Quantum Matter Seminar

Quantum computers have great potential to solve computationally intractable problems, and to deepen our understanding of complex quantum systems. Yet, mapping of an initial state of spins to a general target quantum state often requires the application of numerous high-fidelity, two-qubit, entangling operations. As the number of such operations scales exponentially with the number of spins, efficient implementations might benefit from techniques that extend beyond the quantum logic gate model and harness the native resources of the quantum hardware.

In the talk, I will present new avenues to realize quantum gates and simulations in trapped-ion quantum processors. I will describe a single-step protocol to generate native, N-body entangling interactions between trapped-ion spins, using spin-dependent squeezing. Then, I will present our latest quantum simulations using simultaneous and reconfigurable spin-spin interactions, enabling the emergence and preparation of exotic phases of matter. Finally, I will outline an avenue to program a dense graph of couplings between the long-lived phonon modes in trapped-ion crystals, paving the path to programmable quantum simulations of bosonic and spin-boson systems on currently available devices.