Going Beyond Gadgets: The Importance of Scalability for Analogue Quantum Simulators

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that by incorporating engineered dissipation and a new mathematical framework, the scalability barriers of analogue quantum simulators can be overcome, enabling more practical and large-scale quantum simulations.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel mathematical framework and resource of engineered dissipation to overcome fundamental scalability barriers in analogue quantum simulation.

Findings

Engineered dissipation can enhance scalability of quantum simulators.

New framework allows rigorous study of scalable analogue quantum systems.

Overcoming theoretical barriers enables practical large-scale quantum simulations.

Abstract

Quantum hardware has the potential to efficiently solve computationally difficult problems in physics and chemistry to reap enormous practical rewards. Analogue quantum simulation accomplishes this by using the dynamics of a controlled many-body system to mimic those of another system; such a method is feasible on near-term devices. We show that previous theoretical approaches to analogue quantum simulation suffer from fundamental barriers which prohibit scalable experimental implementation. By introducing a new mathematical framework and going beyond the usual toolbox of Hamiltonian complexity theory with an additional resource of engineered dissipation, we show that these barriers can be overcome. This provides a powerful new perspective for the rigorous study of analogue quantum simulators.