Simulating Hadronic Physics on NISQ devices using Basis Light-Front Quantization

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how to simulate hadronic physics, specifically pion properties, on NISQ quantum devices using Basis Light-Front Quantization and variational algorithms, bridging quantum computing and quantum field theory.

Contribution

It introduces a method to compute hadron structure on quantum computers within the BLFQ framework, including calculating pion properties with current NISQ hardware.

Findings

Successfully calculated pion wave functions on a quantum processor

Determined pion mass radius, decay constant, and form factors

Showed feasibility of simulating hadronic physics on NISQ devices

Abstract

The analogy between quantum chemistry and light-front quantum field theory, first noted by Kenneth G. Wilson, serves as motivation to develop light-front quantum simulation of quantum field theory. We demonstrate how calculations of hadron structure can be performed on Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum devices within the Basis Light-Front Quantization framework. We calculate the light-front wave functions of pions using an effective light-front Hamiltonian in a basis representation on a current quantum processor. We use the Variational Quantum Eigensolver to find the ground state energy and wave function, which is subsequently used to calculate pion mass radius, decay constant, elastic form factor, and charge radius.