Gluon field digitization for quantum computers
Andrei Alexandru (Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA, Department of Physics, The George Washington University, Washington, D.C. 20052, USA); Paulo F. Bedaque (Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA); Siddhartha Harmalkar (Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA); Henry Lamm (Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA); Scott Lawrence (Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA); et al - Show all 6 authors
Simulations of gauge theories on quantum computers require the digitization of continuous field variables. Digitization schemes that use the minimum amount of qubits are desirable. We present a practical scheme for digitizing gauge theories via its discrete subgroup . The standard Wilson action cannot be used since a phase transition occurs as the coupling is decreased, well before the scaling regime. We propose a modified action that allows simulations in the scaling window and carry out classical Monte Carlo calculations down to lattice spacings of order . We compute a set of observables with subpercent precision at multiple lattice spacings and show that the continuum extrapolated value agrees with the full results. This suggests that this digitization scheme provides sufficient precision for noisy intermediate-scale quantum era QCD simulations.