Thermal state preparation of the SYK model using a variational quantum algorithm

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the use of a variational quantum algorithm to prepare thermal states of the SYK model on quantum hardware, achieving good agreement with exact results for small system sizes and advancing quantum simulations of complex many-body systems.

Contribution

It introduces a variational quantum algorithm for thermal state preparation of the SYK model and benchmarks it on IBM's quantum processor, bridging the gap between theory and experimental quantum simulations.

Findings

Successful thermal state preparation for N=6 SYK model on quantum hardware

Good agreement with exact results for benchmark cases

Progress toward simulating out-of-time order correlators in quantum systems

Abstract

We study the preparation of thermal states of the dense and sparse Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model using a variational quantum algorithm for $6 \le N \le 12$ Majorana fermions over a wide range of temperatures. Utilizing IBM's 127-qubit quantum processor, we perform benchmark computations for the dense SYK model with $N = 6$, showing good agreement with exact results. The preparation of thermal states of a non-local random Hamiltonian with all-to-all coupling using the simulator and quantum hardware represents a significant step toward future computations of thermal out-of-time order correlators in quantum many-body systems.