Making a Quantum Computer Using Neutral Atoms

Carl J. Williams

This talk provides an overview of worldwide efforts toward neutral atom quantum computing. While the talk will focus principally on NIST efforts, I will attempt to point out some of the important results from other groups while focusing on those aspects of neutral atoms that should make them an ideal candidate for quantum computing. Neutral atoms have two basic features that make them ideal. One is that they are among the best understood and controlled quantum systems known today, having led to Bose-Einstein condensation and the observation of the quantum phase transition from a superfluid to a Mott-insulator. The second feature that supports neutral atom quantum computing is that potential solutions for building a scalable quantum architectures based on neutral atoms already exist. The need for scalable quantum architectures, unfortunately places numerous constraints and requirements on physical systems. These requirements have been discussed by several authors; however, since the requirements are not widely known I will briefly review them along with their potential solutions for neutral atom systems. I will then conclude with a few speculative statements about the future of quantum computing and quantum information.

Xiao Li

Loïc Henriet, Lucas Béguin, Adrien Signoles +4 more

The manipulation of neutral atoms by light is at the heart of countless scientific discoveries in the field of quantum physics in the last three decades. The level of control that has been achieved at the single particle level within arrays of optical traps, while preserving the fundamental properties of quantum matter (coherence, entanglement, superposition), makes these technologies prime candidates to implement disruptive computation paradigms. In this paper, we review the main characteristics of these devices from atoms / qubits to application interfaces, and propose a classification of a wide variety of tasks that can already be addressed in a computationally efficient manner in the Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum\cite{Preskill_NISQ} era we are in. We illustrate how applications ranging from optimization challenges to simulation of quantum systems can be explored either at the digital level (programming gate-based circuits) or at the analog level (programming Hamiltonian sequences). We give evidence of the intrinsic scalability of neutral atom quantum processors in the 100-1,000 qubits range and introduce prospects for universal fault tolerant quantum computing and applications beyond quantum computing.

Chuck Easttom

Chen Junxi

This work investigates approaches for solving the Maximum-Cut (Max-cut) problem, a nondeterministic polynomial-hard (NP-hard) combinatorial optimization problem, on a neutral-atom quantum computing platform. The Max-cut problem can be mapped to an Ising model, making it a representative candidate for demonstrating quantum computational advantage. We explore two algorithmic pathways: first, a quantum algorithm based on quantum phase estimation and a modified Grover's search for solution space exploration, which was numerically simulated using the Qiskit library. Second, the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) is employed. We simulate QAOA for a four-atom model under conditions relevant to neutral-atom platforms, evaluating the solution quality via the approximation ratio Ra=1/S_max ∑_i▒〖p_i S_i 〗 (p_i is the probability of a particular bit-string, S_i is the number of edge cuts for the bit string, and S_max is the maximum cut number.) for circuit depths p = 1, 2, 3. Furthermore, numerical simulations of the neutral-atom platform model are conducted using the Pulser library. The results provide algorithmic foundations and numerical validation for demonstrating quantum utility in physical systems like neutral atoms and for tackling practical problems such as routing.