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arXiv:2412.07479 · SciPost Physics Proceedings

The magic of top quarks

Chris D. White, Martin J. White

Published Jan 29, 2026• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

In recent years, there has been increasing collaboration between the fields of quantum computing and high energy physics, including using LHC processes such as top (anti-)quark pair production to perform high energy tests of quantum entanglement. In this proceeding, I will review another interesting property from quantum computing (“magic”), that is needed to make quantum computers with genuine computational advantage over their classical counterparts. How to make and enhance magic in general quantum systems is an open question, such that new insights are always useful. To this end, we will show that the LHC naturally produces magic top quarks, providing a novel playground for further study in this area.

DOI
10.21468/scipostphysproc.18.017

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In recent years, there has been increasing collaboration between the fields of quantum computing and high energy physics, including using LHC processes such as top (anti-)quark pair production to perform high energy tests of quantum entanglement. In this proceeding, I will review another interesting property from quantum computing (“magic”), that is needed to make quantum computers with genuine computational advantage over their classical counterparts. How to make and enhance magic in general quantum systems is an open question, such that new insights are always useful. To this end, we will show that the LHC naturally produces magic top quarks, providing a novel playground for further study in this area.
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In recent years, an interest in the study of quantum information has grown within the high-energy particle physics community. The possibility to establish the presence of entanglement at particle colliders, such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, is a novel and thrilling research direction, offering the opportunity to push quantum mechanics to its limits by using the heaviest fundamental particle: the top quark. With this in mind, we propose to use measurements of quantum entanglement to probe the behaviour of fundamental interactions and to search for New Physics at high energy within the Standard Model Effective Field Theory paradigm. Inspired by recent proposals to measure entanglement of top quark pairs produced at the LHC, we examine how the existence of new interactions between fundamental particles modify the Standard Model expectations. By performing analytical calculations, we unveil a non-trivial pattern of effects depending on the kinematical phase space configurations.
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