Simulating Meson Scattering on Spin Quantum Simulators
Studying high-energy collisions of composite particles, such as hadrons and nuclei, is an outstanding goal for quantum simulators. However, preparation of hadronic wave packets has posed a significant challenge, due to the complexity of hadrons and the precise structure of wave packets. This has limited demonstrations of hadron scattering on quantum simulators to date. Observations of confinement and composite excitations in quantum spin systems have opened up the possibility to explore scattering dynamics in spin models. In this article, we develop two methods to create entangled spin states corresponding to wave packets of composite particles in analog quantum simulators of Ising spin Hamiltonians. One wave-packet preparation method uses the blockade effect enabled by beyond-nearest-neighbor Ising spin interactions. The other method utilizes a quantum-bus-mediated exchange, such as the native spin-phonon coupling in trapped-ion arrays. With a focus on trapped-ion simulators, we numerically benchmark both methods and show that high-fidelity wave packets can be achieved in near-term experiments. We numerically study scattering of wave packets for experimentally realizable parameters in the Ising model and find inelastic-scattering regimes, corresponding to particle production in the scattering event, with prominent and distinct experimental signals. Our proposal, therefore, demonstrates the potential of observing inelastic scattering in near-term quantum simulators.
Authors
- Alexey Vyacheslavovich Gorshkov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0509-3421)
- Christopher R. Monroe (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0551-3713)
- Alexander Schuckert (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9969-7391)
- Zohreh Davoudi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7288-2810)
- Or Katz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7634-1993)
- Elizabeth R. Bennewitz
- Brayden Ware (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3321-3198)
- De Luo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4842-0990)
- Federica Maria Surace (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1545-5230)
- Ron Belyansky (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6596-5554)
- Alessio Lerose (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1555-5327)
- Arinjoy De (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9184-8434)
- William Morong
- Kate Collins
Institutions
- University of Geneva (CH)
- California Institute of Technology (US)
- Duke University (US)
- Cornell University (US)
- University of Chicago (US)
- Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science (US)
- Joint Quantum Institute (US)
- University of Maryland, College Park (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Quantum
- Published
- 2025-06-17
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.22331/q-2025-06-17-1773
- Citations
- 10
- Primary Topic
- Quantum many-body systems
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 12.47
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- U.S. Department of Energy
- University of Maryland
- Amazon Web Services
- Government of Canada
- Institut Périmètre de physique théorique
- Ministry of Colleges and Universities
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
- Office of Science
- Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative
- Advanced Scientific Computing Research
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Fermilab