Quantum computing innovation to simulate quantum systems

Student: John Kerfoot
Supervisors: David Schaich (UoL), Juri Smirnov (UoL)
Institution: University of Liverpool

The emerging technology of quantum computing promises a revolution in numerical simulations of quantum systems for which classical algorithms suffer from computational costs that scale exponentially with the system size. This project will develop and optimize innovative quantum computing techniques to simulate small quantum systems using this rapidly evolving technology.

The project will begin by using existing noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices to simulate small physical systems, such as the lattice-regularized Wess–Zumino model — a supersymmetric quantum field theory that can exhibit spontaneous supersymmetry breaking. As part of this work, you will investigate the capabilities of a variety of NISQ devices, including systems based on binary qubits, d-state qudits, or continuous-variable qumodes, as well as the possibility of hybrid devices.

In the next stage the project will develop customized error mitigation techniques to optimize the performance of the most promising of these devices. In addition to maximizing the capabilities of existing devices, through this work the student may also contribute to the co-design of future quantum hardware. Depending on the progress of the technology, it may also be possible to incorporate simple quantum error correction into certain aspects of this work.