Light-Front Field Theory on Current Quantum Computers

TL;DR

This paper introduces a quantum algorithm for simulating light-front quantum field theory, demonstrating its application on real quantum hardware to study properties of the pion, marking a pioneering step in quantum simulations of physical systems.

Contribution

It presents the first implementation of light-front quantum field theory simulation on a quantum computer, using Variational Quantum Eigensolver for bound state analysis.

Findings

Successfully calculated pion properties on IBMQ Vigo chip

Demonstrated two different state encoding methods

Proposed a pathway toward quantum advantage in field theory simulations

Abstract

We present a quantum algorithm for simulation of quantum field theory in the light-front formulation and demonstrate how existing quantum devices can be used to study the structure of bound states in relativistic nuclear physics. Specifically, we apply the Variational Quantum Eigensolver algorithm to find the ground state of the light-front Hamiltonian obtained within the Basis Light-Front Quantization framework. As a demonstration, we calculate the mass, mass radius, decay constant, electromagnetic form factor, and charge radius of the pion on the IBMQ Vigo chip. We consider two implementations based on different encodings of physical states, and propose a development that may lead to quantum advantage. This is the first time that the light-front approach to quantum field theory has been used to enable simulation of a real physical system on a quantum computer.