Prospects for Simulating a Qudit Based Model of (1+1)d Scalar QED

We present a gauge invariant digitization of $(1+1)$d scalar quantum electrodynamics for an arbitrary spin truncation for qudit-based quantum computers. We provide a construction of the Trotter operator in terms of a universal qudit-gate set. The cost savings of using a qutrit based spin-1 encoding versus a qubit encoding are illustrated. We show that a simple initial state could be simulated on current qutrit based hardware using noisy simulations for two different native gate set.