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Ground-state preparation via nonlinear quantum dissipation

Alireza Ataei1,*, Olle Eriksson2,3, and Vahid Azimi-Mousolou2,†

  • *Contact author: alireza.ataei@math.uu.se
  • †Contact author: vahid.azimi-mousolou@physics.uu.se
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Phys. Rev. B 114, 204407 – Published 6 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/nsdt-mntf

Abstract

Ground-state preparation of quantum many-body systems is a fundamental challenge across quantum science, with implications for quantum simulation, quantum computing, and the study of complex quantum matter. The exponential growth of Hilbert space and the complexity of entangled eigenstates motivate the development of new approaches that go beyond conventional strategies based on adiabatic evolution, variational optimization, imaginary-time methods, and engineered dissipative processes. Here, we demonstrate that the recently proposed quantum Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert (QLLG) dynamics [Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 266704 (2024)] provides an intrinsic nonlinear dissipative mechanism for real-time ground-state preparation. Unlike engineered dissipative schemes, QLLG encodes relaxation directly into the quantum equation of motion while preserving the underlying quantum structure of the evolution. The QLLG evolution selectively suppresses excited-state contributions, driving the system toward the lowest-energy eigenstate within the accessible symmetry sector. We show that the dynamics admits a monotonic energy functional and a stable ground-state fixed point, and that for generic initial states in an N-qubit Hilbert space the characteristic convergence time scales linearly with N and inversely with the spectral gap. Numerical simulations of an interacting spin chain confirm our analytical predictions. These results establish nonlinear dissipative QLLG dynamics as another avenue for quantum state preparation, opening an alternative route for quantum simulation, computation, and state engineering.

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Phys. Rev. B 114, 204407– Published 6 October, 2026
  • Received 21 April 2026
  • Revised 18 August 2026
  • Accepted 8 September 2026
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