{
  "abstract": "Classical simulation of quantum circuits is expensive for two distinct reasons. The obvious one is state-space size: an n-qubit system requires exponentially many amplitudes. The less obvious one is interference: useful output distributions emerge only after many computational histories have been coherently combined at common endpoints, and this aggregation step is itself a substantial source of cost. We introduce statistical interference sampling, a framework that makes this second bottleneck explicit by treating endpoint interference as a separately schedulable computation. Using the Chemical Abstract Machine (ChAM) as our model, weighted path contributions evolve as concurrent molecular species, and interference reactions combine contributions that share a common output state. A threshold rule terminates the process once an endpoint accumulates sufficient amplitude, discarding the remaining reactions. The method does not improve worst-case complexity and is not intended as a general-purpose simulator. Its purpose is to ask a more targeted question: how much of the interference calculation can be skipped while still recovering a useful output distribution? On benchmark circuits for Deutsch-Jozsa, Grover search, Simon's problem, and small Shor period-finding instances, we find that nearly 50% of endpoint interference reactions can be omitted while maintaining over 90% output accuracy for most algorithms tested. These results suggest that interference arithmetic is a structured resource that admits meaningful approximation, and that exposing it explicitly opens new opportunities for pruning strategies across path-sum, Pauli-path, and tensor-network simulation methods.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": "Journal reference: Quantum Science and Technology (2026)",
  "arxiv": "2606.01922",
  "author_total": 3,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Sinan Pehlivanoglu"
    },
    {
      "name": "Srinivasan Iyengar"
    },
    {
      "name": "Amr Sabry"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/396jt1qczxy6a.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2606.01922",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "396jt1qczxy6a",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.01922",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "quant-ph"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": null,
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2606.01922",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-03",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/396jt1qczxy6a.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:27:01Z",
      "native_id": "2606.01922",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.01922"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:quant-ph",
      "subfield": "quantum"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Half the Interference, Most of the Answer: Approximate Quantum Simulation via Path-Sum Pruning",
  "title_text": "Half the Interference, Most of the Answer: Approximate Quantum Simulation via Path-Sum Pruning",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:27:01Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/396jt1qczxy6a",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": [
    {
      "doi": "10.1088/2058-9565/aeaf7a",
      "pid": null,
      "relation": "published-as",
      "title": null,
      "venue": null
    }
  ]
}