Quantum Emulation of Molecular Force Fields: A Blueprint for a Superconducting Architecture

TL;DR

This paper proposes a superconducting microwave resonator architecture for quantum simulations of molecular chemistry, enabling emulation of molecular processes and potential anharmonic corrections, inspired by D-Wave's design.

Contribution

It introduces a flexible superconducting resonator architecture for quantum emulation of molecular force fields, extending previous designs to include anharmonic effects and nonlinear features.

Findings

Architecture can emulate vibronic transitions

Discusses parameter ranges and quenching times

Explores nonlinear features for anharmonic corrections

Abstract

In this work, we propose a flexible architecture of microwave resonators with tunable couplings to perform quantum simulations of problems from the field of molecular chemistry. The architecture builds on the experience of the D-Wave design, working with nearly harmonic circuits instead of qubits. This architecture, or modifications of it, can be used to emulate molecular processes such as vibronic transitions. Furthermore, we discuss several aspects of these emulations, such as dynamical ranges of the physical parameters, quenching times necessary for diabaticity, and, finally, the possibility of implementing anharmonic corrections to the force fields by exploiting certain nonlinear features of superconducting devices.