Abstract
The phase diagram of strong interactions in nature at finite temperature and chemical potential remains largely theoretically unexplored due to inadequacy of Monte-Carlo–based computational techniques in overcoming a sign problem. Quantum computing offers a sign-problem-free approach, but evaluating thermal expectation values is generally resource intensive on quantum computers. To facilitate thermodynamic studies of gauge theories, we propose a generalization of the thermal-pure-quantum-state formulation of statistical mechanics applied to constrained gauge-theory dynamics, and numerically demonstrate that the phase diagram of a simple low-dimensional gauge theory is robustly determined using this approach, including mapping a chiral phase transition in the model at finite temperature and chemical potential. Quantum algorithms, resource requirements, and algorithmic and hardware error analysis are further discussed to motivate future implementations. Thermal pure quantum states, therefore, may present a suitable candidate for efficient thermal simulations of gauge theories in the era of quantum computing.
- Received 28 September 2022
- Revised 27 February 2023
- Accepted 1 June 2023
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.081901
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.
Published by the American Physical Society