Exploring new states of matter with a photonic emulator

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a photonic emulator for the Gross-Neveu model, enabling optical simulation of complex multi-fermion states relevant to high-energy physics, marking a significant step in waveguide-based quantum simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel photonic waveguide array setup to simulate the Gross-Neveu model, bridging high-energy physics and photonic quantum simulation.

Findings

Successful implementation of the Gross-Neveu model in photonic waveguides

Observation of multi-fermion bound state solutions

First optical simulation of high-energy physics phenomena

Abstract

We implement the equation of motion of the large-N Gross-Neveu model from strong interaction physics in photonic waveguide arrays and study one of its paradigmatic multi-fermion bound state solutions in an optical experiment. The present study constitutes an important first step towards waveguide-based simulations of phenomena relevant for high-energy physics.