Hierarchical Fourier Approximation for Variational Quantum Distribution Learning

arXiv:2609.06307 · quant-ph, cs.LG · Submitted 2026-09-05 · Read on arXiv

quant-ph, cs.LG

Submitted: 2026-09-05

Updated: 2026-09-05

Comments: 18 pages, 3 figures

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The gist: We study variational quantum distribution learning through a hierarchy of Walsh--Fourier approximations on the Boolean cube.

Terminology

Abstract

We study variational quantum distribution learning through a hierarchy of Walsh--Fourier approximations on the Boolean cube. At each level, a selected set of target Fourier coefficients defines a spectral truncation, which is projected onto the probability simplex and used as the target of a quantum circuit Born machine. Parameters learned at one level initialize the next through a warm-start map. We prove an end-to-end expected learning guarantee where the approximation term is determined by the omitted Fourier mass, while a normalized unbiased estimator yields an explicit statistical bound for empirical truncations. We then instantiate the abstract discrepancy conditions for total variation distance and relate the resulting distributional error to quantum-state fidelity. The total-variation specialization incurs the explicit factor 2 n-1 under our normalized 2 convention and is therefore informative only for sufficiently concentrated Fourier tails. The framework does not establish global trainability or eliminate barren plateaus; rather, it identifies the conditions under which low-to-high spectral training admits a approximation--estimation--optimization analysis.

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