Quantum Computing for High-Energy Physics: State of the Art and Challenges
Alberto Di Meglio, Karl Jansen, Ivano Tavernelli, Constantia Alexandrou, Srinivasan Arunachalam, C. Bauer, K. Borras, Stefano Carrazza, Arianna Crippa, V. Croft, Roland de Putter, Andrea Delgado, Vedran Dunjko, Daniel J. Egger, Elías F. Combarro, Elina Fuchs, Lena Funcke, Daniel González-Cuadra, Michele Grossi, Jad C. Halimeh, Zoë Holmes, Stefan Kühn, Denis Lacroix, Randy Lewis, D. Lucchesi, Miriam Lucio Martínez, F. Meloni, Antonio Mezzacapo, Simone Montangero, Lento Nagano, V. R. Pascuzzi, V. Radescu, E. Rico, Alessandro Roggero, Julian Schuhmacher, Joao Seixas, Pietro Silvi, Panagiotis Spentzouris, Francesco Tacchino, Kristan Temme, K. Terashi, Jordi Tura, Cenk Tüysüz, S. Vallecorsa, U.‐J. Wiese, Shinjae Yoo, Jinglei Zhang
Abstract
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. Published by the American Physical Society 2024