Demonstration of Minisuperspace Quantum Cosmology Using Quantum Computational Algorithms on IBM Quantum Computer

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how quantum algorithms on IBM's quantum computer can simulate minisuperspace models in quantum cosmology, exploring various cosmological scenarios with a hybrid quantum-classical approach.

Contribution

It introduces a method to simulate quantum cosmological models using IBM's quantum hardware and the VQE algorithm, focusing on minisuperspace configurations.

Findings

Successful implementation of quantum cosmology models on IBM quantum hardware

Application of VQE algorithm to diverse cosmological scenarios

Potential for quantum computers to advance quantum cosmology research

Abstract

Quantum computers promise to efficiently solve important problems that are intractable on a conventional computer. Quantum computational algorithms have the potential to be an exciting new way of studying quantum cosmology. In quantum cosmology, we learn about the dynamics of the universe without constructing a complete theory of quantum gravity. Since the universal wavefunction exists in an infinite-dimensional superspace over all possible 3D metrics and modes of matter configurations, we take minisuperspaces for our work by constraining the degrees of freedom to particular 3D metrics and uniform scalar field configurations. Here, we consider a wide variety of cosmological models. We begin by analyzing an anisotropic universe with cosmological constant and classical radiation. We then study the results for higher derivatives, Kaluza-Klein theories and string dilaton in quantum cosmology. We use IBM's Quantum Information Science Kit (QISKit) python library and the Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) algorithm for studying these systems. The VQE algorithm is a hybrid algorithm that uses the variational approach and interleaves quantum and classical computations in order to find the minimum eigenvalue of the Hamiltonian for a given system.