近日，清华大学的段路明及其研究团队取得一项新进展。经过不懈努力，他们研制出具有数百个捕获离子的位点分辨二维量子模拟器。相关研究成果已于2024年5月29日在国际权威学术期刊《自然》上发表。

该研究团队报道了在二维维格纳晶体中稳定捕获512个离子，并实现了它们横向运动的边带冷却。通过使用300个离子，研究人员展示了具有可调谐耦合强度和模式的长程量子伊辛模型的量子模拟，涵盖了有或无阻挫的情况。利用单次测量中的位点分辨率，研究人员在准绝热制备的基态中观察到丰富的空间相关模式，这使得研究人员可以通过将测量的双自旋相关，与计算的集体声子模式以及经典模拟退火，进行比较来验证量子模拟结果。

他们进一步探索了伊辛模型在横向场中的猝灭动力学，展示了量子采样任务的执行。这项研究不仅为模拟复杂量子动力学提供了新途径，也为利用二维离子阱量子模拟器运行有噪声的中等规模量子算法铺平了道路。

据悉，大量子比特容量和单个读出能力是大规模量子计算和模拟的两个关键要求。作为量子信息处理的关键物理平台，离子阱技术已在一维保罗阱中实现了，具有高精度位点分辨读出的数十个离子量子模拟，同时在二维（2D）潘宁阱中展示了数百个离子的全局可观测量子模拟。然而，将这两种功能整合到单一系统中仍面临巨大的技术挑战。

附：英文原文

Title: A site-resolved two-dimensional quantum simulator with hundreds of trapped ions

Author: Guo, S.-A., Wu, Y.-K., Ye, J., Zhang, L., Lian, W.-Q., Yao, R., Wang, Y., Yan, R.-Y., Yi, Y.-J., Xu, Y.-L., Li, B.-W., Hou, Y.-H., Xu, Y.-Z., Guo, W.-X., Zhang, C., Qi, B.-X., Zhou, Z.-C., He, L., Duan, L.-M.

Issue&Volume: 2024-05-29

Abstract: A large qubit capacity and an individual readout capability are two crucial requirements for large-scale quantum computing and simulation. As one of the leading physical platforms for quantum information processing, the ion trap has achieved a quantum simulation of tens of ions with site-resolved readout in a one-dimensional Paul trap and of hundreds of ions with global observables in a two-dimensional (2D) Penning trap. However, integrating these two features into a single system is still very challenging. Here we report the stable trapping of 512 ions in a 2D Wigner crystal and the sideband cooling of their transverse motion. We demonstrate the quantum simulation of long-range quantum Ising models with tunable coupling strengths and patterns, with or without frustration, using 300 ions. Enabled by the site resolution in the single-shot measurement, we observe rich spatial correlation patterns in the quasi-adiabatically prepared ground states, which allows us to verify quantum simulation results by comparing the measured two-spin correlations with the calculated collective phonon modes and with classical simulated annealing. We further probe the quench dynamics of the Ising model in a transverse field to demonstrate quantum sampling tasks. Our work paves the way for simulating classically intractable quantum dynamics and for running noisy intermediate-scale quantum algorithms using 2D ion trap quantum simulators.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07459-0

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07459-0