Cloud Quantum Computing of an Atomic Nucleus

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a cloud-based quantum simulation of the deuteron binding energy using a tailored variational algorithm, marking progress towards scalable nuclear physics computations on quantum hardware.

Contribution

It introduces a low-depth unitary coupled-cluster ansatz and applies the variational quantum eigensolver to simulate nuclear binding energy on cloud quantum processors.

Findings

Achieved binding energy computation within a few percent accuracy.

First demonstration of nuclear simulation on cloud quantum hardware.

Provides insights into mapping scientific applications onto quantum devices.

Abstract

We report a quantum simulation of the deuteron binding energy on quantum processors accessed via cloud servers. We use a Hamiltonian from pionless effective field theory at leading order. We design a low-depth version of the unitary coupled-cluster ansatz, use the variational quantum eigensolver algorithm, and compute the binding energy to within a few percent. Our work is the first step towards scalable nuclear structure computations on a quantum processor via the cloud, and it sheds light on how to map scientific computing applications onto nascent quantum devices.