uri physics colloquium

Quantum simulation of a many body system with superconducting qubits

Wednesday, 1 December at 4pm in East Hall Room 112 (in person event)

Dr. Yariv Yanay
Laboratory for Physical Sciences
University of Maryland, College Park

abstract

Modern quantum experiments, while still far from being able to realize a fully functional digital quantum computer, have surpassed or will soon surpass the capabilities of classical computers. One exciting use for these systems is for analog quantum simulation, where they allow us to explore the physics of complicated systems by measuring quantities that are exponentially difficult to calculate numerically. In this talk, I will discuss the use of superconducting circuits to simulate quantum many-body systems, and in particular the two-dimensional hard-core Bose-Hubbard model. I’ll describe the challenges (and solutions) to realizing this Hamiltonian with transmon qubits, how the control scheme enables the preparation of highly-excited many-body states, and how my collaborators and I used it to observe the light cone of information propagation is this strongly interacting system.