A New Quantum Linear System Algorithm Beyond the Condition Number and Its Application to Solving Multivariate Polynomial Systems

Given a matrix $A$ of dimension $M \times N$ and a vector $\vec{b}$, the quantum linear system (QLS) problem asks for the preparation of a quantum state $|\vec{y}\rangle$ proportional to the solution of $A\vec{y} = \vec{b}$. Existing QLS algorithms have runtimes that scale linearly with the condition number $κ(A)$, the sparsity of $A$, and logarithmically with inverse precision, but often overlook structural properties of $\vec{b}$, whose alignment with $A$’s eigenspaces can greatly affect performance. In this work, we present a new QLS algorithm that explicitly leverages the structure of the right-hand side vector $\vec{b}$. The runtime of our algorithm depends polynomially on the sparsity of the augmented matrix $H = [A, -\vec{b}]$, the inverse precision, the $\ell_2$ norm of the solution $\vec{y} = A^+ \vec{b}$, and a new instance-dependent parameter [ ET= \sum_{i=1}^M p_i^2 \cdot d_i, ] where $\vec{p} = (AA^{\top})^+ \vec{b}$, and $d_i$ denotes the squared $\ell_2$ norm of the $i$-th row of $H$. We also introduce a structure-aware rescaling technique tailored to the solution $\vec{y} = A^+ \vec{b}$. Unlike left preconditioning methods, which transform the linear system to $DA\vec{y} = D\vec{b}$, our approach applies a right rescaling matrix, reformulating the linear system as $AD\vec{z} = \vec{b}$. As an application of our instance-aware QLS algorithm and new rescaling scheme, we develop a quantum algorithm for solving multivariate polynomial systems in regimes where prior QLS-based methods fail. This yields an end-to-end framework applicable to a broad class of problems. In particular, we apply it to the maximum independent set (MIS) problem, formulated as a special case of a polynomial system, and show through detailed analysis that, under certain conditions, our quantum algorithm for MIS runs in polynomial time.

💡 Research Summary

The paper introduces a fundamentally new quantum linear system (QLS) algorithm that breaks the long‑standing dependence on the condition number κ(A) and matrix sparsity by explicitly exploiting the structure of the right‑hand side vector b. The authors view the augmented matrix H =