Finite temperature quantum simulation of stabilizer Hamiltonians

TL;DR

This paper proposes a practical method for simulating stabilizer Hamiltonians at finite temperatures using neutral atoms in optical lattices, enabling exploration of topological quantum codes.

Contribution

It introduces a minimal physical scheme for finite temperature quantum simulation of stabilizer Hamiltonians with neutral atoms, applicable to both abelian and non-abelian toric codes.

Findings

Scheme works with neutral atoms in optical lattices

Applicable to finite and zero temperature regimes

Demonstrated on toric code models

Abstract

We present a scheme for robust finite temperature quantum simulation of stabilizer Hamiltonians. The scheme is designed for realization in a physical system consisting of a finite set of neutral atoms trapped in an addressable optical lattice that are controllable via 1- and 2-body operations together with dissipative 1-body operations such as optical pumping. We show that these minimal physical constraints suffice for design of a quantum simulation scheme for any stabilizer Hamiltonian at either finite or zero temperature. We demonstrate the approach with application to the abelian and non-abelian toric codes.