Floquet prethermalization of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:msub><mml:mi>Z</mml:mi><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:msub></mml:math> lattice gauge theory on superconducting qubits

Simulating nonequilibirum dynamics of a quantum many-body system is one of the promising applications of quantum computing. We simulate the time evolution of one-dimensional <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><a:msub><a:mi mathvariant="bold">Z</a:mi><a:mn>2</a:mn></a:msub></a:math> lattice gauge theory on IBM’s superconducting 156-qubit device, ibm_fez. We consider the Floquet circuit made of the Trotter decomposition of Hamiltonian evolution and focus on its dynamics toward thermalization. Quantum simulation with the help of error mitigation is successful in running the Floquet circuit made of 38 and 116 qubits up to 10 Trotter steps in the best case. This is enough to reach the early stage of prethermalization. Our work would be a benchmark for the potential power of quantum computing for high-energy physics problems. Published by the American Physical Society 2024