Topological prethermal strong zero modes on superconducting processors

Symmetry-protected topological phases<sup>1-4</sup> cannot be described by any local order parameter and are beyond the conventional symmetry-breaking model<sup>5</sup>. They are characterized by topological boundary modes that remain stable under symmetry respecting perturbations<sup>1-4,6-8</sup>. In clean, gapped systems without disorder, the stability of these edge modes is restricted to the zero-temperature manifold; at finite temperatures, interactions with mobile thermal excitations lead to their decay<sup>9-11</sup>. Here we report the observation of a distinct type of topological edge mode<sup>12-14</sup>, which is protected by emergent symmetries and persists across the entire spectrum, in an array of 100 programmable superconducting qubits. Through digital quantum simulation of a one-dimensional disorder-free stabilizer Hamiltonian, we observe robust long-lived topological edge modes over up to 30 cycles for a wide range of initial states. We show that the interaction between these edge modes and bulk excitations can be suppressed by dimerizing the stabilizer strength, leading to an emergent U(1) × U(1) symmetry in the prethermal regime of the system. Furthermore, we exploit these topological edge modes as logical qubits and prepare a logical Bell state, which exhibits persistent coherence, despite the system being disorder-free and at finite temperature. Our results establish a viable digital simulation approach<sup>15-18</sup> to experimentally study topological matter at finite temperature and demonstrate a potential route to construct long-lived, robust boundary qubits in disorder-free systems.

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Publication Details

Journal
Nature
Published
2025-08-27
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09476-z
Citations
10
Primary Topic
Quantum many-body systems
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
12.47
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article

Topological prethermal strong zero modes on superconducting processors

Ziqi Tan, Yiren Zou, Aosai Zhang, Jinfeng Deng et al.
10 citations
Nature
Quantum many-body systems
12.47
article

Topological prethermal strong zero modes on superconducting processors

Ziqi Tan, Yiren Zou, Aosai Zhang, Jinfeng Deng, Norman Y. Yao, Zhen Wang, Zheng-Zhi Sun, Hang Dong, Jianan Yang, Chao Song, Tingting Li, Hekang Li, Yuyan Han, Gongyu Liu, Chuanyu Zhang, Hui Wang, Yaozu Wu, Dong-Ling Deng, Qiujiang Guo, Zehang Bao, Yuan Dong, Pengfei Zhang, Yu Gao, Feitong Jin, Francisco Machado, Fanhao Shen, Xuhao Zhu, Jiarun Zhong, Si Jiang, Zitian Zhu, Thomas Iadecola, Yanzhe Wang, Ke Wang, Jiachen Chen, Zhide Lu, Zhengyi Cui, Jack Kemp, Shibo Xu, Han Wang, Weikang Li, Yiyang He, Zixuan Song, Jiayuan Shen, Ning Wang, Junxiang Zhang
article en
10 citations

Abstract

Symmetry-protected topological phases<sup>1-4</sup> cannot be described by any local order parameter and are beyond the conventional symmetry-breaking model<sup>5</sup>. They are characterized by topological boundary modes that remain stable under symmetry respecting perturbations<sup>1-4,6-8</sup>. In clean, gapped systems without disorder, the stability of these edge modes is restricted to the zero-temperature manifold; at finite temperatures, interactions with mobile thermal excitations lead to their decay<sup>9-11</sup>. Here we report the observation of a distinct type of topological edge mode<sup>12-14</sup>, which is protected by emergent symmetries and persists across the entire spectrum, in an array of 100 programmable superconducting qubits. Through digital quantum simulation of a one-dimensional disorder-free stabilizer Hamiltonian, we observe robust long-lived topological edge modes over up to 30 cycles for a wide range of initial states. We show that the interaction between these edge modes and bulk excitations can be suppressed by dimerizing the stabilizer strength, leading to an emergent U(1) × U(1) symmetry in the prethermal regime of the system. Furthermore, we exploit these topological edge modes as logical qubits and prepare a logical Bell state, which exhibits persistent coherence, despite the system being disorder-free and at finite temperature. Our results establish a viable digital simulation approach<sup>15-18</sup> to experimentally study topological matter at finite temperature and demonstrate a potential route to construct long-lived, robust boundary qubits in disorder-free systems.

NatureVol. 645(8081)
Leiden University (NL), Harvard University (US), Iowa State University (US), University of Cambridge (GB), Ames National Laboratory (US), Hefei University (CN), Hefei National Center for Physical Sciences at Nanoscale (CN), ShangHai JiAi Genetics & IVF Institute (CN), Zhejiang Lab (CN), Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian (US), Shanghai Huayi Group (China) (CN), Zhejiang University (CN), Tsinghua University (CN)
Openalex Percentile: Top 1%
Quantum many-body systems
12.47
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