Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Time Evolution of Quantum Systems”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 55 records · Page 3

F3C++ v0.1

Fast Free Fermion Compiler (F3C) is an application-specific quantum circuit compiler for time-evolution circuits of spin Hamiltonian systems that can be mapped to free fermions.

Van Beeumen, RoelMaria Franciscus↗

F3C v0.1

Fast Free Fermion Compiler (F3C) is an application-specific quantum circuit compiler for time-evolution circuits of spin Hamiltonian systems that can be mapped to free fermions. F3C is the Matlab software version and the related F3C++ is the C++ software version.

Van Beeumen, RoelMaria Franciscus↗

Quantum simulations of SO(5) many-fermion systems using qudits

The structure and dynamics of many-body systems are the result of a delicate interplay between underlying interactions. Fermionic pairing, for example, plays a central role in various physical systems, ranging from condensed matter to nuclear systems, where it can lead to collective phenomena such as superconductivity and superfluidity. In atomic nuclei, the interplay between pairing and particle-hole interactions leads to a high degree of complexity and intricate entanglement structures. Despite this apparent complexity, symmetries emerge and manifest themselves in observable regular patterns. These symmetries and their breakings have long been used to determine relevant degrees of freedom and simplify classical descriptions of many-body systems. Here, this work explores the potential utility of quantum computers with arrays of qudits in simulating interacting fermionic systems, when the qudits can naturally map the relevant degrees of freedom determined by an underlying symmetry group. The Agassi model of fermions interacting via particle-hole and pairing interactions is based on an underlying so(5) algebra. Such systems can intuitively be partitioned into pairs of modes with five basis states, which thus naturally map to arrays of d = 5 qudits (qu5its). Classical noiseless simulations of the time evolution of systems with up to twelve qu5its are performed, by implementing quantum circuits that are developed herein, using PYTHON codes invoking Google's CIRQ software. The resource requirements of the qu5it circuits are analyzed and compared with two different mappings to qubit systems: a physics-aware Jordan-Wigner mapping requiring four qubits per mode pair and a state-to-state mapping requiring three qubits per mode pair. While the dimensionality of Hilbert spaces in mappings to qu5it systems are less than those for the corresponding qubit systems, the number of entangling operations, depending on the available hardware, can either be greater or smaller than for the physics-aware Jordan-Wigner mapping. The state-to-state mapping, while having a smaller Hilbert space than Jordan-Wigner mappings, appears to be the least efficient in gate counts. Further, a previously unknown sign problem has been identified from Trotterization errors in time evolving high-energy excitations. There appear to be advantages in employing quantum computers with arrays of qudits to perform simulations of many-body dynamics that exploit the role of underlying symmetries, specifically in lowering the required quantum resources and in reducing anticipated errors that take the simulation out of the physical space. If the necessary entangling gates are not directly supported by the hardware, physics-aware mappings to qubits may, however, be advantageous for other aspects.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Entanglement Hamiltonian of Many-Body Dynamics in Strongly Correlated Systems

A powerful perspective in understanding nonequilibrium quantum dynamics is through the time evolution of its entanglement content. Yet apart from a few guiding principles for the entanglement entropy,to date, much less is known about the refined characteristics of entanglement propagation. In this paper we unveil signatures of the entanglement evolving and information propagating out of equilibrium, from the view of the entanglement Hamiltonian. We investigate quantum quench dynamics of prototypical Bose-Hubbard model using state-of-the-art numerical technique combined with conformal field theory. Before reaching equilibrium, it is found that a current operator emerges in the entanglement Hamiltonian, implying that entanglement spreading is carried by particle flow. In the long-time limit the subsystem enters a steady phase, evidenced by the dynamic convergence of the entanglement Hamiltonian to the expectation of a thermal ensemble. Importantly, the entanglement temperature in steady state is spatially independent,which provides an intuitive trait of equilibrium. These findings not only provide crucial information on how equilibrium statistical mechanics emerges in many-body dynamics, but also add a tool to exploring quantum dynamics from the perspective of the entanglement Hamiltonian.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Probing many-body dynamics in a two-dimensional dipolar spin ensemble

Abstract The most direct approach for characterizing the quantum dynamics of a strongly interacting system is to measure the time evolution of its full many-body state. Despite the conceptual simplicity of this approach, it quickly becomes intractable as the system size grows. An alternate approach is to think of the many-body dynamics as generating noise, which can be measured by the decoherence of a probe qubit. Here we investigate what the decoherence dynamics of such a probe tells us about the many-body system. In particular, we utilize optically addressable probe spins to experimentally characterize both static and dynamical properties of strongly interacting magnetic dipoles. Our experimental platform consists of two types of spin defects in nitrogen delta-doped diamond: nitrogen-vacancy colour centres, which we use as probe spins, and a many-body ensemble of substitutional nitrogen impurities. We demonstrate that the many-body system’s dimensionality, dynamics and disorder are naturally encoded in the probe spins’ decoherence profile. Furthermore, we obtain direct control over the spectral properties of the many-body system, with potential applications in quantum sensing and simulation.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Efficient numerical method for evaluating normal and anomalous time-domain equilibrium Green's functions in inhomogeneous systems

In this work we develop EPOCH (equilibrium propagator by orthogonal polynomial chain), a computationally efficient method to calculate the time-dependent equilibrium Green's functions, including the anomalous Green's functions of superconductors, to capture the time evolution in large inhomogeneous systems. The EPOCH method generalizes the Chebyshev wave-packet propagation method from quantum chemistry and efficiently incorporates the Fermi-Dirac statistics that is needed for equilibrium quantum condensed matter systems. The computational cost of EPOCH scales only linearly in the system degrees of freedom, generating an extremely efficient algorithm also for very large systems. We demonstrate the power of the EPOCH method by calculating the time evolution of an excitation near a superconductor–normal metal interface in two and three dimensions, capturing transmission as well as normal and Andreev reflections.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Asymptotic errors in adiabatic evolution

The adiabatic theorem in quantum mechanics implies that if a system is in a discrete eigenstate of a Hamiltonian and the Hamiltonian evolves in time arbitrarily slowly, the system will remain in the corresponding eigenstate of the evolved Hamiltonian. Understanding corrections to the adiabatic result that arise when the evolution of the Hamiltonian is slow—but not arbitrarily slow—has become increasingly important, especially since adiabatic evolution has been proposed as a method of state preparation in quantum computing. Here, this paper identifies two regimes, an adiabatic regime in which corrections are generically small and can depend on details of the evolution throughout the path, and a hyperadiabatic regime in which the error is given by a form similar to an asymptotic expansion in the inverse of the evolution time with the coefficients depending principally on the behavior at the endpoints. However, the error in this hyperadiabatic regime is neither given by a true asymptotic series nor solely dependent on the endpoints: the coefficients combine the contributions from both endpoints, with relative phase factors that depend on the average spectral gaps along the trajectory, multiplied by the evolution time. The central result of this paper is to identify a quantity, referred to as the typical error, which is obtained by appropriately averaging the error over evolution times that are small compared to the evolution time itself. This typical error is characterized by an asymptotic series and depends solely on the endpoints of the evolution, remaining independent of the details of the intermediate evolution.

adiabatic approximation↗

Projection algorithm for state preparation on quantum computers

We present an efficient method to prepare states of a many-body system on quantum hardware, first isolating individual quantum numbers and then using time evolution to isolate the energy. Our method in its simplest form requires only one additional auxiliary qubit. The total time evolved for an accurate solution is proportional to the ratio of the spectrum range of the trial state to the gap to the lowest excited state, a substantial improvement over other projection algorithms, and the accuracy increases exponentially with the time evolved. Isolating the quantum numbers is efficient because of the known eigenvalues and increases the gap thus shortening the propagation time required. The success rate of the algorithm, or the probability of producing the desired state, is a simple function of measurement times and phases and is dominated by the square overlap of the original state to the desired state. We present examples from the nuclear shell model and the Heisenberg model. In conclusion, we compare this algorithm to previous algorithms for short evolution times and discuss potential further improvements.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Quantum state preparation by adiabatic evolution with custom gates

Quantum state preparation by adiabatic evolution is currently rendered ineffective by the long implementation times of the underlying quantum circuits, comparable to the decoherence time of present and near-term quantum devices. These implementation times can be significantly reduced by realizing these circuits with custom gates. Using classical computing, we model the output of a realistic two-qubit processor implementing the adiabatic evolution of a two-spin system by means of custom gates. This modeled output is then compared with the results of quantum simulations solving the same problem on IBM Quantum (IBMQ) systems. Additionally, when used to emulate the behavior of the IBMQ quantum circuit, our realistic model yields state fidelities ranging from 65% to 85%, similar to the actual performance of a diverse set of IBMQ devices. When we reduced the implementation time by using custom gates, however, the loss of fidelity was reduced by at least a factor of 4, allowing us to accurately extract the energy of the target state. This improvement is enough to render adiabatic evolution useful for quantum state preparation for small systems or as a preconditioner for other state preparation methods.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Liouvillian dynamics of the open Schwinger model: String breaking and kinetic dissipation in a thermal medium

Understanding the dynamics of bound state formation is one of the fundamental questions in confining quantum field theories such as Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). One hadronization mechanism that has garnered significant attention is the breaking of a string initially connecting a fermion and an antifermion. Deepening our understanding of real-time string-breaking dynamics with simpler, lower dimensional models like the Schwinger model can improve our understanding of the hadronization process in QCD and other confining systems found in condensed matter and statistical systems. Here in this paper, we consider the string-breaking dynamics within the Schwinger model and investigate its modification inside a thermal medium, treating the Schwinger model as an open quantum system coupled to a thermal environment. Within the regime of weak coupling between the system and environment, the real-time evolution of the system can be described by a Lindblad evolution equation. We analyze the Liouvillian gaps of this Lindblad equation and the time dependence of the system’s von Neumann entropy. We observe that the late-time relaxation rate decreases as the environment correlation length increases. Moreover, when the environment correlation length is infinite, the system exhibits two steady states, one in each of the sectors with definite charge-conjugation-parity (CP) quantum numbers. For parameter regimes where an initial string breaks in vacuum, we observe a delay of the string breaking in the medium, due to kinetic dissipation effects. Conversely, in regimes where an initial string remains intact in vacuum time evolution, we observe string breaking (melting) in the thermal medium. We further discuss how the Liouvillian dynamics of the open Schwinger model can be simulated on quantum computers and provide an estimate of the associated Trotter errors.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Optimal control of coupled quantum systems based on the first-order Magnus expansion: Application to multiple dipole-dipole-coupled molecular rotors

This paper presents a method for performing approximate optimal control simulations for quantum systems with multiple coupled degrees of freedom. In this work, the time evolution is simulated using the first-order Magnus expansion in the interaction picture, where the couplings between different degrees of freedom are treated as the perturbation. A numerical implementation procedure is presented that leverages upon pairwise couplings and the separability of the zeroth-order time evolution operator to achieve a reduced computational cost, which is analyzed with respect to the number of degrees of freedom. The formulation is compatible with gradient-free methods to optimize the control field, and a stochastic hill climbing algorithm is adopted for this purpose. As illustrations, optimal control simulations are performed for systems of two and three dipole-dipole-coupled molecular rotors under the influence of a control field. For the two-rotor system, the field is optimized to achieve either orientation or entanglement objectives. For the three-rotor system, the field is optimized either to orient all three rotors in the same direction or to orient one rotor in a particular direction while the other two rotors point in the opposite direction.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

A random unitary circuit model for black hole evaporation

Inspired by the Hayden-Preskill protocol for black hole evaporation, we consider the dynamics of a quantum many-body qudit system coupled to an external environment, where the time evolution is driven by the continuous limit of certain 2-local random unitary circuits. We study both cases where the unitaries are chosen with and without a conserved U(1) charge and focus on two aspects of the dynamics. First, we study analytically and numerically the growth of the entanglement entropy of the system, showing that two different time scales appear: one is intrinsic to the internal dynamics (the scrambling time), while the other depends on the system-environment coupling. In the presence of a U(1) conserved charge, we show that the entanglement follows a Page-like behavior in time: it begins to decrease in the middle stage of the “evaporation”, and decreases monotonically afterwards. Second, we study the time needed to retrieve information initially injected in the system from measurements on the environment qudits. Based on explicit numerical computations, we characterize such time both when the retriever has control over the initial configuration or not, showing that different scales appear in the two cases.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Hybrid quantum-classical approach for coupled-cluster Green's function theory

The three key elements of a quantum simulation are state preparation, time evolution, and measurement. While the complexity scaling of time evolution and measurements are well known, many state preparation methods are strongly system-dependent and require prior knowledge of the system's eigenvalue spectrum. Here, we report on a quantum-classical implementation of the coupled-cluster Green's function (CCGF) method, which replaces explicit ground state preparation with the task of applying unitary operators to a simple product state. While our approach is broadly applicable to many models, we demonstrate it here for the Anderson impurity model (AIM). The method requires a number of T gates that grows as O ( N 5 ) per time step to calculate the impurity Green's function in the time domain, where N is the total number of energy levels in the AIM. Since the number of T gates is analogous to the computational time complexity of a classical simulation, we achieve an order of magnitude improvement over a classical CCGF calculation of the same order, which requires O ( N 6 ) computational resources per time step.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Collective neutrino oscillations in three flavors on qubit and qutrit processors

Collective neutrino flavor oscillations are of primary importance in understanding the dynamic evolution of core-collapse supernovae and subsequent terrestrial detection, but also among the most challenging aspects of numerical simulations. This situation is complicated by the quantum many-body nature of the problem due to neutrino-neutrino interactions, which demands a quantum treatment. An additional complication is the presence of three flavors, which often is approximated by the electron flavor and a heavy lepton flavor. In this work, we provide both qubit and qutrit encodings for all three flavors, and develop optimized quantum circuits for the time evolution and analyze the Trotter error. We conclude our study with a hardware experiment of a system of two neutrinos with superconducting hardware: the IBM Torino device for qubits and Advanced Quantum Testbed device at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for qutrits. We find that error mitigation greatly helps in obtaining a signal consistent with simulations. Finally, while hardware results are comparable at this stage, we expect the qutrit setup to be more convenient for large-scale simulations since it does not suffer from probability leakage into nonphysical qubit space, unlike the qubit setup.

Neutrino oscillations↗

Simple and General Unitarity Conserving Numerical Real-Time Propagators of the Time-Dependent Schrödinger Equation Based on Magnus Expansion

Magnus expansion (ME) provides a general way to expand the real-time propagator of a time-dependent Hamiltonian within the exponential such that the unitarity is satisfied at any order. Here, we use this property and explicit integration of Lagrange interpolation formulas for the time-dependent Hamiltonian within each time interval and derive approximations that preserve unitarity for the differential time evolution operators of general time-dependent Hamiltonians. The resulting second-order approximation is the same as using the average of Hamiltonians for two end points of time. We identify three fourth-order approximations involving commutators of Hamiltonians at different times and also derive a sixth-order expression. A test of these approximations along with other available expressions for a two-state time-dependent Hamiltonian with sinusoidal time dependences provides information on the relative performance of these approximations and suggests that the derived expressions can serve as useful numerical tools for time evolution in time-resolved spectroscopy, quantum control, quantum sensing, real-time ab initio quantum dynamics, and open system quantum dynamics.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Time Correlations from Steady-State Expectation Values

Recovering properties of correlation functions is typically challenging. On the one hand, experimentally, it requires measurements with a temporal resolution finer than the system’s dynamics. On the other hand, analytical or numerical analysis requires solving the system evolution. Here, we use recent results of quantum metrology with continuous measurements to derive general lower bounds on the relaxation and second-order correlation times that are both easy to calculate and measure. These bounds are based solely on steady-state expectation values and their derivatives with respect to a system parameter, and can be readily extended to the autocorrelation of arbitrary observables. We validate our method on two examples of critical quantum systems: a critical driven-dissipative resonator, where the bound matches analytical results for the dynamics, and the infinite-range Ising model, where only the steady state is solvable, and thus the bound provides information beyond the reach of existing analytical approaches. Our results can be applied to the experimental characterization of ultrafast systems and to the theoretical analysis of many-body models whose dynamics are hard to compute.

Górecki, Wojciech [INFN, Pavia] (ORCID:00000001991↗

Wrong signs are alright

It has been shown that some Lorentz-invariant quantum field theories, such as those with higher-dimensional operators with negative coefficients, lead to superluminality on some classical backgrounds. While superluminality by itself is not logically inconsistent, these theories also predict the formation of closed time-like curves at the classical level, starting from initial conditions without such curves. This leads to the formation of a Cauchy Horizon which prevents a complete description of the time evolution of such systems. Inspired by the chronology protection arguments of General Relativity, we show that quantum mechanical effects from low energy quanta strongly backreact on such configurations, exciting unknown short-distance degrees of freedom and invalidating the classical predictions. Thus, there is no obvious low-energy obstruction to the existence of these operators.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Deterministic Quantum Trajectory via Imaginary Time Evolution

Stochastic quantum trajectories, such as pure state evolutions under unitary dynamics and random measurements, offer a crucial ensemble description of many-body open system dynamics. Recent studies have highlighted that individual quantum trajectories also encode essential physical information. Prominent examples include measurement-induced phase transitions, where a pure quantum state corresponding to fixed measurement outcomes (trajectories) exhibits distinct entanglement phases, depending on the measurement rate. However, direct observation of this effect is hindered by an exponential postselection barrier, whereby the probability of realizing a specific trajectory is exponentially small. We propose a deterministic method to efficiently prepare quantum trajectories in polynomial time using imaginary time evolution and, thus, overcome this fundamental challenge. Here, we demonstrate that our method applies to a certain class of quantum states, and argue that universal approaches do not exist for any quantum trajectories. Our result paves the way for experimentally exploring the physics of individual quantum trajectories at scale and enables direct observation of certain postselection-dependent phenomena.

Mittal, Shivan [Los Alamos National Laboratory (LA↗