Quantum simulating multi-particle processes in high energy nuclear physics: dijet production and color (de)coherence

TL;DR

This paper introduces a quantum simulation framework for multi-particle processes in high-energy nuclear physics, enabling detailed studies of partonic showers in QCD media with potential for higher-order calculations.

Contribution

It develops a quantum circuit approach to simulate partonic processes in QCD media, overcoming limitations of traditional methods and allowing amplitude-level computations.

Findings

Benchmark analysis of dipole formation matches analytic estimates.

QCD antenna radiation pattern computed at leading order.

Framework extends to higher perturbative orders.

Abstract

Hard scattering events in high-energy collisions produce highly virtual partons that subsequently fragment into collimated hadronic cascades. When such partonic showers evolve in a QCD medium, as in deep-inelastic scattering or heavy-ion collisions, the resulting multi-particle distributions encode information about the surrounding matter. Decades of theoretical developments have led to a consistent and order-by-order improvable perturbative description of the shower. This description needs, however, the non-perturbative input that encodes the structure of the hadronic matter. The determination of such input remains challenging within conventional computational approaches, thereby limiting the applicability of the approach. In this work, we develop a framework that employs quantum simulation techniques to compute multi-particle processes in such environments by mapping partonic cross-sections to quantum circuits. As benchmarks, we analyze dipole formation and the QCD antenna radiation pattern at leading order in the strong coupling constant, comparing the results with analytic estimates in simplified limits. The quantum circuit formulation here introduced naturally extends to higher perturbative orders and enables amplitude-level computations in complex matter backgrounds. This provides a systematic foundation for applying quantum information science methods to study multi-particle dynamics in QCD media.