Stoquastic

Quick meaning: Stoquastic is an adjective meaning (mathematics) Of a Hermitian matrix, having real non-positive off-diagonal elements. These matrices have elements of quantum mechanics and classical theory of stochastic matrices. For non-technical purposes ‘stoquastic’ is equivalent to “avoiding the sign problem”.

Meaning

(mathematics) Of a Hermitian matrix, having real non-positive off-diagonal elements. These matrices have elements of quantum mechanics and classical theory of stochastic matrices. For non-technical purposes ‘stoquastic’ is equivalent to “avoiding the sign problem”.

Example Sentences

As stoquastic problems we use frustrated Ising Hamiltonians, having random local X and Z fields, and random σ_zσ_z couplings.

Stoquastic Hamiltonians, those for which all off-diagonal matrix elements in the standard basis are real and non-positive, are common in the physical world.

We contrast this with the case of sampling from the output of a quantum computer running the Quantum Adiabatic Algorithm (QADI) with the restriction that the Hamiltonian that governs the evolution is gapped and stoquastic.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include quasipositive, substochastic, pseudohermitian, antisymmetric, orthosymmetric, semiorthogonal.

Related Dictionary Tools