Scalable framework for quantum transport across large physical networks

Quantum Physics [Submitted on 15 Apr 2026] Scalable framework for quantum transport across large physical networks Adam Burgess, Nicholas Werren, Erik M. Gauger Accurately modelling many-body quantum transport systems poses a challenge both conceptually and computationally due to the growth of the Hilbert space and the multi-scale nature of the geometries and couplings present in most naturally occurring networks. A compounding complexity of such systems is that the environment typically plays a key role in the transport dynamics. Utilising variational unitary transformations that displace environmental degrees of freedom allows for the deployment of a second-order master equation capable of capturing the dynamics of intermediate and strongly coupled systems, which are ubiquitous in microscopic energy transport systems. However, direct implementations of this approach suffer from fundamental scalability issues due to the complexity of the self-consistent equations required to solve for the variational parameters. Here, we present an efficient partitioning scheme that leverages the inherent multi-scale nature of natural energy transport networks. This enables scaling of the variational polaron framework to quantum energy transport systems, constituting hundreds to thousands of sites. Our work unlocks the physically motivated exploration of large transport networks, for example, those present within light-harvesting complexes and exciton transport in disordered semiconductors. Comments: 20 pages, 5 figures Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2604.13704 [quant-ph]   (or arXiv:2604.13704v1 [quant-ph] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.13704 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Adam Burgess [view email] [v1] Wed, 15 Apr 2026 10:33:37 UTC (13,995 KB) Access Paper: HTML (experimental) view license Current browse context: quant-ph < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-04 Change to browse by: physics physics.chem-ph References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)