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Quantum computers offer an intriguing path for a paradigmatic change of computing in the natural sciences and beyond, with the potential for achieving a so-called quantum advantage—namely, a significant (in some cases exponential) speedup of numerical simulations. The rapid development of hardware devices with various realizations of qubits enables the execution of small-scale but representative applications on quantum computers. In particular, the high-energy physics community plays a pivotal role in accessing the power of quantum computing, since the field is a driving source for challenging computational problems. This concerns, on the theoretical side, the exploration of models that are very hard or even impossible to address with classical techniques and, on the experimental side, the enormous data challenge of newly emerging experiments, such as the upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider. In this Roadmap paper, led by CERN, DESY, and IBM, we provide the status of high-energy physics quantum computations and give examples of theoretical and experimental target benchmark applications, which can be addressed in the near future. Having in mind hardware with about 100 qubits capable of executing several thousand two-qubit gates, where possible, we also provide resource estimates for the examples given using error-mitigated quantum computing. The ultimate declared goal of this task force is therefore to trigger further research in the high-energy physics community to develop interesting use cases for demonstrations on near-term quantum computers.

Simulating the real-time dynamics of lattice gauge theories, underlying the Standard Model of particle physics, is a notoriously difficult problem where quantum simulators can provide a practical advantage over classical approaches. In this work, we present a complete Rydberg-based architecture, co-designed to digitally simulate the dynamics of general gauge theories coupled to matter fields in a hardware-efficient manner. Ref. \cite{Gonzalez_2022} showed how a qudit processor, where non-abelian gauge fields are locally encoded and time-evolved, considerably reduces the required simulation resources compared to standard qubit-based quantum computers. Here we integrate the latter with a recently introduced fermionic quantum processor \cite{Gonzalez_2023}, where fermionic statistics are accounted for at the hardware level, allowing us to construct quantum circuits that preserve the locality of the gauge-matter interactions. We exemplify the flexibility of such a fermion-qudit processor by focusing on two paradigmatic high-energy phenomena. First, we present a resource-efficient protocol to simulate the Abelian-Higgs model, where the dynamics of confinement and string breaking can be investigated. Then, we show how to prepare hadrons made up of fermionic matter constituents bound by non-abelian gauge fields, and show how to extract the corresponding hadronic tensor. In both cases, we estimate the required resources, showing how quantum devices can be used to calculate experimentally-relevant quantities in particle physics.

We investigate the topological properties of the bond order wave phase arising in the extended Fermi-Hubbard model. In particular, we uncover a topological sector, which remained elusive in previous finite-size numerical studies due to boundary effects. We first show that, for an infinite system, the bond order wave regime is characterized by two degenerate bulk states corresponding to the trivial and topological sectors. The latter turns out to be indeed characterized by an even degeneracy of the entanglement spectrum and long-range order of a string correlation function. For finite-size systems, we show that the topological sector can be stabilized by imposing a suitable border potential. This therefore provides a concrete protocol for the observation of topologically protected degenerate edge modes in finite-size systems. Furthermore, we show that the bulk of the system is characterized by exotic solitonic solutions interpolating between the trivial and topological sectors. Finally, we propose an implementation and detection scheme of this strongly correlated topological phase in a quantum simulator based on dipolar Fermi gases in optical lattices.

The still-developing understanding of topologically non-trivial phases of matter has led to new mechanisms for unconventional many-body behaviour. Here the authors present a model where the symmetry needed for a symmetry-protected topological phase only emerges after the formation of long-range order.

Topologically ordered phases of matter, although stable against local perturbations, are usually restricted to relatively small regions in phase diagrams. Thus, their preparation requires a precise fine-tunning of the system’s parameters, a very challenging task in most experimental setups. In this work, we investigate a model of spinless fermions interacting with dynamical Z_{2} gauge fields on a cross-linked ladder and show evidence of topological order throughout the full parameter space. In particular, we show how a magnetic flux is spontaneously generated through the ladder due to an Aharonov-Bohm instability, giving rise to topological order even in the absence of a plaquette term. Moreover, the latter coexists here with a symmetry-protected topological phase in the matter sector, which displays fractionalized gauge-matter edge states and intertwines with it by a flux-threading phenomenon. Finally, we unveil the robustness of these features through a gauge frustration mechanism, akin to geometric frustration in spin liquids, allowing topological order to survive to arbitrarily large quantum fluctuations. In particular, we show how, at finite chemical potential, topological solitons are created in the gauge field configuration, which bound to fermions and form Z_{2} deconfined quasiparticles. The simplicity of the model makes it an ideal candidate for 2D gauge theory phenomena, as well as exotic topological effects, to be investigated using cold-atom quantum simulators.

We present a quantum simulation scheme for the Abelian-Higgs lattice gauge theory using ultracold bosonic atoms in optical lattices. The model contains both gauge and Higgs scalar fields, and exhibits interesting phases related to confinement and the Higgs mechanism. The model can be simulated by an atomic Hamiltonian, by first mapping the local gauge symmetry to an internal symmetry of the atomic system, the conservation of hyperfine angular momentum in atomic collisions. By including auxiliary bosons in the simulation, we show how the Abelian-Higgs Hamiltonian emerges effectively. We analyze the accuracy of our method in terms of different experimental parameters, as well as the effect of the finite number of bosons on the quantum simulator. Finally, we propose possible experiments for studying the ground state of the system in different regimes of the theory, and measuring interesting high energy physics phenomena in real time.

Ultracold Fermi gases of spin-3/2 atoms provide a clean platform to realise SO($5$) models of 4-Fermi interactions in the laboratory. By confining the atoms in a two-dimensional Raman lattice, we show how this system can be used as a flexible quantum simulator of Dirac quantum field theories (QFTs) that combine Gross-Neveu and Thirring interactions with a higher-order topological twist. We show that the lattice model corresponds to a regularization of this QFT with an anisotropic twisted Wilson mass. This allows us to access higher-order topological states protected by a discrete SO($5$) group, a remnant of the continuous rotational symmetry of the 4-Fermi interactions that is not explicitly broken by the lattice discretization. Using large-$N$ methods, we show that the 4-Fermi interactions lead to a rich phase diagram with various competing fermion condensates. Our work opens a route for the implementation of correlated higher-order topological states with tunable interactions that has interesting connections to non-trivial relativistic QFTs of Dirac fermions in $D=2+1$ dimensions.

We consider a mixture of ultracold bosonic atoms on a one-dimensional lattice described by the XXZ-Bose-Hubbard model, where the tunneling of one species depends on the spin state of a second deeply trapped species. We show how the inclusion of antiferromagnetic interactions among the spin degrees of freedom generates a Devil's staircase of symmetry-protected topological phases for a wide parameter regime via a bosonic analog of the Peierls mechanism in electron-phonon systems. These topological Peierls insulators are examples of symmetry-breaking topological phases, where long-range order due to spontaneous symmetry breaking coexists with topological properties such as fractionalized edge states. Moreover, we identify a region of supersolid phases that do not require long-range interactions. They appear instead due to a Peierls incommensurability mechanism, where competing orders modify the underlying crystalline structure of Peierls insulators, becoming superfluid. Our work show the possibilities that ultracold atomic systems offer to investigate strongly-correlated topological phenomena beyond those found in natural materials.