Floquet prethermalization of ${\bf Z}_2$ lattice gauge theory on superconducting qubits

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the simulation of nonequilibrium dynamics of a ${f Z}_2$ lattice gauge theory on a 156-qubit superconducting quantum computer, showing early-stage prethermalization and benchmarking quantum computing for high-energy physics.

Contribution

First simulation of ${f Z}_2$ lattice gauge theory dynamics on a large superconducting quantum device with error mitigation, reaching early prethermalization stages.

Findings

Successful simulation of 38 and 116 qubits up to 10 Trotter steps

Observation of early-stage prethermalization dynamics

Benchmarking quantum computing capabilities for high-energy physics

Abstract

Simulating nonequilibirum dynamics of a quantum many-body system is one of the promising applications of quantum computing. We simulate the time evolution of one-dimensional ${\bf Z}_2$ lattice gauge theory on IBM's superconducting 156-qubit device ibm\_fez. We consider the Floquet circuit made of the Trotter decomposition of Hamiltonian evolution and focus on its dynamics toward thermalization. Quantum simulation with the help of error mitigation is successful in running the Floquet circuit made of $38$ and $116$ qubits up to $10$ Trotter steps in the best case. This is enough to reach the early stage of prethermalization. Our work would be a benchmark for the potential power of quantum computing for high-energy physics problems.