Thermalization of SU(2) Lattice Gauge Fields on Quantum Computers

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the simulation of thermalization dynamics in SU(2) lattice gauge theories on IBM quantum computers, showing agreement with classical simulations and highlighting the potential of current quantum hardware for studying chaotic quantum systems.

Contribution

It presents the first large-scale simulation of SU(2) gauge theory thermalization on quantum computers, extending to 151 plaquettes and validating results with error mitigation.

Findings

Quantum hardware results agree with classical simulations up to 101 plaquettes.

Error mitigation enables accurate study of thermalization dynamics.

Feasibility of local thermalization studies on noisy quantum devices.

Abstract

We simulate the thermalization dynamics for minimally truncated SU(2) pure gauge theory on linear plaquette chains with up to 151 plaquettes using IBM quantum computers. We study the time dependence of the entanglement spectrum, R\'enyi-2 entropy and anti-flatness on small subsystems. The quantum hardware results obtained after error mitigation agree with extrapolated classical simulator results for chains consisting of up to 101 plaquettes. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of local thermalization studies for chaotic quantum systems, such as nonabelian lattice gauge theories, on current noisy quantum computing platforms.