Spontaneous symmetry breaking in a <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mrow><mml:mi>S</mml:mi><mml:mi>O</mml:mi><mml:mo>(</mml:mo><mml:mn>3</mml:mn><mml:mo>)</mml:mo></mml:mrow></mml:math> non-Abelian lattice gauge theory in

The simulation of various properties of quantum field theories is rapidly becoming a testing ground for demonstrating the prowess of quantum algorithms. Some examples include the preparation of ground states, as well as the investigation of various simple wave packets relevant for scattering phenomena. In this paper, we study the ability of quantum algorithms to prepare ground states in a matter-free non-Abelian <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><a:mrow><a:mi>S</a:mi><a:mi>O</a:mi><a:mo>(</a:mo><a:mn>3</a:mn><a:mo>)</a:mo></a:mrow></a:math> lattice gauge theory in <b:math xmlns:b="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><b:mrow><b:mn>2</b:mn><b:mo>+</b:mo><b:mn>1</b:mn><b:mi mathvariant="normal">D</b:mi></b:mrow></b:math> in a phase where the global charge conjugation symmetry is spontaneously broken. This is challenging for two reasons: the necessity of dealing with a large Hilbert space for gauge theories compared to that of quantum spin models, and the closing of the gap between the two ground states, which becomes exponentially small as a function of the volume. To deal with the large Hilbert space of gauge fields, we demonstrate how the exact imposition of the non-Abelian Gauss law in the rishon representation of the quantum link operator significantly reduces the degrees of freedom. Further, to resolve the gap, we introduce symmetry-guided ansätze in the Gauss-law-resolved basis for trial states as the starting point for the quantum algorithms to prepare the two lowest-energy states. In addition to simulation results for a range of two-dimensional system sizes, we also provide experimental results from the trapped-ion-based quantum hardware, IonQ, when working on systems with four quantum links. The experimental/simulation results derived from our theoretical developments indicate the role of metrics—such as the energy and the infidelity—to assess the obtained results.