A team of researchers at the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) have developed a new quantum simulator that uses microwave photons in a superconducting cavity to simulate particles on a lattice similar to those found in superconductors or atomic nuclei.
“There is a particular interest in performing quantum simulations of systems that cannot be simulated using even the most powerful classical supercomputers,” said Christopher Wilson, a faculty member at IQC and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo. “While very powerful classical simulation tools exist, many important problems remain intractable. Here, we present a programmable platform using superconducting quantum circuits. We use it for a small-scale simulation of the bosonic Creutz ladder, an important historical model which exhibits a wide range of interesting behavior including topological and edge states.”
A quantum simulator is a limited-use quantum computer: a machine that can be programmed to replicate the behaviour of a specific quantum system that is too complex to simulate using classical methods. Because of their comparative simplicity, many researchers believe that quantum simulators could deliver useful applications sooner than universal quantum computers will. With this goal in mind, Wilson along with his colleagues have used a chip-based superconducting cavity to build a quantum simulator that can simulate quantum particles on a lattice. Such particle-lattice systems can be used as models for the behaviour of high-temperature superconductors or the particles inside an atomic nucleus.
Quantum Simulation of the Bosonic Creutz Ladder with a Parametric Cavity was published in Physical Review Letters on September 2, 2021.
This project is supported in part by the Canada First Research Excellence Fund through the Transformative Quantum Technologies (TQT) program.