Discrete Time Quantum Simulator

Project Acronym: DiTiQuS

Topics: Quantum Simulation, Quantum Cellular Automata, Quantum Walks, Quantum Field Theory

Disciplinary Fields: Theorical Physics, Computer Science, Mathematics

Summary: In a seminal article, Richard Feynman suggested that computers that use quantum logic for information processing can simulate some quantum systems efficiently, even when this is not possible to computers based on classical logic. To simulate the dynamics of a quantum system usually means to describe it in terms of qubits, and its dynamics by a succession of logical gates – which are unitary transformations involving at most two qubits at time. This is the paradigm known as the Quantum Circuit Model, in analogy with the logical circuits of classical computers. Nevertheless, this way of “interpreting” the system and its dynamics is very artificial and detached from the expected inner workings of Nature. A more natural way of describing quantum systems and their dynamics within a computational perspective is given by Quantum Walks (QWs) and Quantum Cellular Automata (QCA).

The general objective of DiTiQuS project is to use Quantum Cellular Automata and quantum walks as platforms to describe quantum systems and their dynamics in different levels of characterizations. The project adresses the following questions: what kinds of phenomenology can emerge from a continuous limit of different interactions and distributions of QCA and alternative models of QWs? Is it possible to describe some of these dynamics in an efficient way by a classical computer, or are there intrinsic quantum properties that render the description unavoidably quantum? In the latter case, is there a simplified level of description where a classical description becomes possible ?

Project Interlocutor: Giuseppe Di Molfetta (LIS, UMR 7020)

Project Duration: 05/20/2019 – 11/20/2020

Call of Proposal: Pépinière d’Excellence 2018

Photography Credits: Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash

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