Experimental Simulation of Open Quantum System Dynamics via Trotterization

Simulating open quantum systems with molecular spin qudits

Noise affecting quantum processors still limits quantum simulations to a small number of units and operations. This is especially true for the simulation of open quantum systems, which involve additional units and operations to map environmental degrees of freedom. Hence, finding efficient approaches for the simulation of open quantum systems is an open issue. In this work, we demonstrate how using units with d > 2 levels (qudits) results in a reduction of up to two orders of magnitude in the number of operations (gates) required to implement state-of-the-art algorithms. We explore two conceptually distinct families of these algorithms that were initially designed for qubits and discuss the gate complexity scaling that different platforms (qubit-based vs. qudit-based) offer. Additionally, we present realistic simulations of an experimental platform based on molecular spin qudits coupled to superconducting resonators, where the main hardware error sources are included. We show that, in all cases considered, the use of qudits leads to a remarkable reduction in circuit complexity and that molecular nanomagnets are ideal qudit hosts.

Accelerating Dissipative State Preparation with Adaptive Open Quantum Dynamics

A wide variety of dissipative state preparation schemes suffer from a basic time-entanglement tradeoff: the more entangled the steady state, the slower the relaxation to the steady state. Here, we show how a minimal kind of adaptive dynamics can be used to completely circumvent this tradeoff, and allow the dissipative stabilization of maximally entangled states with a finite timescale. Our approach takes inspiration from simple fermionic stabilization schemes, which surprisingly are immune to entanglement-induced slowdown. We describe schemes for accelerated stabilization of many-body entangled qubit states (including spin squeezed states), both in the form of discretized Floquet circuits, as well as continuous time dissipative dynamics. Our ideas are compatible with a number of experimental platforms.

Observation of the non-Hermitian skin effect and Fermi skin on a digital quantum computer

Lately, the non-Hermitian skin effect (NHSE) has been demonstrated in various classical metamaterials and even ultracold atomic arrays. Yet, its interplay with many-body dynamics have never been experimentally investigated. Here, we report the observation of the NHSE and its many-fermion analog on a universal quantum processor. To implement NHSE accumulation on a quantum computer, the time-evolution circuit not only needs to be non-reciprocal and non-unitary, but must also contain sufficiently many lattice qubits. We demonstrate this by systematically post-selecting ancilla qubits, as demonstrated through two paradigmatic non-reciprocal models on noisy quantum processors, with clear signatures of asymmetric spatial propagation and many-body "Fermi skin" accumulation. To minimize errors from inevitable device noise, time evolution is performed using trainable, variationally optimized quantum circuits. Our demonstration represents an important step in the quantum simulation of non-Hermitian lattices on present-day quantum hardware, and can be readily generalized to more sophisticated many-body models.

Unambiguous discrimination of general quantum operations

The discrimination of quantum operations has long been an intriguing challenge, with theoretical research notably advancing our understanding of the quantum features in discriminating quantum objects. This challenge is closely related to the discrimination of quantum states, and proof-of-principle demonstrations of the latter have already been realized using optical photons. However, the experimental demonstration of discriminating general quantum operations, including both unitary and nonunitary operations, has remained elusive. In general quantum systems, especially those with high dimensions, the preparation of arbitrary quantum states and the implementation of arbitrary quantum operations and generalized measurements are nontrivial tasks. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the optimal unambiguous discrimination of up to six displacement operators and the unambiguous discrimination of nonunitary quantum operations. Our results demonstrate powerful tools for experimental research in quantum information processing and are expected to stimulate a wide range of valuable applications in the field of quantum sensing.

Adaptive Trotterization for Time-Dependent Hamiltonian Quantum Dynamics Using Piecewise Conservation Laws

Digital quantum simulation relies on Trotterization to discretize time evolution into elementary quantum gates. On current quantum processors with notable gate imperfections, there is a critical trade-off between improved accuracy for finer time steps, and increased error rate on account of the larger circuit depth. We present an adaptive Trotterization algorithm to cope with time dependent Hamiltonians, where we propose a concept of piecewise "conserved" quantities to estimate errors in the time evolution between two (nearby) points in time; these allow us to bound the errors accumulated over the full simulation period. They reduce to standard conservation laws in the case of time independent Hamiltonians, for which we first developed an adaptive Trotterization scheme [H. Zhao et al., Making Trotterization adaptive and energy-self-correcting for NISQ devices and beyond, PRX Quantum 4, 030319 (2023).2691-339910.1103/PRXQuantum.4.030319]. We validate the algorithm for a time dependent quantum spin chain, demonstrating that it can outperform the conventional Trotter algorithm with a fixed step size at a controlled error.

Embedding Quantum Many-Body Scars into Decoherence-Free Subspaces

Quantum many-body scars are nonthermal excited eigenstates of nonintegrable Hamiltonians, which could support coherent revival dynamics from special initial states when scars form an equally spaced tower in the energy spectrum. For open quantum systems, engineering many-body scarred dynamics by a controlled coupling to the environment remains largely unexplored. Here, we provide a general framework to exactly embed quantum many-body scars into the decoherence-free subspaces of Lindblad master equations. The dissipative scarred dynamics manifest persistent periodic oscillations for generic initial states, and can be practically utilized to prepare scar states with potential quantum metrology applications. We construct the Liouvillian dissipators with the local projectors that annihilate the whole scar towers, and utilize the Hamiltonian part to rotate the undesired states out of the null space of dissipators. We demonstrate our protocol through several typical models hosting many-body scar towers and propose an experimental scheme to observe the dissipative scarred dynamics based on digital quantum simulations and resetting ancilla qubits.

Implementation of the Projective Quantum Eigensolver on a Quantum Computer

We study the performance of our previously proposed projective quantum eigensolver (PQE) on IBM's quantum hardware in conjunction with error mitigation techniques. For a single qubit model of H2, we find that we are able to obtain energies within 4 millihartree (2.5 kcal/mol) of the exact energy along the entire potential energy curve, with the accuracy limited by both the stochastic error and the inconsistent performance of the IBM devices. We find that an optimization algorithm using direct inversion of the iterative subspace can converge swiftly, even to excited states, but stochastic noise can prompt large parameter updates. For the 4-site transverse-field Ising model at its critical point, PQE with an appropriate application of qubit tapering can recover 99% of the correlation energy, even after discarding several parameters. The large number of CNOT gates needed for the additional parameters introduces a concomitant error that, on the IBM devices, results in a loss of accuracy despite the increased expressivity of the trial state. Error extrapolation techniques and tapering or postselection are recommended to mitigate errors in PQE hardware experiments.

Molecular nanomagnets: a viable path toward quantum information processing?

Molecular nanomagnets (MNMs), molecules containing interacting spins, have been a playground for quantum mechanics. They are characterized by many accessible low-energy levels that can be exploited to store and process quantum information. This naturally opens the possibility of using them as qudits, thus enlarging the tools of quantum logic with respect to qubit-based architectures. These additional degrees of freedom recently prompted the proposal for encoding qubits with embedded quantum error correction (QEC) in single molecules. QEC is the holy grail of quantum computing and this qudit approach could circumvent the large overhead of physical qubits typical of standard multi-qubit codes. Another important strength of the molecular approach is the extremely high degree of control achieved in preparing complex supramolecular structures where individual qudits are linked preserving their individual properties and coherence. This is particularly relevant for building quantum simulators, controllable systems able to mimic the dynamics of other quantum objects. The use of MNMs for quantum information processing is a rapidly evolving field which still requires to be fully experimentally explored. The key issues to be settled are related to scaling up the number of qudits/qubits and their individual addressing. Several promising possibilities are being intensively explored, ranging from the use of single-molecule transistors or superconducting devices to optical readout techniques. Moreover, new tools from chemistry could be also at hand, like the chiral-induced spin selectivity. In this paper, we will review the present status of this interdisciplinary research field, discuss the open challenges and envisioned solution paths which could finally unleash the very large potential of molecular spins for quantum technologies.

Single-Qubit Error Mitigation by Simulating Non-Markovian Dynamics

Quantum simulation is a powerful tool to study the properties of quantum systems. The dynamics of open quantum systems are often described by completely positive (CP) maps, for which several quantum simulation schemes exist. Such maps, however, represent only a subset of a larger class of maps: the general dynamical maps which are linear, Hermitian preserving, and trace preserving but not necessarily positivity preserving. Here we present a simulation scheme for these general dynamical maps, which occur when the underlying system-reservoir model undergoes entangling (and thus non-Markovian) dynamics. Such maps also arise as the inverse of CP maps, which are commonly used in error mitigation. We illustrate our simulation scheme on an IBM quantum processor, demonstrating its ability to recover the initial state of a Lindblad evolution. This paves the way for a novel form of quantum error mitigation. Our scheme only requires one ancilla qubit as an overhead and a small number of one and two qubit gates. Consequently, we expect it to be of practical use in near-term quantum devices.

Quantum algorithms for quantum dynamics

Among the many computational challenges faced across different disciplines, quantum-mechanical systems pose some of the hardest ones and offer a natural playground for the growing field of quantum technologies. In this Perspective, we discuss quantum algorithmic solutions for quantum dynamics, reporting on the latest developments and offering a viewpoint on their potential and current limitations. We present some of the most promising areas of application and identify possible research directions for the coming years.