PME Quantum Colloquium Series - Jacob Covey

Scalable quantum science with neutral atom arrays

Quantum science utilizes many-particle entanglement for computation, simulation, and sensing. For example, quantum simulators may provide insight into correlated materials, quantum chemistry, and nuclear physics; and quantum sensors can probe gravitational redshift at the millimeter level. Although it is believed that certain computations and simulations can be performed on quantum hardware at a scale well beyond what is possible on the largest supercomputers, there have been limited demonstrations of this quantum advantage to date. The challenge falls into two categories: First, we must create and control a quantum system that is sufficiently large to perform useful tasks. Second, we must use quantum resources as efficiently as possible.

I will present our efforts to address both the scalability and resource efficiency challenges of the neutral atom platform. I will describe our vision for distributed quantum processors in which many modules can be connected via two complementary approaches. I will highlight how distributed architectures can naturally be leveraged for simulating quantum chemistry and sensing the curvature of spacetime. To improve resource efficiency, I will illustrate the unique opportunities of two species that offer helium-like level structure and a spin-1/2 nucleus: ytterbium-171 and helium-3. We will exploit these features to study interactive quantum circuits, quark scattering in 1+1D, and quantum processors with fermionic statistics built in at the hardware level.