English

Simulating Neutron Scattering on an Analog Quantum Processor

Quantum Physics 2024-10-08 v1

Abstract

Neutron scattering characterization of materials allows for the study of entanglement and microscopic structure, but is inefficient to simulate classically for comparison to theoretical models and predictions. However, quantum processors, notably analog quantum simulators, have the potential to offer an unprecedented, efficient method of Hamiltonian simulation by evolving a state in real time to compute phase transitions, dynamical properties, and entanglement witnesses. Here, we present a method for simulating neutron scattering on QuEra's Aquila processor by measuring the dynamic structure factor (DSF) for the prototypical example of the critical transverse field Ising chain, and propose a method for error mitigation. We provide numerical simulations and experimental results for the performance of the procedure on the hardware, up to a chain of length L=25L=25. Additionally, the DSF result is used to compute the quantum Fisher information (QFI) density, where we confirm bipartite entanglement in the system experimentally.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2410.03958,
  title  = {Simulating Neutron Scattering on an Analog Quantum Processor},
  author = {Nora Bauer and Victor Ale and Pontus Laurell and Serena Huang and Seth Watabe and David Alan Tennant and George Siopsis},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.03958},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

13 pages, 10 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-28T19:09:27.136Z