We digitally simulate quantum many-body dynamics in emergent curved backgrounds using 80 superconducting qubits on IBM Heron processors. By engineering spatially varying couplings in the spin-21 XXZ chain, consistent with the low-energy description of the model in terms of an inhomogeneous Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid, we realize excitations that follow geodesics of an effective metric inherited from the underlying spatial deformation. Following quenches from N\'eel and few-spin-flip states, we observe curved light-cone propagation, horizon-induced freezing in the local magnetization, and position-dependent oscillation frequencies set by the engineered spatial deformation. Despite strong spatial inhomogeneity, unequal-time correlators reveal ballistic quasiparticle propagation in the spin chain. These results establish large-scale digital quantum processors as a flexible platform for detailed and controlled exploration of many-body dynamics in tunable and synthetic curved spacetimes.
@article{arxiv.2602.15524,
title = {Observing quantum many-body dynamics in emergent curved spacetime using programmable quantum processors},
author = {Brendan Rhyno and Bastien Lapierre and Smitha Vishveshwara and Khadijeh Najafi and Ramasubramanian Chitra},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.15524},
year = {2026}
}