Spin vs. position conjugation in quantum simulations with atoms: application to quantum chemistry

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how specific spin-position conjugation in atomic systems enables quantum simulations of chemical bonds, bridging quantum statistics and facilitating molecular modeling with optical tweezers.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to simulate quantum chemistry by exploiting spin-position conjugation in atomic qubits, allowing for modeling of molecular bonds with bosonic atoms.

Findings

Atomic qubits can model electronic and nuclear interactions.

Spin-position conjugation enables behavior similar to different quantum statistics.

Quantum simulations of chemical bonds are feasible with optical microtraps.

Abstract

The permutation symmetry is a fundamental attribute of the collective wavefunction of indistinguishable particles. It makes a difference for the behavior of collective systems having different quantum statistics but existing in the same environment. Here we show that for some specific quantum conjugation between the spin and spatial degrees of freedom the indistinguishable particles can behave similarly for either quantum statistics. In particular, a mesoscopically scaled collection of atomic qubits, mediated by optical tweezers, can model the behavior of a valent electronic shell compounded with nuclear centers in molecules. This makes possible quantum simulations of mono and divalent bonds in quantum chemistry by manipulation of up to four bosonic atoms confined with optical microtraps.