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20 pags., 15 figs., 3 tabs., The exchange of off-resonant photons between quantum optical emitters in cavity QED or quantum nanophotonic setups induces interactions between them which can be harnessed for quantum information and simulation purposes. So far, these interactions have been mostly characterized for two-level emitters, which restrict their application to engineering quantum gates among qubits or simulating spin-1/2 quantum many-body models. Here, we show how to harness multilevel emitters with several optical transitions to engineer a wide class of photon-mediated interactions between effective spin-1 systems. We characterize their performance through analytical and numerical techniques and provide specific implementations based on the atomic level structure of Alkali atoms. Our results expand the quantum simulation toolbox available in such cavity QED and quantum nanophotonic setups and open up different ways of engineering entangling gates among qutrits., C.T. and A.G.-T. acknowledge support from CSIC Research Platform on Quantum Technologies PTI-001, from Spanish Project No. PGC2018-094792-B-100(MCIU/AEI/FEDER, EU) and from the Proyecto Sinérgico CAM 2020 Y2020/TCS-6545 (NanoQuCo-CM). E.Z. acknowledges support from the Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 523/20)

The central idea of this review is to consider quantum field theory models relevant for particle physics and replace the fermionic matter in these models by a bosonic one. This is mostly motivated by the fact that bosons are more ``accessible'' and easier to manipulate for experimentalists, but this ``substitution'' also leads to new physics and novel phenomena. It allows us to gain new information about among other things confinement and the dynamics of the deconfinement transition. We will thus consider bosons in dynamical lattices corresponding to the bosonic Schwinger or Z$_2$ Bose-Hubbard models. Another central idea of this review concerns atomic simulators of paradigmatic models of particle physics theory such as the Creutz-Hubbard ladder, or Gross-Neveu-Wilson and Wilson-Hubbard models. Finally, we will briefly describe our efforts to design experimentally friendly simulators of these and other models relevant for particle physics., 12pp. review style

Over recent years, the relatively young field of quantum simulation of lattice gauge theories, aiming at implementing simulators of gauge theories with quantum platforms, has gone through a rapid development process. Nowadays, it is not only of interest to the quantum information and technology communities. It is also seen as a valid tool for tackling hard, non-perturbative gauge theory problems by particle and nuclear physicists. Along the theoretical progress, nowadays more and more experiments implementing such simulators are being reported, manifesting beautiful results, but mostly on 1 + 1 dimensional physics. In this article, we review the essential ingredients and requirements of lattice gauge theories in more dimensions and discuss their meanings, the challenges they pose and how they could be dealt with, potentially aiming at the next steps of this field towards simulating challenging physical problems in analogue, or analogue-digital ways. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Quantum technologies in particle physics’.

7 pags., 2 figs., Quantum simulation of lattice gauge theories, aiming at tackling nonperturbative particle and condensed matter physics, has recently received a lot of interest and attention, resulting in many theoretical proposals as well as several experimental implementations. One of the current challenges is to go beyond 1+1 dimensions, where four-body (plaquette) interactions, not contained naturally in quantum simulating devices, appear. In this Letter, we propose a method to obtain them based on a combination of stroboscopic optical atomic control and the nonlocal photon-mediated interactions appearing in nanophotonic or cavity QED setups. We illustrate the method for a Z2 lattice gauge theory. We also show how to prepare the ground state and measure Wilson loops using state-of-the-art techniques in atomic physics., E. Z. acknowledges support by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 523/20). A. G.-T. acknowledges financial support from the Proyecto Sinergico CAM 2020 Y2020/TCS-6545 (NanoQuCo-CM), the CSIC Research Platform on Quantum Technologies PTI-001, and from Spanish project PGC2018-094792-B-100 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, EU). G. G. M. acknowledges financial support from the Gropo Especializado de Fisica de Estado Solido prize, State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” award to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017-0709), from IPARCOS (Instituto de Física de Partículas y el Cosmos), and from the Spanish government through project PID2019-107847RB-C44.

Lattice gauge theories are fundamental to such distinct fields as particle physics, condensed matter, and quantum information science. Their local symmetries enforce the charge conservation observed in the laws of physics. Impressive experimental progress has demonstrated that they can be engineered in table-top experiments using synthetic quantum systems. However, the challenges posed by the scalability of such lattice gauge simulators are pressing, thereby making the exploration of different experimental setups desirable. Here, we realize a U(1) lattice gauge theory with five matter sites and four gauge links in classical electric circuits employing nonlinear elements connecting LC oscillators. This allows for probing previously inaccessible spectral and transport properties in a multi-site system. We directly observe Gauss's law, known from electrodynamics, and the emergence of long-range interactions between massive particles in full agreement with theoretical predictions. Our work paves the way for investigations of increasingly complex gauge theories on table-top classical setups, and demonstrates the precise control of nonlinear effects within metamaterial devices., Comment: 5+8 pages, 4+4 figures for main + SM

We introduce a way to express compact quantum electrodynamics with dynamical matter on two- and three-dimensional spatial lattices in a gauge redundancy-free manner while preserving translational invariance. By transforming to a rotating frame, where the matter is decoupled from the gauge constraints, we can express the gauge field operators in terms of dual operators. In two space dimensions, the dual representation is completely free of any local constraints. In three space dimensions, local constraints among the dual operators remain but involve only the gauge field degrees of freedom (and not the matter degrees of freedom). These formulations, which reduce the required Hilbert space dimension, could be useful for both numerical (classical) Hamiltonian computations and quantum simulation or computation., 16 pages, 5 figures, v2: as published

Variational minimization of tensor network states enables the exploration of low energy states of lattice gauge theories. However, the exact numerical evaluation of high-dimensional tensor network states remains challenging in general. In [E. Zohar and J. I. Cirac, Phys. Rev. D 97, 034510 (2018)] it was shown how, by combining gauged Gaussian projected entangled pair states with a variational Monte Carlo procedure, it is possible to efficiently compute physical observables. In this paper we demonstrate how this approach can be used to investigate numerically the ground state of a lattice gauge theory. More concretely, we explicitly carry out the variational Monte Carlo procedure based on such contraction methods for a pure gauge Kogut-Susskind Hamiltonian with a ${\mathbb{Z}}_{3}$ gauge field in two spatial dimensions. This is a first proof of principle to the method, which provides an inherent way to increase the number of variational parameters and can be readily extended to systems with physical fermions.

Lattice Gauge Theories form a very successful framework for studying nonperturbative gauge field physics, in particular in Quantum Chromodynamics. Recently, their quantum simulation on atomic and solid-state platforms has been discussed, aiming at overcoming some of the difficulties still faced by the conventional approaches (such as the sign problem and real time evolution). While the actual implementations of a lattice gauge theory on a quantum simulator may differ in terms of the simulating system and its properties, they are all directed at studying similar physical phenomena, requiring the measurement of nonlocal observables, due to the local symmetry of gauge theories. In this work, general schemes for measuring such nonlocal observables (Wilson loops and mesonic string operators) in general lattice gauge theory quantum simulators that are based merely on local operations are proposed.

The design of quantum many body systems, which have to fulfill an extensive number of constraints, appears as a formidable challenge within the field of quantum simulation. Lattice gauge theories are a particular important class of quantum systems with an extensive number of local constraints and play a central role in high energy physics, condensed matter and quantum information. Whereas recent experimental progress points towards the feasibility of large-scale quantum simulation of abelian gauge theories, the quantum simulation of non-abelian gauge theories appears still elusive. In this paper we present minimal non-abelian lattice gauge theories, whereby we introduce the necessary formalism in well-known abelian gauge theories, such as the Jaynes–Cumming model. In particular, we show that certain minimal non-abelian lattice gauge theories can be mapped to three or four level systems, for which the design of a quantum simulator is standard with current technologies. Further we give an upper bound for the Hilbert space dimension of a one dimensional SU(2) lattice gauge theory, and argue that the implementation with current digital quantum computer appears feasible.

We introduce a class of variational states to study ground state properties and real-time dynamics in (2+1)-dimensional compact QED. These are based on complex Gaussian states which are made periodic in order to account for the compact nature of the $U(1)$ gauge field. Since the evaluation of expectation values involves infinite sums, we present an approximation scheme for the whole variational manifold. We calculate the ground state energy density for lattice sizes up to $20 \times 20$ and extrapolate to the thermodynamic limit for the whole coupling region. Additionally, we study the string tension both by fitting the potential between two static charges and by fitting the exponential decay of spatial Wilson loops. As the ansatz does not require a truncation in the local Hilbert spaces, we analyze truncation effects which are present in other approaches. The variational states are benchmarked against exact solutions known for the one plaquette case and exact diagonalization results for a $\mathbb{Z}_3$ lattice gauge theory. Using the time-dependent variational principle, we study real-time dynamics after various global quenches, e.g. the time evolution of a strongly confined electric field between two charges after a quench to the weak-coupling regime. Up to the points where finite size effects start to play a role, we observe equilibrating behavior., Comment: 20 pages, 16 figures, v2: as published

Lattice gauge theories are fundamental to such distinct fields as particle physics, condensed matter or quantum information theory. The recent progress in the control of artificial quantum systems already allows for studying Abelian lattice gauge theories in table-top experiments. However, the realization of non-Abelian models remains challenging. Here, we employ a coherent quantum control scheme to enforce non-Abelian gauge invariance, and discuss this idea in detail for a one dimensional SU(2) lattice gauge system. Finally, we comment on how to extend our scheme to other non-Abelian gauge symmetries and higher spatial dimensions, which summarized, provides a promising route for the quantum simulation of non-Abelian lattice gauge theories.

Over the last years, Projected Entangled Pair States have demonstrated great power for the study of many body systems, as they naturally describe ground states of gapped many body Hamiltonians, and suggest a constructive way to encode and classify their symmetries. The PEPS study is not only limited to global symmetries, but has also been extended and applied for local symmetries, allowing to use them for the description of states in lattice gauge theories. In this paper we discuss PEPS with a local, SU(2) gauge symmetry, and demonstrate the use of PEPS features and techniques for the study of a simple family of many body states with a non-Abelian gauge symmetry. We present, in particular, the construction of fermionic PEPS able to describe both two-color fermionic matter and the degrees of freedom of an SU(2) gauge field with a suitable truncation., Comment: 48 pages, 26 Figures

Gauge theories, through the local symmetry which is in their core, exhibit many local constraints, that must be taken care of and addressed in any calculation. In the Hamiltonian picture this is phrased through the Gauss laws, which are local constraints that restrict the physical Hilbert space and relate the matter and gauge degrees of freedom. In this work, we present a way that uses all the Gauss laws in lattice gauge theories with staggered fermions for completely removing the matter degrees of freedom, at the cost of locally extending the interaction range, breaking the symmetry and introducing new local constraints, due to the finiteness of the original local matter spaces.

Tensor networks, and in particular Projected Entangled Pair States (PEPS), are a powerful tool for the study of quantum many body physics, thanks to both their built-in ability of classifying and studying symmetries, and the efficient numerical calculations they allow. In this work, we introduce a way to extend the set of symmetric PEPS in order to include local gauge invariance and investigate lattice gauge theories with fermionic matter. To this purpose, we provide as a case study and first example, the construction of a fermionic PEPS, based on Gaussian schemes, invariant under both global and local U ( 1 ) gauge transformations. The obtained states correspond to a truncated U ( 1 ) lattice gauge theory in 2+1 dimensions, involving both the gauge field and fermionic matter. For the global symmetry (pure fermionic) case, these PEPS can be studied in terms of spinless fermions subject to a p-wave superconducting pairing. For the local symmetry (fermions and gauge fields) case, we find confined and deconfined phases in the pure gauge limit, and we discuss the screening properties of the phases arising in the presence of dynamical matter.

We devise a unitary transformation that replaces the fermionic degrees of freedom of lattice gauge theories by (hard-core) bosonic ones. The resulting theory is local and gauge invariant, with the same symmetry group. The method works in any spatial dimensions and can be directly applied, among others, to the gauge groups $G=U(N)$ and $SU(2N)$, where $N\in\mathbb{N}$. For $SU(2N+1)$ one can also carry out the transformation after introducing an extra idle $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge field, so that the resulting symmetry group trivially contains $\mathbb{Z}_2$ as a normal subgroup. Those results have implications in the field of quantum simulations of high-energy physics models., Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures

In the present work, we propose a scheme for digital formulation of lattice gauge theories with dynamical fermions in 3+1 dimensions. All interactions are obtained as a stroboscopic sequence of two-body interactions with an auxiliary system. This enables quantum simulations of lattice gauge theories where the magnetic four-body interactions arising in two and more spatial dimensions are obtained without the use of perturbation theory, thus resulting in stronger interactions compared with analogue approaches. The simulation scheme is applicable to lattice gauge theories with either compact or finite gauge groups. The required bounds on the digitization errors in lattice gauge theories, due to the sequential nature of the stroboscopic time evolution, are provided. Furthermore, an implementation of a lattice gauge theory with a non-abelian gauge group, the dihedral group $D_{3}$, is proposed employing the aforementioned simulation scheme using ultracold atoms in optical lattices., 38 pages, 5 figures

Gauged Gaussian projected entangled pair states are particular tensor network constructions that describe lattice states of fermionic matter interacting with dynamical gauge fields. We show how one can efficiently compute, using Monte Carlo techniques, expectation values of physical observables in that class of states. This opens up the possibility of using tensor network techniques to investigate lattice gauge theories in two and three spatial dimensions.

Matrix Product States (MPS) are a particular type of one dimensional tensor network states, that have been applied to the study of numerous quantum many body problems. One of their key features is the possibility to describe and encode symmetries on the level of a single building block (tensor), and hence they provide a natural playground for the study of symmetric systems. In particular, recent works have proposed to use MPS (and higher dimensional tensor networks) for the study of systems with local symmetry that appear in the context of gauge theories. In this work we classify MPS which exhibit local invariance under arbitrary gauge groups. We study the respective tensors and their structure, revealing known constructions that follow known gauging procedures, as well as different, other types of possible gauge invariant states.

We propose a scheme for digital quantum simulation of lattice gauge theories with dynamical fermions. Using a layered optical lattice with ancilla atoms that can move and interact with the other atoms (simulating the physical degrees of freedom), we obtain a stroboscopic dynamics which yields the four-body plaquette interactions, arising in models with (2+1) and higher dimensions, without the use of perturbation theory. As an example we show how to simulate a Z_{2} model in (2+1) dimensions.

We propose a general scheme for a digital construction of lattice gauge theories with dynamical fermions. In this method, the four-body interactions arising in models with $2+1$ dimensions and higher, are obtained stroboscopically, through a sequence of two-body interactions with ancillary degrees of freedom. This yields stronger interactions than the ones obtained through pertubative methods, as typically done in previous proposals, and removes an important bottleneck in the road towards experimental realizations. The scheme applies to generic gauge theories with Lie or finite symmetry groups, both Abelian and non-Abelian. As a concrete example, we present the construction of a digital quantum simulator for a $\mathbb{Z}_{3}$ lattice gauge theory with dynamical fermionic matter in $2+1$ dimensions, using ultracold atoms in optical lattices, involving three atomic species, representing the matter, gauge and auxiliary degrees of freedom, that are separated in three different layers. By moving the ancilla atoms with a proper sequence of steps, we show how we can obtain the desired evolution in a clean, controlled way.

Using matrix product states, we explore numerically the phenomenology of string breaking in a non-Abelian lattice gauge theory, namely 1+1 dimensional SU(2). The technique allows us to study the static potential between external heavy charges, as traditionally explored by Monte Carlo simulations, but also to simulate the real-time dynamics of both static and dynamical fermions, as the latter are fully included in the formalism. We propose a number of observables that are sensitive to the presence or breaking of the flux string, and use them to detect and characterize the phenomenon in each of these setups., 20+5 pages, 14 figures, version 2 contains more numerical results, version 3: published version

Can high energy physics be simulated by low-energy, non-relativistic, many-body systems, such as ultracold atoms? Such ultracold atomic systems lack the type of symmetries and dynamical properties of high energy physics models: in particular, they manifest neither local gauge invariance nor Lorentz invariance, which are crucial properties of the quantum field theories which are the building blocks of the standard model of elementary particles. However, it turns out, surprisingly, that there are ways to configure atomic system to manifest both local gauge invariance and Lorentz invariance. In particular, local gauge invariance can arise either as an effective, low energy, symmetry, or as an "exact" symmetry, following from the conservation laws in atomic interactions. Hence, one could hope that such quantum simulators may lead to new type of (table-top) experiments, that shall be used to study various QCD phenomena, as the confinement of dynamical quarks, phase transitions, and other effects, which are inaccessible using the currently known computational methods. In this report, we review the Hamiltonian formulation of lattice gauge theories, and then describe our recent progress in constructing quantum simulation of Abelian and non-Abelian lattice gauge theories in 1+1 and 2+1 dimensions using ultracold atoms in optical lattices., Comment: A review; 55 pages, 14 figures

Gauge theories underpin the standard model of particle physics, but are difficult to study using conventional computational methods. An experimental quantum system opens up fresh avenues of investigation. See Letter p.516

Stators, which may be intuitively defined as "half states, half operators" are mathematical objects which act on two Hilbert spaces and utilize entanglement to create remote operations and exchange information between two physical systems. In particular, they allow to induce effective dynamics on one physical system by acting on the other one, given they have properly been connected with the right stator. In this work, the concept of stators is generalized and formalized in a way that allows the utilization of stators for some physical problems based on symmetry groups, and in particular digital quantum simulation.

We examine the Kogut-Susskind formulation of lattice gauge theories under the light of fermionic and bosonic degrees of freedom that provide a description useful to the development of quantum simulators of gauge invariant models. We consider both discrete and continuous gauge groups and adopt a realistic multi-component Fock space for the definition of matter degrees of freedom. In particular, we express the Hamiltonian of the gauge theory and the Gauss law in terms of Fock operators. The gauge fields are described in two different bases, based on either group elements or group representations. This formulation allows for a natural scheme to achieve a consistent truncation of the Hilbert space for continuous groups, and provides helpful tools to study the connections of gauge theories with topological quantum double and string-net models for discrete groups. Several examples, including the case of the discrete $D_3$ gauge group, are presented., 13 pages, 1 figure

Quantum simulations of High Energy Physics, and especially of gauge theories, is an emerging and exciting direction in quantum simulations. However, simulations of such theories, compared to simulations of condensed matter physics, must satisfy extra restrictions, such as local gauge and Lorentz invariance. In this paper we discuss these special requirements, and present a new method for quantum simulation of lattice gauge theories using ultracold atoms. This method allows to include local gauge invariance as a fundamental symmetry of the atomic Hamiltonian, arising from natural atomic interactions and conservation laws (and not as a property of a low energy sector). This allows us to implement elementary gauge invariant interactions for three lattice gauge theories: compact QED (U(1)), SU(N) and Z_N, which can be used to build quantum simulators in 1+1 dimensions. We also present a new loop method, which uses the elementary interactions as building blocks in the effective construction of quantum simulations for d+1 dimensional lattice gauge theories (d>1), without having to use Gauss's law as a constraint, as in previous proposals. We discuss in detail the quantum simulation of 2+1 dimensional compact QED and provide a numerical proof of principle. The simplicity of the already gauge invariant elementary interactions of this model suggests it may be useful for future experimental realizations., 28 pages, 16 figures. Third version - references updated

Non-abelian gauge theories play an important role in the standard model of particle physics, and unfold a partially unexplored world of exciting physical phenomena. In this letter, we suggest a realization of a non-abelian lattice gauge theory - SU(2) Yang-Mills in 1+1 dimensions, using ultracold atoms. Remarkably, and in contrast to previous proposals, in our model gauge invariance is a direct consequence of angular momentum conservation and thus is fundamental and robust. Our proposal may serve as well as a starting point for higher dimensional realizations., Including supplemental material. Second version: references added

Recently, there has been much interest in simulating quantum field theory effects of matter and gauge fields. In a recent work [Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 275301 (2011)] a method for simulating compact Quantum Electrodynamics (cQED) using Bose-Einstein condensates has been suggested. We suggest an alternative approach, which relies on single atoms in an optical lattice, carrying 2l+1 internal levels, which converges rapidly to cQED as l increases. That enables the simulation of cQED in 2+1 dimensions in both the weak and the strong coupling regimes, hence allowing to probe confinement as well as other nonperturbative effects of the theory. We provide an explicit construction for the case l=1 which is sufficient for simulating the effect of confinement between two external static charges., Supplementary material addeed