Scientists study matter under extreme conditions to uncover some of nature's most fundamental behaviors. The Standard Model of particle physics contains the equations needed to describe these phenomena, but in many real situations such as fast-changing environments or extremely dense matter, those equations become too complex for even the most advanced classical supercomputers to handle.
Quantum computing offers a promising alternative because, in principle, it can represent and simulate these systems far more efficiently. A major challenge, however, is finding reliable methods to set up the initial quantum state that a simulation needs. In this work, researchers achieved a first: they created scalable quantum circuits capable of preparing the starting state of a particle collision similar to those produced in particle accelerators. Their test focuses on the strong interactions described by the Standard Model.
The team began by determining the required circuits for small systems using classical computers. Once those designs were known, they applied the circuits' scalable structure to build much larger simulations directly on a quantum computer. Using IBM's quantum hardware, they successfully simulated key features of nuclear physics on more than 100 qubits.
These scalable quantum algorithms open the door to simulations that were previously out of reach. The approach can be used to model the vacuum state before a particle collision, physical systems with extremely high densities, and beams of hadrons. Researchers anticipate that future quantum simulations built on these circuits will exceed what classical computing can accomplish.
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