Quantum circuit simulation of linear optics using fermion to qubit encoding

TL;DR

This paper presents a quantum simulation protocol for linear optics that encodes bosons as fermions and maps them onto qubits, enabling efficient simulation of bosonic scattering processes including partial distinguishability.

Contribution

It introduces a novel fermion-to-qubit encoding method combined with boson-fermion correspondence for simulating linear optical systems on quantum computers.

Findings

Successfully simulated Hong-Ou-Mandel interference with varying distinguishability.

Verified quantum circuits on IBM Quantum and IonQ platforms.

Demonstrated extension to partially distinguishable bosons.

Abstract

This work proposes a digital quantum simulation protocol for the linear scattering process of bosons, which provides a simple extension to partially distinguishable boson cases. Our protocol is achieved by combining the boson-fermion correspondence relation and fermion to qubit encoding protocols. As a proof of concept, we designed quantum circuits for generating the Hong-Ou-Mandel dip by varying particle distinguishability. The circuits were verified with the classical and quantum simulations using the IBM Quantum and IonQ cloud services.