Observation of Robust and Coherent Non-Abelian Hadron Dynamics on Noisy Quantum Processors

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the first high-fidelity quantum simulation of non-Abelian hadron dynamics on noisy quantum hardware, showing robustness and potential for scalable high-energy physics simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a hardware-efficient encoding and measurement protocol for simulating non-Abelian gauge theories on noisy quantum processors, advancing toward practical quantum advantage.

Findings

Successful simulation of meson propagation and oscillations

High-fidelity results from differential measurement and error mitigation

Quantum simulations outperform classical tensor network methods in weak-coupling regimes

Abstract

The real-time evolution of strongly interacting matter remains a frontier of fundamental physics, as classical simulations are hampered by exponential Hilbert space growth and rapid, unmanageable growth of quantum entanglement. This study reports the quantum simulation of hadron dynamics within a (1 + 1)-dimensional SU(2) lattice gauge theory using a 156-qubit IBM superconducting processor. Leveraging a hardware-efficient Loop-String-Hadron (LSH) encoding, we simulate the dynamics of the physical degrees of freedom on a 60-site lattice in the weak-coupling regime, as a crucial step toward the continuum limit. We successfully observe the light-cone propagation of a confined meson and internal oscillations indicative of early-time hadronic breathing modes. Notably, these high-fidelity results were obtained directly from the quantum data via a differential measurement protocol, together with measurement error mitigation, demonstrating a robust pathway for large-scale simulations even on noisy hardware. To validate the results, we benchmarked the quantum algorithm and its outcomes from the quantum processor against state-of-the-art approximated classical algorithms using tensor network methods and Pauli propagation, respectively. Furthermore, we provide a quantitative comparison demonstrating that as the system approaches the weak-coupling or the continuum limit, the quantum processor maintains a consistent structural robustness where classical tensor networks and Pauli propagation methods encounter an onset of exponential complexity or symmetry violations as an artifact of approximation in the algorithm. These results establish a scalable pathway for simulating non-Abelian dynamics on near-term quantum hardware and mark a critical step toward achieving a practical quantum advantage in high-energy physics.