 First-order unitary product-formula error bound

For Hermitian matrices $H_1,\dots ,H_m$ and $t\ge 0$, let $S(t)={\prod }_{j=1}^m{e}^{-it{H}_j}$. ThenHere every norm is the spectral norm. A short proof starts with two summands. Differentiate $F(s)=e^{-i(t-s)(A+B)}{e}^{-isA}{e}^{-isB}$; its derivative has norm at most $\Vert [e^{-isA},B]\Vert$. Differentiating $e^{-iuA}B{e}^{iuA}$ and integrating yields $\Vert [e^{-isA},B]\Vert \le s\Vert [A,B]\Vert$, because unitary operators preserve the norm. Integrating $s$ from zero to $t$ gives $t^2\Vert [A,B]\Vert /2$. Inductively separate $H_1$ from the remaining sum, use the triangle inequality on their commutator, and apply the telescoping bound for products of operators to obtain the displayed many-term bound.

Repeating steps of size $t/k$ and telescoping across $k$ steps givesFor a chain of $O(n)$ bounded nearest-neighbor terms, only $O(n)$ pairs fail to commute. Consequently first-order product-formula Hamiltonian simulation has error $O(n{t}^2/k)$ and uses $O(nk)$ constant-size gates. The general bound is also given in Proposition 9 of Childs and collaborators' analysis of Trotter error.