Qualitative quantum simulation of resonant tunneling and localization with the shallow quantum circuits

Abstract In a circuit-based quantum computer, the computing is performed via the discrete-time evolution driven by quantum gates. Accurate simulation of continuous-time evolution requires a large number of quantum gates and therefore suffers from more noise. In this paper, we find that shallow quantum circuits are sufficient to qualitatively observe some typical quantum phenomena in the continuous-time evolution limit, such as resonant tunneling and localization phenomena. We study the propagation of a spin excitation in Trotter circuits with a large step size. The circuits are formed of two types of two-qubit gates, i.e. XY gates and controlled- R x gates, and single-qubit R z gates. The configuration of the R z gates determines the distribution of the spin excitation at the end of evolution. We demonstrate the resonant tunneling with up to four steps and the localization phenomenon with dozens of steps in Trotter circuits. Our results show that the circuit depth required for qualitative observation of some typical quantum phenomena is much smaller than that required for quantitative computation, suggesting that it is feasible to apply qualitative observations to near-term quantum computers. We also provide a way to use the physics laws to understand the error propagation in quantum circuits.