantum variational imaginary time evolution

The road to computing on quantum devices has been accelerated by the promises that come from using Shor’s algorithm to reduce the complexity of prime factorization. However, this promise hast not yet been realized due to noisy qubits and lack of robust error correction schemes. Here we explore a promising, alternative method for prime factorization that uses well-established techniques from variational imaginary time evolution. We create a Hamiltonian whose ground state encodes the solution to the problem and use variational techniques to evolve a state iteratively towards these prime factors. We show that the number of circuits evaluated in each iteration scales as $$O(n^{5}d)$$ O ( n 5 d ) , where n is the bit-length of the number to be factorized and d is the depth of the circuit. We use a single layer of entangling gates to factorize 36 numbers represented using 7, 8, and 9-qubit Hamiltonians. We also verify the method’s performance by implementing it on the IBMQ Lima hardware to factorize 55, 65, 77 and 91 which are greater than the largest number (21) to have been factorized on IBMQ hardware.

Chaotic Motion in the Breathing Circle Billiard

We consider the free motion of a point particle inside a circular billiard with periodically moving boundary, with the assumption that the collisions of the particle with the boundary are elastic so that the energy of the particle is not preserved. It is known that if the motion of the boundary is regular enough then the energy is bounded due to the existence of invariant curves in the phase space. We show that it is nevertheless possible that the motion of the particle is chaotic, also under regularity assumptions for the moving boundary. More precisely, we show that there exists a class of functions describing the motion of the boundary for which the billiard map has positive topological entropy. The proof relies on variational techniques based on the Aubry–Mather theory.

Multiple solutions for singularly perturbed nonlinear magnetic Schrödinger equations

In this paper we consider singularly perturbed nonlinear Schrödinger equations with electromagnetic potentials and involving continuous nonlinearities with subcritical, critical or supercritical growth. By means of suitable variational techniques, truncation arguments and Lusternik–Schnirelman theory, we relate the number of nontrivial complex-valued solutions with the topology of the set where the electric potential attains its minimum value.

The Poisson-Lognormal Model as a Versatile Framework for the Joint Analysis of Species Abundances

Joint Species Distribution Models (JSDM) provide a general multivariate framework to study the joint abundances of all species from a community. JSDM account for both structuring factors (environmental characteristics or gradients, such as habitat type or nutrient availability) and potential interactions between the species (competition, mutualism, parasitism, etc.), which is instrumental in disentangling meaningful ecological interactions from mere statistical associations. Modeling the dependency between the species is challenging because of the count-valued nature of abundance data and most JSDM rely on Gaussian latent layer to encode the dependencies between species in a covariance matrix. The multivariate Poisson-lognormal (PLN) model is one such model, which can be viewed as a multivariate mixed Poisson regression model. Inferring such models raises both statistical and computational issues, many of which were solved in recent contributions using variational techniques and convex optimization tools. The PLN model turns out to be a versatile framework, within which a variety of analyses can be performed, including multivariate sample comparison, clustering of sites or samples, dimension reduction (ordination) for visualization purposes, or inferring interaction networks. This paper presents the general PLN framework and illustrates its use on a series a typical experimental datasets. All the models and methods are implemented in the R package PLNmodels, available from cran.r-project.org.

The Poisson-lognormal model as a versatile framework for the joint analysis of species abundances

Joint Species Abundance Models (JSDM) provide a general multivariate framework to study the joint abundances of all species from a community. JSDM account for both structuring factors (environmental characteristics or gradients, such as habitat type or nutrient availability) and potential interactions between the species (competition, mutualism, parasitism, etc.), which is instrumental in disentangling meaningful ecological interactions from mere statistical associations.Modeling the dependency between the species is challenging because of the count-valued nature of abundance data and most JSDM rely on Gaussian latent layer to encode the dependencies between species in a covariance matrix. The multivariate Poisson-lognormal (PLN) model is one such model, which can be viewed as a multivariate mixed Poisson regression model. The inference of such models raises both statistical and computational issues, many of which were solved in recent contributions using variational techniques and convex optimization.The PLN model turns out to be a versatile framework, within which a variety of analyses can be performed, including multivariate sample comparison, clustering of sites or samples, dimension reduction (ordination) for visualization purposes, or inference of interaction networks. This paper presents the general PLN framework and illustrates its use on a series a typical experimental datasets. All the models and methods are implemented in the R package PLNmodels, available from cran.r-project.org.

Variational principles and nonequilibrium thermodynamics

Variational principles play a fundamental role in deriving the evolution equations of physics. They work well in the case of non-dissipative evolution, but for dissipative systems, the variational principles are not unique and not constructive. With the methods of modern nonequilibrium thermodynamics, one can derive evolution equations for dissipative phenomena and, surprisingly, in several cases, one can also reproduce the Euler–Lagrange form and symplectic structure of the evolution equations for non-dissipative processes. In this work, we examine some demonstrative examples and compare thermodynamic and variational techniques. Then, we argue that, instead of searching for variational principles for dissipative systems, there is another viable programme: the second law alone can be an effective tool to construct evolution equations for both dissipative and non-dissipative processes. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Fundamental aspects of nonequilibrium thermodynamics’.

On Helmholtz Equations and Counterexamples to Strichartz Estimates in Hyperbolic Space

In this paper, we study nonlinear Helmholtz equations (NLH)$$\begin{equation} -\Delta_{\mathbb{H}^N} u - \frac{(N-1)^2}{4} u -\lambda^2 u = \Gamma|u|^{p-2}u \quad\textrm{in}\ \mathbb{H}^N, \;N\geq 2, \end{equation}$$where $\Delta _{\mathbb{H}^N}$ denotes the Laplace–Beltrami operator in the hyperbolic space $\mathbb{H}^N$ and $\Gamma \in L^\infty (\mathbb{H}^N)$ is chosen suitably. Using fixed point and variational techniques, we find nontrivial solutions to (NLH) for all $\lambda>0$ and $p>2$. The oscillatory behaviour and decay rate of radial solutions is analyzed, with extensions to Cartan–Hadamard manifolds and Damek–Ricci spaces. Our results rely on a new limiting absorption principle for the Helmholtz operator in $\mathbb{H}^N$. As a byproduct, we obtain simple counterexamples to certain Strichartz estimates.

Some multiplicity results of homoclinic solutions for second order Hamiltonian systems

We look for homoclinic solutions \(q:\mathbb{R} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^N\) to the class of second order Hamiltonian systems \[-\ddot{q} + L(t)q = a(t) \nabla G_1(q) - b(t) \nabla G_2(q) + f(t) \quad t \in \mathbb{R}\] where \(L: \mathbb{R}\rightarrow \mathbb{R}^{N \times N}\) and \(a,b: \mathbb{R}\rightarrow \mathbb{R}\) are positive bounded functions, \(G_1, G_2: \mathbb{R}^N \rightarrow \mathbb{R}\) are positive homogeneous functions and \(f:\mathbb{R}\rightarrow\mathbb{R}^N\). Using variational techniques and the Pohozaev fibering method, we prove the existence of infinitely many solutions if \(f\equiv 0\) and the existence of at least three solutions if \(f\) is not trivial but small enough.

A singular elliptic system involving the p(x)-Laplacian and generalized Lebesgue–Sobolev spaces

The purpose of this work is to study a class of singular elliptic system involving the [Formula: see text]-Laplace operator of the form [Formula: see text] where [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text] is a bounded domain with [Formula: see text] boundary, [Formula: see text] are two parameters, [Formula: see text] are non-negative weight functions with compact support in [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] are assumed to satisfy the assumptions (A0)–(A2) in Sec. 1. We employ the Nehari manifold approach combined with some variational techniques in order to show the existence and the multiplicity of positive solutions.