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Precision quantum simulation of magnon spectra and interactions
Authors:
Trond I. Andersen,
Nikita Astrakhantsev,
Jeronimo Martinez,
Will Morong,
Johannes Motruk,
Dario Rossi,
Brayden Ware,
Bryce Kobrin,
Weijie Wu,
Elizabeth Bennewitz,
Manuel Rudolph,
Tom Westerhout,
Amira Abbas,
Rajeev Acharya,
Laleh Aghababaie Beni,
Ross Alcaraz,
Sayra Alcaraz,
Markus Ansmann,
Frank Arute,
Kunal Arya,
Walt Askew,
Juan Atalaya,
Christopher Ayala,
Ryan Babbush,
Brian Ballard
, et al. (307 additional authors not shown)
Abstract:
Quantum simulation promises to advance materials discovery by accurately simulating complex states of matter, their microscopic excitations, and macroscopic response functions. The central challenge in resolving the underlying interacting dynamics is to combine high-fidelity evolution with the sophisticated control necessary to manipulate individual quasi-particles in quantum many-body states. Her…
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Quantum simulation promises to advance materials discovery by accurately simulating complex states of matter, their microscopic excitations, and macroscopic response functions. The central challenge in resolving the underlying interacting dynamics is to combine high-fidelity evolution with the sophisticated control necessary to manipulate individual quasi-particles in quantum many-body states. Here, we report on high-precision simulation of both linear and non-linear response functions in a 2D XY spin-1/2 magnet using an analog-digital superconducting processor of up to 97 qubits. By interleaving digital gates with analog evolution precisely characterized via Hamiltonian learning, we selectively excite magnons at tunable energy densities. Measuring first the linear magnon response -- a central probe in neutron-scattering experiments -- we extract temperature-dependent spectra and lifetimes. Our results reveal stark variations in magnon decay rates across the Brillouin zone, with enhancement near van Hove singularities and suppression for edge-localized modes. Next, we perform a suite of nonlinear measurements, including the study of self-scattering mechanisms, as well as pump-probe spectroscopy to directly characterize the magnon interactions. While matrix-product state simulations capture the dynamics well in either small systems or at low temperatures, their predictions become inaccurate away from these limits. This work demonstrates precise simulation of the interacting dynamics in quantum magnets, and provides key insights into quasi-particles and their microscopic scattering mechanisms.
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Submitted 14 July, 2026;
originally announced July 2026.
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Hilbert space signatures of non-ergodic glassy dynamics
Authors:
Aleksey Lunkin,
Nicole S. Ticea,
Shashwat Kumar,
Connie Miao,
Jaehong Choi,
Mohammed Alghadeer,
Ilya Drozdov,
Dmitry Abanin,
Amira Abbas,
Rajeev Acharya,
Laleh Beni,
Georg Aigeldinger,
Ross Alcaraz,
Sayra Alcaraz,
Markus Ansmann,
Frank Arute,
Kunal Arya,
Walt Askew,
Nikita Astrakhantsev,
Juan Atalaya,
Ryan Babbush,
Brian Ballard,
Joseph C. Bardin,
Hector Bates,
Andreas Bengtsson
, et al. (270 additional authors not shown)
Abstract:
Disorder in quantum many-body systems can drive transitions between ergodic and non-ergodic phases, yet the nature--and even the existence--of these transitions remains intensely debated. Using a two-dimensional array of superconducting qubits, we study an interacting spin model at finite temperature in a disordered landscape, tracking dynamics both in real space and in Hilbert space. Over a broad…
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Disorder in quantum many-body systems can drive transitions between ergodic and non-ergodic phases, yet the nature--and even the existence--of these transitions remains intensely debated. Using a two-dimensional array of superconducting qubits, we study an interacting spin model at finite temperature in a disordered landscape, tracking dynamics both in real space and in Hilbert space. Over a broad disorder range, we observe an intermediate non-ergodic regime with glass-like characteristics: physical observables become broadly distributed and some, but not all, degrees of freedom are effectively frozen. The Hilbert-space return probability shows slow power-law decay, consistent with finite-temperature quantum glassiness. In the same regime, we detect the onset of a finite Edwards-Anderson order parameter and the disappearance of spin diffusion. By contrast, at lower disorder, spin transport persists with a nonzero diffusion coefficient. Our results show that there is a transition out of the ergodic phase in two-dimensional systems.
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Submitted 15 April, 2026; v1 submitted 3 January, 2026;
originally announced January 2026.
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Observation of disorder-induced superfluidity
Authors:
Nicole Ticea,
Elias Portoles,
Eliott Rosenberg,
Alexander Schuckert,
Aaron Szasz,
Bryce Kobrin,
Nicolas Pomata,
Pranjal Praneel,
Connie Miao,
Shashwat Kumar,
Ella Crane,
Ilya Drozdov,
Yuri Lensky,
Sofia Gonzalez-Garcia,
Thomas Kiely,
Dmitry Abanin,
Amira Abbas,
Rajeev Acharya,
Laleh Aghababaie Beni,
Georg Aigeldinger,
Ross Alcaraz,
Sayra Alcaraz,
Markus Ansmann,
Frank Arute,
Kunal Arya
, et al. (277 additional authors not shown)
Abstract:
The emergence of states with long-range correlations in a disordered landscape is rare, as disorder typically suppresses the particle mobility required for long-range coherence. But when more than two energy levels are available per site, disorder can induce resonances that locally enhance mobility. Here we explore phases arising from the interplay between disorder, kinetic energy, and interaction…
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The emergence of states with long-range correlations in a disordered landscape is rare, as disorder typically suppresses the particle mobility required for long-range coherence. But when more than two energy levels are available per site, disorder can induce resonances that locally enhance mobility. Here we explore phases arising from the interplay between disorder, kinetic energy, and interactions on a superconducting processor with qutrit readout and control. Compressibility measurements distinguish an incompressible Mott insulator from surrounding compressible phases and reveal signatures of glassiness, reflected in non-ergodic behavior. Spatially-resolved two-point correlator measurements identify regions of the phase diagram with a non-vanishing condensate fraction. We also visualize the spectrum by measuring the dynamical structure factor. A linearly-dispersing phonon mode materializes in the superfluid, appearing even when disorder is introduced to the clean Mott insulator. Our results provide strong experimental evidence for disorder-induced superfluidity.
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Submitted 3 February, 2026; v1 submitted 24 December, 2025;
originally announced December 2025.
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Observation of disorder-free localization using a (2+1)D lattice gauge theory on a quantum processor
Authors:
Gaurav Gyawali,
Shashwat Kumar,
Yuri D. Lensky,
Eliott Rosenberg,
Aaron Szasz,
Tyler Cochran,
Renyi Chen,
Amir H. Karamlou,
Kostyantyn Kechedzhi,
Julia Berndtsson,
Tom Westerhout,
Abraham Asfaw,
Dmitry Abanin,
Rajeev Acharya,
Laleh Aghababaie Beni,
Trond I. Andersen,
Markus Ansmann,
Frank Arute,
Kunal Arya,
Nikita Astrakhantsev,
Juan Atalaya,
Ryan Babbush,
Brian Ballard,
Joseph C. Bardin,
Andreas Bengtsson
, et al. (197 additional authors not shown)
Abstract:
Disorder-induced phenomena in quantum many-body systems pose significant challenges for analytical methods and numerical simulations at relevant time and system scales. To reduce the cost of disorder-sampling, we investigate quantum circuits initialized in states tunable to superpositions over all disorder configurations. In a translationally-invariant lattice gauge theory (LGT), these states can…
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Disorder-induced phenomena in quantum many-body systems pose significant challenges for analytical methods and numerical simulations at relevant time and system scales. To reduce the cost of disorder-sampling, we investigate quantum circuits initialized in states tunable to superpositions over all disorder configurations. In a translationally-invariant lattice gauge theory (LGT), these states can be interpreted as a superposition over gauge sectors. We observe localization in this LGT in the absence of disorder in one and two dimensions: perturbations fail to diffuse despite fully disorder-free evolution and initial states. However, Rényi entropy measurements reveal that superposition-prepared states fundamentally differ from those obtained by direct disorder sampling. Leveraging superposition, we propose an algorithm with a polynomial speedup in sampling disorder configurations, a longstanding challenge in many-body localization studies.
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Submitted 6 July, 2025; v1 submitted 9 October, 2024;
originally announced October 2024.
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Visualizing Dynamics of Charges and Strings in (2+1)D Lattice Gauge Theories
Authors:
Tyler A. Cochran,
Bernhard Jobst,
Eliott Rosenberg,
Yuri D. Lensky,
Gaurav Gyawali,
Norhan Eassa,
Melissa Will,
Dmitry Abanin,
Rajeev Acharya,
Laleh Aghababaie Beni,
Trond I. Andersen,
Markus Ansmann,
Frank Arute,
Kunal Arya,
Abraham Asfaw,
Juan Atalaya,
Ryan Babbush,
Brian Ballard,
Joseph C. Bardin,
Andreas Bengtsson,
Alexander Bilmes,
Alexandre Bourassa,
Jenna Bovaird,
Michael Broughton,
David A. Browne
, et al. (167 additional authors not shown)
Abstract:
Lattice gauge theories (LGTs) can be employed to understand a wide range of phenomena, from elementary particle scattering in high-energy physics to effective descriptions of many-body interactions in materials. Studying dynamical properties of emergent phases can be challenging as it requires solving many-body problems that are generally beyond perturbative limits. Here, we investigate the dynami…
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Lattice gauge theories (LGTs) can be employed to understand a wide range of phenomena, from elementary particle scattering in high-energy physics to effective descriptions of many-body interactions in materials. Studying dynamical properties of emergent phases can be challenging as it requires solving many-body problems that are generally beyond perturbative limits. Here, we investigate the dynamics of local excitations in a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ LGT using a two-dimensional lattice of superconducting qubits. We first construct a simple variational circuit which prepares low-energy states that have a large overlap with the ground state; then we create charge excitations with local gates and simulate their quantum dynamics via a discretized time evolution. As the electric field coupling constant is increased, our measurements show signatures of transitioning from deconfined to confined dynamics. For confined excitations, the electric field induces a tension in the string connecting them. Our method allows us to experimentally image string dynamics in a (2+1)D LGT from which we uncover two distinct regimes inside the confining phase: for weak confinement the string fluctuates strongly in the transverse direction, while for strong confinement transverse fluctuations are effectively frozen. In addition, we demonstrate a resonance condition at which dynamical string breaking is facilitated. Our LGT implementation on a quantum processor presents a novel set of techniques for investigating emergent excitations and string dynamics.
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Submitted 30 June, 2025; v1 submitted 25 September, 2024;
originally announced September 2024.
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Thermalization and Criticality on an Analog-Digital Quantum Simulator
Authors:
Trond I. Andersen,
Nikita Astrakhantsev,
Amir H. Karamlou,
Julia Berndtsson,
Johannes Motruk,
Aaron Szasz,
Jonathan A. Gross,
Alexander Schuckert,
Tom Westerhout,
Yaxing Zhang,
Ebrahim Forati,
Dario Rossi,
Bryce Kobrin,
Agustin Di Paolo,
Andrey R. Klots,
Ilya Drozdov,
Vladislav D. Kurilovich,
Andre Petukhov,
Lev B. Ioffe,
Andreas Elben,
Aniket Rath,
Vittorio Vitale,
Benoit Vermersch,
Rajeev Acharya,
Laleh Aghababaie Beni
, et al. (202 additional authors not shown)
Abstract:
Understanding how interacting particles approach thermal equilibrium is a major challenge of quantum simulators. Unlocking the full potential of such systems toward this goal requires flexible initial state preparation, precise time evolution, and extensive probes for final state characterization. We present a quantum simulator comprising 69 superconducting qubits which supports both universal qua…
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Understanding how interacting particles approach thermal equilibrium is a major challenge of quantum simulators. Unlocking the full potential of such systems toward this goal requires flexible initial state preparation, precise time evolution, and extensive probes for final state characterization. We present a quantum simulator comprising 69 superconducting qubits which supports both universal quantum gates and high-fidelity analog evolution, with performance beyond the reach of classical simulation in cross-entropy benchmarking experiments. Emulating a two-dimensional (2D) XY quantum magnet, we leverage a wide range of measurement techniques to study quantum states after ramps from an antiferromagnetic initial state. We observe signatures of the classical Kosterlitz-Thouless phase transition, as well as strong deviations from Kibble-Zurek scaling predictions attributed to the interplay between quantum and classical coarsening of the correlated domains. This interpretation is corroborated by injecting variable energy density into the initial state, which enables studying the effects of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) in targeted parts of the eigenspectrum. Finally, we digitally prepare the system in pairwise-entangled dimer states and image the transport of energy and vorticity during thermalization. These results establish the efficacy of superconducting analog-digital quantum processors for preparing states across many-body spectra and unveiling their thermalization dynamics.
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Submitted 8 July, 2024; v1 submitted 27 May, 2024;
originally announced May 2024.