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        <title>Frontiers in Physics | Quantum Engineering and Technology section | New and Recent Articles</title>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physics/sections/quantum-engineering-and-technology</link>
        <description>RSS Feed for Quantum Engineering and Technology section in the Frontiers in Physics journal | New and Recent Articles</description>
        <language>en-us</language>
        <generator>Frontiers Feed Generator,version:1</generator>
        <pubDate>2026-08-09T21:45:41.218+00:00</pubDate>
        <ttl>60</ttl>
        <item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2026.1866797</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2026.1866797</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Post-quantum ready multimodal federated learning for adaptive threat defence]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-08-06T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Haewon Byeon</author><author>Mukesh Soni</author><author>Abdelhamid Zaidi</author><author>Sami Ahmed Haider</author><author>Afnan Almegren</author><author>Rowida Mohammed Alharbi</author><author>Masood Ur Rehman</author>
        <description><![CDATA[IntroductionFederated learning (FL) is a key enabler for collaborative intelligence across distributed, privacy-sensitive critical infrastructures, but multimodal FL is constrained by data heterogeneity, modality misalignment, and insecure information fusion, limiting real-time threat detection under emerging post-quantum threats.MethodsWe propose PQ-FedCMCA, integrating soft cross-modal contrastive learning at the client level (adaptive scaling/relaxation for flexible many-to-many alignment) with a cross-attention-based global–local aggregation mechanism at the server level, plus knowledge distillation for generalisation.ResultsExperiments on benchmark datasets show PQ-FedCMCA outperforms state-of-the-art FL methods in cross-modal retrieval and classification tasks while enhancing post-quantum-aware privacy preservation and robustness.DiscussionThe framework advances trustworthy, privacy-preserving, post-quantum-aware AI for secure, adaptive threat detection in next-generation critical infrastructures.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2026.1876070</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2026.1876070</link>
        <title><![CDATA[A novel semi-quantum private comparison protocol of size relation based on d-dimensional Bell states]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-07-24T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Yuke Tong</author><author>Tao Chen</author><author>Hao Cao</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Many semi-quantum private comparison (SQPC) protocols have been proposed to compare the equality of participants, but they suffer from low qubit efficiency and require classical participants to perform quantum state measurement and preparation operations. We here propose a novel SQPC protocol based on d-dimensional Bell states. With the assistance of a semi-honest third party, classical participants can compare the sizes of their privacies merely through particle reflection and simple unitary operations, but they do not need to prepare and measure quantum states. Furthermore, participants can compare two bits of privacy just once with one qubit. By combining decoy state eavesdropping detection with pre-shared key encryption as dual security strategies, analysis shows that the proposed protocol is secure against internal and external attack in theory. The qubit efficiency of the protocol reaches 66.7%, which is significantly superior to existing schemes.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2026.1744791</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2026.1744791</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Quantum computing for loan portfolio pricing optimization]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-06-04T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Yanbo J. Wang</author><author>Xuan Yang</author><author>Chao Ju</author><author>Zhihang Liu</author><author>Jiawei Lu</author><author>Yue Zhang</author><author>Yiduo Wang</author><author>Xinkai Gao</author><author>Zijian Yu</author><author>Qi Xu</author><author>Xiaofeng Cao</author>
        <description><![CDATA[For complex optimization problems in the financial services industry, specialized quantum computer can server as a transformative tool. Focusing on loan portfolio pricing optimization, we demonstrate the application potentials and advantages of quantum computing in financial optimization problems. For the first time, the loan portfolio pricing problem is modeled as a Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO) problem, and then solved by a specialized quantum computer, Coherent Ising Machine (CIM) based on optical dissipative systems. By introducing an auxiliary qubit and conducting a two-stage search for the appropriate penalty coefficients, we demonstrate the applicability and advantages of CIM in the loan portfolio pricing optimization problem. The experimental results demonstrate that compared to state-of-the-art classical solvers, CIM achieves significant acceleration capability and energy efficiency beyond classical methods. Furthermore, by conducting numerical and analytical evaluations of CIM’s scalability in the loan portfolio pricing optimization, we demonstrate the convergence guarantees of CIM and its ability to achieve a better solution quality than the state-of-the-art classical solver in large-scale problems.]]></description>
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        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2026.1776432</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2026.1776432</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Bound states and resonance analysis of one-dimensional relativistic parity-symmetric two-point interactions]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-05-01T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Carlos A. Bonin</author><author>Manuel Gadella</author><author>José T. Lunardi</author><author>Luiz A. Manzoni</author>
        <description><![CDATA[We consider the one-dimensional Dirac equation with the most general relativistic contact interaction supported on two points symmetrically located with respect to the origin. We use a distributional method to determine the shape of the interaction, which, in the present case, is equivalent to the standard method of defining contact interactions by self-adjoint extensions of symmetric operators. The interaction on each of these two points depends on four parameters, each one having a clear physical meaning. We are interested in the scattering and confining properties of this model. We focus our attention on even or odd interactions under parity transformations and investigate the existence of critical and supercritical states, bound states, confinement, and scattering resonances for some particular interactions of special interest.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2026.1817739</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2026.1817739</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Quantumness can enhance resilience to statistical noise in spin-network quantum reservoir computing]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-04-29T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Youssef Kora</author><author>Christoph Simon</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Quantum reservoir computing offers a promising approach to the utilization of complex quantum dynamics in machine learning. Statistical noise inevitably arises in real settings of quantum reservoir computing (QRC) due to the practical necessity of taking a small to moderate number of measurements. We investigate the effect of statistical noise in spin-network QRC on the possible performance benefits conferred by quantumness. As our measures of quantumness, we employ both quantum entanglement, which we quantify by the partial transpose of the density matrix, and coherence, which we quantify as the sum of the absolute values of the off-diagonal elements of the density matrix. We find that reservoirs which enjoy a finite degree of quantum entanglement and coherence are more stable against the adverse effects of statistical noise on performance compared to their unentangled, incoherent counterparts. Our results thus indicate that the potential benefit reservoir computers may derive from quantumness depends on the number of measurements used for training and testing, and that statistical noise, albeit detrimental on the whole, may leave quantum reservoirs in a stronger position relative to less quantum ones. These findings not only emphasize the importance of incorporating realistic noise models, but also suggest that the search for computational regimes that benefit from quantumness may be aided rather than impeded by the practical constraints of implementation within existing machines.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2026.1832046</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2026.1832046</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Editorial: Recent mathematical and theoretical progress in quantum mechanics]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-04-24T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Editorial</category>
        <author>Manuel Gadella</author><author>José T. Lunardi</author><author>Luiz A. Manzoni</author><author>Luis M. Nieto</author>
        <description></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2026.1758206</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2026.1758206</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Hardware demonstration of a fixed Tensor P2 kernel: zero-entropy leakage and stable coherence across dual microcontroller platforms]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-04-21T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Destiny Machwaya</author>
        <description><![CDATA[A fixed, non-adaptive Tensor P2 quantum kernel was executed continuously on two microcontroller platforms, a Raspberry Pi Pico (QCC Echo-Origin) and an ESP32-S3 (EchoLift Harmony, radiation-hardened adaptation), to assess runtime stability and entropy behavior under ordinary conditions. Devices ran openly on a dining-room table at room temperature, unshielded and unenclosed. Each platform completed 2-, 30-, and 60-min soaks. For all runs on both devices, outputs matched their reference simulations with no drift or corruption: 0.00% measured entropy leakage and continuous coherence lock. Long soaks were visually traced on a live plotter to confirm uninterrupted loop progression. All sessions were video-recorded and SHA-256 hashed. An independent quantum-security reviewer (Francisco Javier “JJ” Jimenez, CEO, QuantumThreat Labs) directly observed the Qiskit kernel trace, the live hardware runs, and a perturbation check and signed a validation statement. These results provide an empirical baseline for Tensor P2 behavior across heterogeneous controllers at room temperature.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2026.1772868</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2026.1772868</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Optical perspective on the time-dependent Dirac oscillator]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-04-13T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Thiago T. Tsutsui</author><author>Alison A. Silva</author><author>Antonio S. M. de Castro</author><author>Fabiano M. Andrade</author>
        <description><![CDATA[The Dirac oscillator is a relativistic quantum system, characterized by its linearity in both position and momentum. Moreover, considering (1+1) and (2+1) dimensions, the system can be mapped onto the Jaynes-Cummings and anti = Jaynes–Cummings models, as illustrated in an exact manner by Bermudez et al., [Phys. Rev. A 76, 041,801(R) (2007)]. Using the optical counterparts of the Dirac oscillator, we analyze an extension of the model that incorporates a time-dependent frequency. We focus on the consequences of these time modulations on the angular momentum observables and spin-orbit entanglement. Noticeable changes in the Zitterbewegung are found. We show that a specific choice of time dependence yields aperiodic evolution of the observables, whereas an alternative choice allows analytical solutions. Our work has potential implications for simulating relativistic phenomena in optical platforms.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2026.1806357</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2026.1806357</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Efficient semi-quantum dialogue protocol using single-photon]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-03-23T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Jian-Tao Cui</author><author>Jun-Yao Liu</author><author>Xiang-Jun Xin</author><author>Chao-Yang Li</author><author>Fa-Gen Li</author><author>Ling Zhang</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Semi-quantum dialogue (SQD) enables secure bidirectional communication even when one participant has limited quantum capabilities. In order to solve the problems of low efficiency and quantum resource constraints, an efficient SQD protocol using single-photon is proposed. In the SQD, one communicating party needs to have semi-quantum capabilities to complete the dialogue, which could consume lower quantum resource. Moreover, single photons as quantum channels significantly reduces both preparation and operational costs. Finally, decryption can be performed without any classical disclosure, effectively preventing potential information leakage. Security analysis demonstrates resilience against common attacks, including intercept-resend, measure-resend, entanglement-measurement, and Trojan horse attacks, with no information leakage. Compared with existing semi-quantum dialogue protocols, our proposed protocol consumes fewer quantum resources while achieving higher communication efficiency and enhanced security.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2025.1647949</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2025.1647949</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Low-energy dynamics of vibrating kinks]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-02-17T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>J. Mateos Guilarte</author>
        <description><![CDATA[The low-energy dynamics of kinks and kink–antikink configurations in the Jackiw–Rebbi model are fully described. The strategy is based on the collective coordinates adiabatic approach. The necessary solution of quantum mechanical spectral problems, for both scalar and spinorial wave functions, is revealed as an intermediate step.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2026.1788075</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2026.1788075</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Editorial: Advancing quantum computation: optimizing algorithms and error mitigation in NISQ devices]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-01-23T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Editorial</category>
        <author>Jaewoo Joo</author>
        <description></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2025.1750515</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2025.1750515</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Robust watermarking for diffusion models using error-correcting codes and post-quantum key encapsulation]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-01-20T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Xianglei Hu</author><author>Beining Zhang</author><author>Mawaheb Al-Dossari</author><author>N. S. Abd El-Gawaad</author><author>Mira Rakhimzhanova</author><author>Ahmad Saeed Khan</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Critical infrastructures increasingly rely on AI-generated content (AIGC) for monitoring, decision support, and autonomous control. This dependence creates new attack surfaces: forged maintenance imagery, manipulated diagnostic scans, or spoofed sensor visualisations can trigger unsafe actions, regulatory violations, or systemic disruption. This paper proposes a post-quantum watermarking framework designed for critical infrastructure security. We embed robust provenance markers directly into the latent space of diffusion models, rather than at the pixel level, and reinforce them using error-correcting codes (ECC) to ensure watermark recoverability even after aggressive distortions such as compression, cropping, noise injection, and filtering. To secure watermark keys in transit and at rest, we integrate Kyber, a lattice-based key encapsulation mechanism standardised for post-quantum cryptography, to protect the watermark stream key against quantum-enabled interception. The resulting scheme (i) preserves visual fidelity, (ii) supports reliable forensic attribution and auditability under hostile conditions, and (iii) remains cryptographically secure in the post-quantum era. Experiments show that the proposed ECC-hardened latent watermarking achieves consistently high extraction accuracy across diverse attacks while maintaining image quality, outperforming state-of-the-art diffusion watermarking baselines. We position this watermarking–encryption pipeline as an enabling mechanism for privacy-aware traceability, zero-trust validation, and quantum-resilient content governance in next-generation critical infrastructure.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2025.1727394</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2025.1727394</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Integrating blockchain with lattice-based cryptography for privacy-preserving and quantum-secure smart grid communications]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-01-14T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Umair Habib</author><author>Mahwish Bano</author><author>Jawaid Iqbal</author><author>Fahima Hajjej</author><author>Insaf Ullah</author>
        <description><![CDATA[The Smart Grid (SG) is an upgraded electrical system integrated with Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to provide two-way data exchange between power consumers and manufacturers. This innovation facilitates smooth digital connectivity between smart devices like Smart Appliances (SAs), Smart Meters (SMs), and the Service Provider (SP), enabling remote data management to achieve enhanced energy distribution. However, using insecure wireless communications channels poses serious security threats, such as replay, impersonation, man-in-the-middle, and physical capture attacks. Numerous cryptographic algorithms, including RSA, Bilinear Pairing, Data Encryption Standard (DES), and Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), are used in existing studies to address the problem of information breakout. Furthermore, because the parameters and key space are so large, these methods suffer from higher computing costs and communication overhead. To resolve this issue, we have proposed a lattice-based privacy-preserving framework for the SG network that can withstand quantum attacks. Moreover, because quantum computers cannot solve the lattice-based hard problems, the lattice-based signcryption scheme is developed to resist quantum attacks. We have also integrated blockchain technology with the proposed scheme to make the data tamper-resistant and secure against adversary attacks. The proposed protocol is intended to offer data confidentiality, data integrity, and unforgeability. The proposed protocol also withstands several known attacks, such as Man-in-the-Middle (MITM), replay, known session key, insider, and post-quantum attacks. We have simulated our scheme using the AVISPA simulation program, which proves the efficiency and effectiveness of our proposed scheme in meeting the required security properties.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2025.1733926</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2025.1733926</link>
        <title><![CDATA[A quantum partial adiabatic evolution and its application to quantum search problem ]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-01-08T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Jie Sun</author><author>Hui Zheng</author><author>Songfeng Lu</author>
        <description><![CDATA[This paper presents a framework for quantum partial adiabatic evolution and applies it to re-examine the well-known quantum search problem. We particularly focus on a detailed analysis of the algorithm’s success probability, which serves as a clear criterion for differentiating valid implementations from invalid ones. Specifically, when the time complexity aligns with the optimal quantum computation, the algorithm achieves a substantially high success probability. Conversely, so-called “improved” versions that exceed the quadratic speedup characteristic of quantum computing exhibit a negligibly low success probability with the increase of target elements. These findings underscore the critical importance of selecting the appropriate evolution interval and the correct method for calculating the success probability in studies of quantum partial adiabatic evolution.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2025.1723966</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2025.1723966</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Design and implementation of an authenticated post-quantum session protocol using ML-KEM (Kyber), ML-DSA (Dilithium), and AES-256-GCM]]></title>
        <pubdate>2026-01-08T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Akinlemi Olushola</author><author>S. P. Meenakshi</author>
        <description><![CDATA[IntroductionSession establishment, the process by which two parties authenticate each other and derive a shared secret key, forms the foundation for secure digital communication. Quantum computers threaten this foundation by breaking classical public-key primitives such as RSA and elliptic-curve Diffie–Hellman (ECDH), thereby enabling harvest-now–decrypt-later (HNDL) attacks that endanger long-term confidentiality.MethodsThis paper presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of an authenticated, quantum-resistant session protocol that replaces these vulnerable mechanisms with their post-quantum counterparts. The proposed protocol integrates ML-KEM-1024 (FIPS 203; CRYSTALS, Kyber) for ephemeral key exchange, ML-DSA-65 (FIPS 204; CRYSTALS, Dilithium) for endpoint authentication, and AES-256-GCM for symmetric protection. A transcript-bound HKDF–SHA3-256 key schedule and a 96-bit GCM nonce construction with conservative rekey limits are used to ensure forward secrecy, downgrade resistance, and message integrity. A Python/C prototype (PQClean ML-KEM-1024 with PyCryptodome AES-256-GCM) was benchmarked over 1,000 iterations on commodity hardware.ResultsThe results show that sub-millisecond cryptographic overhead ML-KEM-1024 matches the performance of X25519 while vastly outperforming RSA-3072 in secure session establishment, and symmetric encryption remains cost effective. Nonces are unique 96-bit values, never reused across directions or beyond 2³² records, following NIST SP 800-38D; when nonce-misuse resistance is required, AES-256-GCM-SIV (RFC 8452) is supported as a drop-in alternative. Empirical tests under both local and WAN-emulated (≈40 ms RTT) network conditions confirm that the additional post-quantum cost maintains the handshake cryptographic latency in the 0.50–0.70 ms range.DiscussionThese results demonstrate that fully authenticated, forward-secure, quantum-resistant session negotiation is practical for real-world deployments.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2025.1640681</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2025.1640681</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Measures and operators associated with Parseval distribution frames]]></title>
        <pubdate>2025-10-15T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Camillo Trapani</author><author>Francesco Tschinke</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Continuing the study by Tschinke et al. (2019), we examine further aspects of distribution frames (namely, Gel’fand and Parseval), particularly regarding those that are more relevant for applications in quantum physics. Parseval distribution frames are, in particular, closely related to coherent states. Thus, POV measures, Naimark dilations, and operators defined by Parseval distribution frames are the main subjects of this paper. The main results are Theorems 2.2 and 3.1. Theorem 2.2 gives a sufficient conditions for the existence of such distribution coherent states for positive operator valued measures. Theorem 3.1 establishes conditions under which the distribution coherent states can be identified with the projections of some Gel’fand distribution basis in a larger Hilbert space (in Naimark's sense).]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2025.1568407</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2025.1568407</link>
        <title><![CDATA[The anisotropic quantum Rabi model with diamagnetic term]]></title>
        <pubdate>2025-05-13T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Jorge A. Anaya-Contreras</author><author>Irán Ramos-Prieto</author><author>Arturo Zúñiga-Segundo</author><author>Héctor M. Moya-Cessa</author>
        <description><![CDATA[We employ a squeeze operator transformation approach to solve the anisotropic quantum Rabi model that includes a diamagnetic term. By carefully adjusting the amplitude of the diamagnetic term, we demonstrate that the anisotropic Rabi model with the A2 term can be exactly reduced to either a Jaynes-Cummings or an anti-Jaynes-Cummings model without requiring any approximations.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2025.1468348</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2025.1468348</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Transfer of knowledge through reverse annealing: a preliminary analysis of the benefits and what to share]]></title>
        <pubdate>2025-04-24T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Brief Research Report</category>
        <author>Eneko Osaba</author><author>Esther Villar-Rodriguez</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Being immersed in the noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) era, current quantum annealers present limitations for solving optimization problems efficiently. To mitigate these limitations, D-Wave Systems developed a mechanism called reverse annealing, a specific type of quantum annealing designed to perform local refinement of good states found elsewhere. Despite the research activity around reverse annealing, no study has theorized about the possible benefits related to the transfer of knowledge under this paradigm. This work moves in that direction and is driven by experimentation focused on answering two key research questions: i) is reverse annealing a paradigm that can benefit from knowledge transfer between similar problems? and ii) can we infer the characteristics that an input solution should meet to help increase the probability of success? To properly guide the tests in this paper, the well-known knapsack problem has been chosen for benchmarking purposes, using a total of 34 instances composed of 14 and 16 items.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2025.1582819</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2025.1582819</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Constructing resource-efficient quantum circuits for AES]]></title>
        <pubdate>2025-04-22T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Liao-Liang Jiang</author><author>Bin-Bin Cai</author><author>Fei Gao</author><author>Su-Juan Qin</author><author>Zheng-Ping Jin</author><author>Qiao-Yan Wen</author>
        <description><![CDATA[An efficient quantum implementation of the advanced encryption standard (AES) is crucial for reducing the complexity of implementing an exhaustive key search through Grover’s algorithm. In this paper, we study how to construct resource-efficient quantum circuits for AES. We consider the product of T-gates depth and width (TDW) and the product of full depth and width (FDW) as optimization targets. We propose a generic method, called the controlled control qubit cascade (CCQC) technique, to construct quantum circuits for nonlinear components with reduced TDW and FDW. Using this, we construct a quantum circuit for the AES S-box. Compared with recent work presented at ASIACRYPT 2023, our S-box quantum circuit achieves reductions of 2.3% in TDW and 45.2% in FDW. Additionally, we propose a new key schedule strategy to reduce the full depth of the AES quantum circuit. Finally, the trade-offs between T-gates depth and width and the parallel numbers of S-box and TDW are analyzed.]]></description>
      </item><item>
        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2025.1544623</guid>
        <link>https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2025.1544623</link>
        <title><![CDATA[Hamiltonian formulations of centroid-based clustering]]></title>
        <pubdate>2025-04-22T00:00:00Z</pubdate>
        <category>Original Research</category>
        <author>Myeonghwan Seong</author><author>Daniel Kyungdeock Park</author>
        <description><![CDATA[Clustering is a fundamental task in data science that aims to group data based on their similarities. However, defining similarity is often ambiguous, making it challenging to determine the most appropriate objective function for a given dataset. Traditional clustering methods, such as the k-means algorithm and weighted maximum k-cut, focus on specific objectives—typically relying on average or pairwise characteristics of the data—leading to performance that is highly data-dependent. Moreover, incorporating practical constraints into clustering objectives is not straightforward, and these problems are known to be NP-hard. In this study, we formulate the clustering problem as a search for the ground state of a Hamiltonian, providing greater flexibility in defining clustering objectives and incorporating constraints. This approach enables the application of various quantum simulation techniques, including both circuit-based quantum computation and quantum annealing, thereby opening a path toward quantum advantage in solving clustering problems. We propose various Hamiltonians to accommodate different clustering objectives, including the ability to combine multiple objectives and incorporate constraints. We evaluate the clustering performance through numerical simulations and implementations on the D-Wave quantum annealer. The results demonstrate the broad applicability of our approach to a variety of clustering problems on current quantum devices. Furthermore, we find that Hamiltonians designed for specific clustering objectives and constraints impose different requirements for qubit connectivity, indicating that certain clustering tasks are better suited to specific quantum hardware. Our experimental results highlight this by identifying the Hamiltonian that optimally utilizes the physical qubits available in the D-Wave System.]]></description>
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