Optimal Control for the Quantum Simulation of Nuclear Dynamics

TL;DR

This paper introduces a quantum control method for simulating nuclear dynamics, enabling the observation of multiple nucleon cycles and extraction of spectroscopic properties on near-term quantum devices.

Contribution

It presents a novel quantum simulation approach for nuclear systems using optimal control, demonstrating robustness and potential for future nuclear physics calculations.

Findings

Successful encoding of nuclear Hamiltonian into a quantum device

Observation of multiple nucleon cycles before decoherence

Extraction of spectroscopic properties matching exact calculations

Abstract

We propose a method for enacting the unitary time propagation of two interacting neutrons at leading order of chiral effective field theory by efficiently encoding the nuclear dynamics into a single multi-level quantum device. The emulated output of the quantum simulation shows that, by applying a single gate that draws on the underlying characteristics of the device, it is possible to observe multiple cycles of the nucleons' dynamics before the onset of decoherence. Owing to the signal's longevity, we can then extract spectroscopic properties of the simulated nuclear system. This allows us to validate the encoding of the nuclear Hamiltonian and the robustness of the simulation in the presence of quantum-hardware noise by comparing the extracted spectroscopic information to exact calculations. This work paves the way for transformative calculations of dynamical properties of nuclei on near-term quantum devices.