Speaker
Description
Quantum simulators emerged as a promising platform to simulate otherwise inaccessible non-perturbative aspects of real-time quantum field theory dynamics. One of their most important long-term applications is the simulation of particle collisions involving the strong force. Real-time evolution and breaking of confining strings, in particular, is thought to play a central role in the underlying non-equilibrium quark confinement processes. In the first part of this talk, I will describe a first implementation and observation of dynamical string breaking in a programmable trapped-ion quantum simulator. Data revealed an unexpected edge-facilitated string-breaking mechanism, distinct from and faster than the conventional Schwinger mechanism. In the second part of the talk, I will describe a new approach to simulate the multiflavor Schwinger model – a continuum gauge field theory closely related to concrete particle-physics applications – on state-of-the-art neutral-atom or superconducting-qubit arrays in analog mode.
