arXiv subjects

Wibe de Jong

Publications and source records attributed to Wibe de Jong.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

A Qutrit Time Crystal Stabilized with Native Chiral Interactions

Periodically driven quantum many-body systems can spontaneously break discrete time-translation symmetry, realizing discrete time crystals. To date, both experimental and theoretical efforts have largely focused on the simplest case of spontaneous period-doubling in $\mathbb{Z}_2$ discrete time crystals realized with qubits. This owes, in part, to the challenge of stabilizing eigenstate order in higher discrete symmetry ($\mathbb{Z}_n$) time crystals, due to the presence of richer domain wall physics. Here, we demonstrate the realization of a $\mathbb{Z}_3$ discrete time crystal by implementing a Floquet chiral clock model in a chain of 15 superconducting qutrits. Unlike the conventional Ising setting, our system features a tunable chiral angle that governs domain-wall dynamics, spectral degeneracies, and crucially, the stability of time-crystalline order. Using disordered nearest-neighbor chiral interactions, we observe robust subharmonic period tripling that persists across a wide range of drive strengths and is independent of initial state. Finally, we highlight the special role that chirality plays in our $\mathbb{Z}_3$ discrete time crystal -- in its absence, the system's Floquet dynamics exhibit a marked initial state dependence governed by domain wall degeneracies. Our results establish native qudit hardware as a powerful platform to access a broader landscape of non-equilibrium phases.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Towards Quantum Gravity in the Lab on Quantum Processors

The holographic principle and its realization in the AdS/CFT correspondence led to unexpected connections between general relativity and quantum information. This set the stage for studying aspects of quantum gravity models, which are otherwise difficult to access, in table-top quantum-computational experiments. Recent works have designed a special teleportation protocol that realizes a surprising communication phenomenon most naturally explained by the physics of a traversable wormhole. In this work, we have carried out quantum experiments based on this protocol on state-of-the-art quantum computers. The target quantum processing units (QPUs) included the Quantinuum's trapped-ion System Model H1-1 and five IBM superconducting QPUs of various architectures, with public and premium user access. We report the observed teleportation signals from these QPUs with the best one reaching 80% of theoretical predictions. We outline the experimental challenges we have faced in the course of implementation, as well as the new theoretical insights into quantum dynamics the work has led to. We also developed QGLab -- an open-source end-to-end software solution that facilitates conducting the wormhole-inspired teleportation experiments on state-of-the-art and emergent generations of QPUs supported by the Qiskit and tket SDKs. We consider our study and deliverables as an early practical step towards the realization of more complex experiments for the indirect probing of quantum gravity in the lab.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Numerical circuit synthesis and compilation for multi-state preparation

Near-term quantum computers have significant error rates and short coherence times, so compilation of circuits to be as short as possible is essential. Two types of compilation problems are typically considered: circuits to prepare a given state from a fixed input state, called "state preparation"; and circuits to implement a given unitary operation, for example by "unitary synthesis". In this paper we solve a more general problem: the transformation of a set of $m$ states to another set of $m$ states, which we call "multi-state preparation". State preparation and unitary synthesis are special cases; for state preparation, $m=1$, while for unitary synthesis, $m$ is the dimension of the full Hilbert space. We generate and optimize circuits for multi-state preparation numerically. In cases where a top-down approach based on matrix decompositions is also possible, our method finds circuits with substantially (up to 40%) fewer two-qubit gates. We discuss possible applications, including efficient preparation of macroscopic superposition ("cat") states and synthesis of quantum channels.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Accelerating Noisy VQE Optimization with Gaussian Processes

Hybrid variational quantum algorithms, which combine a classical optimizer with evaluations on a quantum chip, are the most promising candidates to show quantum advantage on current noisy, intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices. The classical optimizer is required to perform well in the presence of noise in the objective function evaluations, or else it becomes the weakest link in the algorithm. We introduce the use of Gaussian Processes (GP) as surrogate models to reduce the impact of noise and to provide high quality seeds to escape local minima, whether real or noise-induced. We build this as a framework on top of local optimizations, for which we choose Implicit Filtering (ImFil) in this study. ImFil is a state-of-the-art, gradient-free method, which in comparative studies has been shown to outperform on noisy VQE problems. The result is a new method: "GP+ImFil". We show that when noise is present, the GP+ImFil approach finds results closer to the true global minimum in fewer evaluations than standalone ImFil, and that it works particularly well for larger dimensional problems. Using GP to seed local searches in a multi-modal landscape shows mixed results: although it is capable of improving on ImFil standalone, it does not do so consistently and would only be preferred over other, more exhaustive, multistart methods if resources are constrained.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Robust and Resource-Efficient Quantum Circuit Approximation

We present QEst, a procedure to systematically generate approximations for quantum circuits to reduce their CNOT gate count. Our approach employs circuit partitioning for scalability with procedures to 1) reduce circuit length using approximate synthesis, 2) improve fidelity by running circuits that represent key samples in the approximation space, and 3) reason about approximation upper bound. Our evaluation results indicate that our approach of "dissimilar" approximations provides close fidelity to the original circuit. Overall, the results indicate that QEst can reduce CNOT gate count by 30-80% on ideal systems and decrease the impact of noise on existing and near-future quantum systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Classical Optimizers for Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum Devices

We present a collection of optimizers tuned for usage on Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices. Optimizers have a range of applications in quantum computing, including the Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) and Quantum Approximate Optimization (QAOA) algorithms. They are also used for calibration tasks, hyperparameter tuning, in machine learning, etc. We analyze the efficiency and effectiveness of different optimizers in a VQE case study. VQE is a hybrid algorithm, with a classical minimizer step driving the next evaluation on the quantum processor. While most results to date concentrated on tuning the quantum VQE circuit, we show that, in the presence of quantum noise, the classical minimizer step needs to be carefully chosen to obtain correct results. We explore state-of-the-art gradient-free optimizers capable of handling noisy, black-box, cost functions and stress-test them using a quantum circuit simulation environment with noise injection capabilities on individual gates. Our results indicate that specifically tuned optimizers are crucial to obtaining valid science results on NISQ hardware, and will likely remain necessary even for future fault tolerant circuits.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Simulating Quantum Materials with Digital Quantum Computers

Quantum materials exhibit a wide array of exotic phenomena and practically useful properties. A better understanding of these materials can provide deeper insights into fundamental physics in the quantum realm as well as advance technology for entertainment, healthcare, and sustainability. The emergence of digital quantum computers (DQCs), which can efficiently perform quantum simulations that are otherwise intractable on classical computers, provides a promising path forward for testing and analyzing the remarkable, and often counter-intuitive, behavior of quantum materials. Equipped with these new tools, scientists from diverse domains are racing towards achieving physical quantum advantage (i.e., using a quantum computer to learn new physics with a computation that cannot feasibly be run on any classical computer). The aim of this review, therefore, is to provide a summary of progress made towards this goal that is accessible to scientists across the physical sciences. We will first review the available technology and algorithms, and detail the myriad ways to represent materials on quantum computers. Next, we will showcase the simulations that have been successfully performed on currently available DQCs, emphasizing the variety of properties, both static and dynamic, that can be studied with this nascent technology. Finally, we work through two examples of how to map a materials problem onto a DQC, with full code included in the Supplementary Material. It is our hope that this review can serve as an organized overview of progress in the field for domain experts and an accessible introduction to scientists in related fields interested in beginning to perform their own simulations of quantum materials on DQCs.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2017

Pushing Configuration-Interaction to the Limit: Towards Massively Parallel MCSCF Calculations

A new large-scale parallel multiconfigurational self-consistent field (MCSCF) implementation in the open-source NWChem computational chemistry code is presented. The generalized active space (GAS) approach is used to partition large configuration interaction (CI) vectors and generate a sufficient number of batches that can be distributed to the available nodes. Massively parallel CI calculations with large active spaces can be treated. The performance of the new parallel MCSCF implementation is presented for the chromium trimer and for an active space of 20 electrons in 20 orbitals. Unprecedented CI calculations with an active space of 22 electrons in 22 orbitals for the pentacene systems were performed and a single CI iteration calculation with an active space of 24 electrons in 24 orbitals for the chromium tetramer was possible. The chromium tetramer corresponds to a CI expansion of one trillion SDs (914 058 513 424) and is largest conventional CI calculation attempted up to date.

physics.chem-ph↗