Undergraduate Research at Jefferson Lab

Quantum Simulation of Lattice Field Theories Using Pulse-Level Optimization

Student: Thomas McEntire

School: University at Buffalo

Mentored By: Felix Ringer and Matt Grau

Quantum computers have the potential to solve Hamiltonians that are currently intractable on even the most powerful existing classical computers. However, there currently is not a suitable description of lattice field theories that could leverage the abilities of a quantum computer. Simulating a Hamiltonian approximation of lattice field theories on a quantum computer requires circuits with a large depth containing many gates. The aggregate errors quickly accumulate with the increased number of gates, effectively limiting the size of any lattice problem to only trivial systems. A possible solution is to use tailored pulse-level control of a quantum computer to combine multiple gates into single physical operations, minimizing the number of sources of errors. Our goal is to create an algorithm to simulate lattice field theories with a minimal number of pulses rather than discrete gates.