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arXiv:2008.11395 · Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics

Real-time simulation of (2+1)-dimensional lattice gauge theory on qubits

Arata Yamamoto

Published Nov 30, 2020• 37 citations
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Abstract

Abstract We study the quantum simulation of $Z_2$ lattice gauge theory in 2+1 dimensions. The dual variable formulation, the so-called Wegner duality, is utilized for reducing redundant gauge degrees of freedom. The problem of artificial charge unconservation is resolved for any charge distribution. As a demonstration, we simulate the real-time evolution of the system with two static electric charges, i.e. with two temporal Wilson lines. Some results obtained by a simulator (with no hardware noise) and a real quantum computing device (with sizable hardware noise) are shown.

DOI
10.1093/ptep/ptaa171

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Abstract We study the quantum simulation of Z2Z_2Z2​ lattice gauge theory in 2+1 dimensions. The dual variable formulation, the so-called Wegner duality, is utilized for reducing redundant gauge degrees of freedom. The problem of artificial charge unconservation is resolved for any charge distribution. As a demonstration, we simulate the real-time evolution of the system with two static electric charges, i.e. with two temporal Wilson lines. Some results obtained by a simulator (with no hardware noise) and a real quantum computing device (with sizable hardware noise) are shown.
Wegner duality is essential for Z2 lattice gauge theory, yet the duality on non-trivial topologies has remained implicit. We extend Wegner duality to arbitrary topology and dimension, obtaining a new class of Ising models, in which topology is encoded in non-local domain-wall patterns. Without the overhead of gauge constraints, simulating this model on an L*L torus requires only L*L qubits with two-body couplings, halving the conventional four-body coupled 2L*L qubits, enabling full experimental realization of Z2 lattice gauge theory on near-term devices.
Abstract Quantum simulators have the exciting prospect of giving access to real-time dynamics of lattice gauge theories, in particular in regimes that are difficult to compute on classical computers. Future progress towards scalable quantum simulation of lattice gauge theories, however, hinges crucially on the efficient use of experimental resources. As we argue in this work, due to the fundamental non-uniqueness of discretizing the relativistic Dirac Hamiltonian, the lattice representation of gauge theories allows for an optimization that up to now has been left unexplored. We exemplify our discussion with lattice quantum electrodynamics in two-dimensional space-time, where we show that the formulation through Wilson fermions provides several advantages over the previously considered staggered fermions. Notably, it enables a strongly simplified optical-lattice setup and it reduces the number of degrees of freedom required to simulate dynamical gauge fields. Exploiting the optimal representation, we propose an experiment based on a mixture of ultracold atoms trapped in a tilted optical lattice. Using numerical benchmark simulations, we demonstrate that a state-of-the-art quantum simulator may access the Schwinger mechanism and map out its non-perturbative onset.
The simulation of real-time dynamics in lattice gauge theories is particularly hard for classical computing due to the exponential scaling of the required resources. On the other hand, quantum algorithms can potentially perform the same calculation with a polynomial dependence on the number of degrees of freedom. A precise estimation is however particularly challenging for the simulation of lattice gauge theories in arbitrary dimensions, where gauge fields are dynamical variables, in addition to the particle fields. Moreover, there exist several choices for discretizing particles and gauge fields on a lattice, each of them coming at different prices in terms of qubit register size and circuit depth. Here we provide a resource counting for real-time evolution of U(1)U(1)U(1) gauge theories, such as quantum electrodynamics, on arbitrary dimension using the Wilson fermion representation for the particles, and the quantum link model approach for the gauge fields. We study the phenomena of flux-string breaking up to a genuine bidimensional model using classical simulations of the quantum circuits and discuss the advantages of our discretization choice in simulation of more challenging SU(N)SU(N)SU(N) gauge theories such as quantum chromodynamics.
Quantum simulators have the exciting prospect of giving access to real-time dynamics of lattice gauge theories, in particular in regimes that are difficult to compute on classical computers. Future progress towards scalable quantum simulation of lattice gauge theories, however, hinges crucially on the efficient use of experimental resources. As we argue in this work, due to the fundamental non-uniqueness of discretizing the relativistic Dirac Hamiltonian, the lattice representation of gauge theories allows for an optimization that up to now has been left unexplored. We exemplify our discussion with lattice quantum electrodynamics in two-dimensional space-time, where we show that the formulation through Wilson fermions provides several advantages over the previously considered staggered fermions. Notably, it enables a strongly simplified optical-lattice setup and it reduces the number of degrees of freedom required to simulate dynamical gauge fields. Exploiting the optimal representation, we propose an experiment based on a mixture of ultracold atoms trapped in a tilted optical lattice. Using numerical benchmark simulations, we demonstrate that a state-of-the-art quantum simulator may access the Schwinger mechanism and map out its non-perturbative onset.
The digital quantum simulation of lattice gauge theories is expected to become a major application of quantum computers. Measurement-based quantum computation is a widely studied competitor of the standard circuit-based approach. We formulate a measurement-based scheme to perform the quantum simulation of Abelian lattice gauge theories in general dimensions. The scheme uses an entangled resource state that is tailored for the purpose of gauge theory simulation and reflects the spacetime structure of the simulated theory. Sequential single-qubit measurements with the bases adapted according to the former measurement outcomes induce a deterministic Hamiltonian quantum simulation of the gauge theory on the boundary. We treat as our main example the Z2\mathbb{Z}_2Z2​ lattice gauge theory in 2+12+12+1 dimensions, simulated on a 3-dimensional cluster state. Then we generalize the simulation scheme to Wegner's lattice models that involve higher-form Abelian gauge fields. The resource state has a symmetry-protected topological order with respect to generalized global symmetries that are related to the symmetries of the simulated gauge theories. We also propose a method to simulate the imaginary-time evolution with two-qubit measurements and post-selections.
Quantum simulation of lattice gauge theories (LGTs) provides a powerful framework for understanding nonperturbative phenomena. However, to realize the hope of answering challenging physics questions on near-term devices it is crucial to develop resource-efficient formulations, in particular for non-Abelian LGTs and beyond (1+1) dimensions. In this work, we address this issue by focusing on the difficulty of simulating fermionic degrees of freedom and on mitigating the Hilbert space redundancy, i.e., the presence of exponentially many nonphysical states that do not obey gauge invariance. First, we show a procedure that removes the matter and improves the hardware-resource efficiency. We demonstrate it for the simplest non-Abelian group addressable with this procedure, D 8 , in the cases of both one and two spatial dimensions. Then, with the objective of running a variational quantum simulation on real quantum hardware, we map the D 8 LGT onto qudit systems with local interactions. We propose a variational scheme for the qudit system with a local Hamiltonian, which can be implemented on a universal qudit quantum device. Our results show the effectiveness of the matter-removing procedure, solving the redundancy problem, and reducing the amount of quantum resources. This approach can serve as a way of simulating LGTs in high spatial dimensions, with non-Abelian gauge groups, and including dynamical fermions.