Quantum simulation of open quantum systems in heavy-ion collisions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a quantum computing framework to simulate the dynamics of open quantum systems, specifically heavy probes in quark-gluon plasma, demonstrating feasibility on current quantum hardware.

Contribution

It presents a novel quantum simulation framework for open quantum systems in heavy-ion collisions and demonstrates its implementation on IBM Q devices with noise mitigation techniques.

Findings

Feasibility of simulating open quantum systems on near-term quantum devices.

Application of RIIM for noise mitigation in quantum simulations.

Potential for exponential speedup over classical methods.

Abstract

We present a framework to simulate the dynamics of hard probes such as heavy quarks or jets in a hot, strongly-coupled quark-gluon plasma (QGP) on a quantum computer. Hard probes in the QGP can be treated as open quantum systems governed in the Markovian limit by the Lindblad equation. However, due to large computational costs, most current phenomenological calculations of hard probes evolving in the QGP use semiclassical approximations of the quantum evolution. Quantum computation can mitigate these costs, and offers the potential for a fully quantum treatment with exponential speedup over classical techniques. We report a simplified demonstration of our framework on IBM Q quantum devices, and apply the Random Identity Insertion Method (RIIM) to account for CNOT depolarization noise, in addition to measurement error mitigation. Our work demonstrates the feasibility of simulating open quantum systems on current and near-term quantum devices, which is of broad relevance to applications in nuclear physics, quantum information, and other fields.