A quantum Poisson solver implementable on NISQ devices (improved version)

Solving differential equations is one of the most compelling applications of quantum computing. Most existing quantum algorithms addressing general ordinary and partial differential equations are thought to be too expensive to execute successfully on Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices. Here we propose a compact quantum algorithm for solving one-dimensional Poisson equation based on simple Ry rotation. The major operations are performed on probability amplitudes. Therefore, the present algorithm avoids the need to do phase estimation, Hamiltonian simulation and arithmetic. The solution error comes only from the finite difference approximation of the Poisson equation. Our quantum Poisson solver (QPS) has gate-complexity of 3n in qubits and 4n^3 in one- and two-qubit gates, where n is the logarithmic of the dimension of the linear system of equations. In terms of solution error {\epsilon}, the complexity is log(1/{\epsilon}) in qubits and poly(log(1/{\epsilon})) in operations, which is consist with the best known results. The present QPS may represent a potential application on NISQ devices.