Quantum simulation of lattice gauge theories on superconducting circuits:Quantum phase transition and quench dynamics

Recently,quantum simulation of low-dimensional lattice gauge theories(LGTs)has attracted many interests,which may improve our understanding of strongly correlated quantum many-body systems.Here,we propose an implementation to approximate Z;LGT on superconducting quantum circuits,where the effective theory is a mixture of a LGT and a gauge-broken term.By using matrix product state based methods,both the ground state properties and quench dynamics are systematically investigated.With an increase of the transverse(electric)field,the system displays a quantum phase transition from a disordered phase to a translational symmetry breaking phase.In the ordered phase,an approximate Gauss law of the Z;LGT emerges in the ground state.Moreover,to shed light on the experiments,we also study the quench dynamics,where there is a dynamical signature of the spontaneous translational symmetry breaking.The spreading of the single particle of matter degree is diffusive under the weak transverse field,while it is ballistic with small velocity for the strong field.Furthermore,due to the emergent Gauss law under the strong transverse field,the matter degree can also exhibit confinement dynamics which leads to a strong suppression of the nearest-neighbor hopping.Our results pave the way for simulating the LGT on superconducting circuits,including the quantum phase transition and quench dynamics.

Variational quantum simulation of thermal statistical states on a superconducting quantum processer

Quantum computers promise to solve finite-temperature properties of quantum many-body systems,which is generally challenging for classical computers due to high computational complexities.Here,we report experimental preparations of Gibbs states and excited states of Heisenberg X X and X X Z models by using a 5-qubit programmable superconducting processor.In the experiments,we apply a hybrid quantum–classical algorithm to generate finite temperature states with classical probability models and variational quantum circuits.We reveal that the Hamiltonians can be fully diagonalized with optimized quantum circuits,which enable us to prepare excited states at arbitrary energy density.We demonstrate that the approach has a self-verifying feature and can estimate fundamental thermal observables with a small statistical error.Based on numerical results,we further show that the time complexity of our approach scales polynomially in the number of qubits,revealing its potential in solving large-scale problems.

Measuring Loschmidt echo via Floquet engineering in superconducting circuits

The Loschmidt echo is a useful diagnostic for the perfection of quantum time-reversal process and the sensitivity of quantum evolution to small perturbations. The main challenge for measuring the Loschmidt echo is the time reversal of a quantum evolution. In this work, we demonstrate the measurement of the Loschmidt echo in a superconducting 10-qubit system using Floquet engineering and discuss the imperfection of an initial Bell-state recovery arising from the next-nearestneighbor(NNN) coupling present in the qubit device. Our results show that the Loschmidt echo is very sensitive to small perturbations during quantum-state evolution, in contrast to the quantities like qubit population that is often considered in the time-reversal experiment. These properties may be employed for the investigation of multiqubit system concerning many-body decoherence and entanglement, etc., especially when devices with reduced or vanishing NNN coupling are used.

量子模拟器中规范理论的热化动力学

规范理论是现代物理学中描述基本粒子相互作用的基本语言,是标准模型等理论的基石,也和量子叠加、量子纠缠概念密切相关.人们熟知时空对称性,例如在比萨斜塔做质量不等物体的自由落体实验,与在不同时间不同地点做类似实验所得到的结论会完全相同.