Speaker
Description
Quantum computers hold the promise of being a transfomrational in application to many spheres of human endeavour. In particular, the simulation of many-body quantum systems, such as nuclei, is naturally amenable to quantum computation. This is due, in part, to the exponential scaling of Hilbert space size as the number of quantum bits (qubits) grows linearly. This mirrors the exponential growth of Hilbert space size as the number of particles or orbitals in a nuclear problem grows linearly.
Real quantum computers now exist. They have some drawbacks, including short coherence times limiting their ability to deliver the hoped-for breakthroughs, yet first results show promise and algorithmic developments are underway to prepare for future "fault-tolerant" quantum computers which are on the road map of the quantum hardware companies.
In this contribution we present our current results for nuclear shell model developments in simulation 1, along with calculations on real quantum hardware 2 - with nuclei up to 210Pb calculated on 29 qubits on the IBM_pittsburgh machine. We then go on to show preparatory work for future hardware, in which we use tensor network methods to produce states with >50% overlap with exact solutions on 76-qubit systems, equivalent to a shell model calculation with matrix dimension ~1011 in 143Ce. We use tensor network to quantum circuit compilation techniques to prepare algorithms ready to go on near-future fault-tolerant machines 3.
Work in collaboration with B. Bhoy, C. Sarma, and J. Gibbs at the University of Surrey
1 B. Bhoy and P. D. Stevenson, New. J. Phys. 26, 075001 (2024)
2 C. Sarma and P. D. Stevenson, Discov. Quantum. Sci. 2, 6 (2026)
3 J. Gibbs, L. Cinzio, C. Sarma, Z. Holmes, and P. Stevenson, arXiv:2603.11156 (2026)