Initialization of quantum simulators by sympathetic cooling

authored by
Meghana Raghunandan, Fabian Wolf, Christian Ospelkaus, Piet O Schmidt, Hendrik Weimer
Abstract

Simulating computationally intractable many-body problems on a quantum simulator holds great potential to deliver insights into physical, chemical, and biological systems. While the implementation of Hamiltonian dynamics within a quantum simulator has already been demonstrated in many experiments, the problem of initialization of quantum simulators to a suitable quantum state has hitherto remained mostly unsolved. Here, we show that already a single dissipatively driven auxiliary particle can efficiently prepare the quantum simulator in a low-energy state of largely arbitrary Hamiltonians. We demonstrate the scalability of our approach and show that it is robust against unwanted sources of decoherence. While our initialization protocol is largely independent of the physical realization of the simulation device, we provide an implementation example for a trapped ion quantum simulator.

Organisation(s)
Institute of Theoretical Physics
Institute of Quantum Optics
CRC 1227 Designed Quantum States of Matter (DQ-mat)
External Organisation(s)
Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt PTB
Type
Article
Journal
Science advances
Volume
6
ISSN
2375-2548
Publication date
06.03.2020
Publication status
Published
Peer reviewed
Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas
General
Electronic version(s)
https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw9268 (Access: Open)