Speaker
Description
The strong nuclear force, described by the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), controls the behavior of quarks and gluons—the fundamental constituents of most visible matter. Despite decades of theoretical and experimental progress, many key questions remain unresolved: How do the dynamics of quarks and gluons give rise to emergent structures such as nucleons and nuclei? What is the phase diagram of nuclear matter, and what are the real-time and non-equilibrium dynamics at collider experiments and in the early universe? Although perturbative methods and lattice QCD have advanced our understanding, some of the most demanding problems lie beyond the reach of classical computation. Recent developments in quantum computing, together with new algorithmic strategies, offer promising avenues for tackling these challenges. One of the most challenging aspects of quantum simulations in fundamental physics is the preparation of ground states, which I will focus on in this talk. Specifically, I will discuss the development of adaptive variational algorithms (ADAPT-VQE) for bosonic Hamiltonians. These techniques not only accelerate and improve variational simulations compared to traditional approaches for lattice field theory, but also have broad relevance across condensed matter physics, quantum chemistry, and other strongly correlated quantum systems.