Quantum simulation of the Dirac equation
By R. Gerritsma, G. Kirchmair, F. Zähringer, Enrique Solano, Rainer Blatt, C. F. Roos. Nature, 2009
654 citations recorded by the source corpus.
The Dirac equation successfully merges quantum mechanics with special relativity. It provides a natural description of the electron spin, predicts the existence of antimatter and is able to reproduce accurately the spectrum of the hydrogen atom. The realm of the Dirac equation—relativistic quantum mechanics—is considered to be the natural transition to quantum field theory. However, the Dirac equation also predicts some peculiar effects, such as Klein’s paradox and ‘Zitterbewegung’, an unexpected quivering motion of a free relativistic quantum particle. These and other predicted phenomena are key fundamental examples for understanding relativistic quantum effects, but are difficult to observe in real particles. In recent years, there has been increased interest in simulations of relativistic quantum effects using different physical set-ups, in which parameter tunability allows access to different physical regimes. Here we perform a proof-of-principle quantum simulation of the one-dimensional Dirac equation using a single trapped ion set to behave as a free relativistic quantum particle. We measure the particle position as a function of time and study Zitterbewegung for different initial superpositions of positive- and negative-energy spinor states, as well as the crossover from relativistic to non-relativistic dynamics. The high level of control of trapped-ion experimental parameters makes it possible to simulate textbook examples of relativistic quantum physics.
Subfields: Artificial Intelligence, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ec41cfa81876f9863e30b4d946c21a3fe61ce78a
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In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
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Citations in the corpus
- Ultrastrong coupling regimes of light-matter interaction (2018, methodology): “We want 30 to point out some crucial differences with regards to previous implementations of the Dirac equation Klein paradox in other quantum platforms, particularly ion traps (Gerritsma et al., 2010).”
- Colloquium: Artificial gauge potentials for neutral atoms (2010, background): “It was recently observed for the latter systems (Gerritsma et al., 2010).”
- Lattice gauge theory simulations in the quantum information era (2016, background): “the pioneering work on the Dirac equation [142]).”
- Simulating chemistry using quantum computers. (2010, background): “This platform has already produced sophisticated simulations of physical systems (45,67,46), but chemical applications are still to come.”