Weaving Feynman’s dream with superconducting quantum processors

Pedram Roushan, Google Quantum AI, USA 

Major technological advances of the last century are rooted in our understanding of the quantum physics of non-interacting particles. A central research direction of our time in  physics and chemistry is to understand behavior of complex quantum many-body systems, where interaction effects cannot be ignored. In the early 1980s, Richard Feynman proposed the innovative idea of employing a controllable quantum system for efficient simulation of such complex problems. Currently, making controllable, large-scale quantum simulators and computers is intensely pursued by many academic and industrial research groups. In this talk, we look into recent advancements in superconducting-based quantum processors and ask whether these quantum processors have discovered any novel physical phenomena thus far. We find that in several instances they have contributed to our understanding of many-body quantum dynamics. While a large spectrum of problems beyond the realm of non-equilibrium quantum dynamics is awaiting these processors, it is exciting to see that there are already cases in which they challenge and guide our conventional wisdom.