2024/07/31 by Niklas Mueller, Mueller, Niklas, Tianyi Wang +7 · 8 citations
Physics and Astronomy · Computer Science · #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Quantum Computing Algorithms and Architecture #Semiconductor Quantum Structures and Devices
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2408.00069
Simulating non-equilibrium phenomena in strongly-interacting quantum many-body systems, including thermalization, is a promising application of near-term and future quantum computation. By performing experiments on a digital quantum computer consisting of fully-connected optically-controlled trapped ions, we study the role of entanglement in the thermalization dynamics of a Z2 lattice gauge theory in 2+1 spacetime dimensions. Using randomized-measurement protocols, we efficiently learn a classical approximation of non-equilibrium states that yields the gap-ratio distribution and the spectral form factor of the entanglement Hamiltonian. These observables exhibit universal early-time signals for quantum chaos, a prerequisite for thermalization. Our work, therefore, establishes quantum computers as robust tools for studying universal features of thermalization in complex many-body systems, including in gauge theories.