Federal Grant Award Summary

The National Science Foundation's Division of Information and Intelligent Systems awarded $600,000 through the Computer and Information Science and Engineering program (CFDA 47.070) to the University of California, Irvine for a three-year project (July 1, 2026–June 30, 2029) titled "Quantum Algorithms for Constructing Ground and Gibbs States." This project develops and analyzes quantum algorithms designed to prepare ground states and thermal (Gibbs) states of local Hamiltonians, with particular emphasis on dissipative (Lindbladian) methods. The research will establish convergence conditions for quantum Gibbs sampling algorithms, extend performance guarantees across broader classes of quantum systems and temperature regimes, and create implementations suitable for both fault-tolerant and near-term (NISQ) quantum computing devices.

The deliverables encompass theoretical advances in quantum algorithm design, convergence analysis combining quantum information theory with spectral analysis and classical Markov chain theory, and practical implementations optimized for current-generation quantum hardware. The project also investigates noise-resilient techniques and ground state preparation methods inspired by classical tensor network approaches. These research outputs will advance quantum state preparation capabilities, enabling improved quantum simulation of materials and chemical systems with applications spanning materials design, fundamental physics research, and quantum computing workforce development.