Southwest Quantum Information and Technology

When can we trust analog quantum simulators?

Mohan Sarovar, Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore

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Many quantum information technologies are rapidly maturing to the point where they are capable of analog quantum simulation. In fact, several AMO experiments have made non-trivial observations about quantum many body models based on analog simulation of the models [e.g. Trotzky et al. Nature Physics, 8 325 (2012), Richerme et al. Nature, 511 198 (2014)]. However, unlike digital quantum simulation, there is no notion of controlling errors in analog simulation and this has raised questions about when the results from analog simulators can be trusted [Hauke at al. Rep. Prog. Phys. 75, 082401 (2012)]. In this talk I will relate the question of whether an analog quantum simulation is robust to the phenomenon of parameter space compression. This enables the development of a technique for assessing when a particular analog quantum simulation will be robust to experimental uncertainty and errors. I will present ongoing work applying this technique to several quantum many body models to assess their robustness to experimental uncertainty during analog simulation. This is joint work with Jun Zhang and LiShan Zeng.