Classical and Quantum Speedups for Non-Convex Optimization via Energy Conserving Descent
We present the first analytical study of ECD, focusing on the one-dimensional setting for this first installment. We formalize a stochastic ECD dynamics (sECD) with energy-preserving noise, as well as a quantum analog of the ECD Hamiltonian (qECD), providing the foundation for a quantum algorithm through Hamiltonian simulation in a tractable model where the barrier-crossing mechanism can be computed explicitly. For one-dimensional double-well objectives in the under-guessing regime, we compute the expected dynamical hitting times from a local minimum to the global minimum. We prove that both sECD and qECD exhibit exponential improvements in continuous hitting time relative to their respec...
| Authors | Yihang Sun, Huaijin Wang, Patrick Hayden et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | quant-ph |
| Published | 14 April 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 1 October 2026 |
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