Simulating plasma wave propagation on a superconducting quantum chip

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the simulation of plasma wave propagation on a superconducting quantum chip, showcasing a promising approach for studying complex quantum plasma phenomena beyond classical computational capabilities.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to simulate plasma waves using a local spin model on a quantum chip with high-fidelity gates and error mitigation, requiring fewer resources than other approaches.

Findings

Successful simulation of linear plasma wave propagation.

Identification of a local spin model mimicking plasma dynamics.

Feasible implementation with current quantum hardware constraints.

Abstract

Quantum computers may one day enable the efficient simulation of strongly coupled plasmas that lie beyond the reach of classical computation in regimes where quantum effects are important and the scale separation is large. In this article, we take a first step toward efficient simulation of quantum plasmas by demonstrating linear plasma wave propagation on a superconducting quantum chip. Using high-fidelity and highly expressive device-native gates, combined with an error-mitigation technique, we simulate the scattering of laser pulses from inhomogeneous plasmas. Our approach is made feasible by the identification of a suitable local spin model whose excitations mimic plasma waves, and whose circuit implementation requires a lower gate count than other proposed approaches that would require a future fault-tolerant quantum computer. This work opens avenues to study more complicated phenomena that cannot be simulated efficiently on classical computers, such as nonlinear quantum dynamics when strongly coupled plasmas are driven out of equilibrium.