Topological prethermal strong zero modes on superconducting processors
Abstract
Abstract Symmetry-protected topological phases 1–4 cannot be described by any local order parameter and are beyond the conventional symmetry-breaking model 5 . They are characterized by topological boundary modes that remain stable under symmetry respecting perturbations 1–4,6–8 . In clean, gapped systems without disorder, the stability of these edge modes is restricted to the zero-temperature manifold; at finite temperatures, interactions with mobile thermal excitations lead to their decay 9–11 . Here we report the observation of a distinct type of topological edge mode 12–14 , which is protected by emergent symmetries and persists across the entire spectrum, in an array of 100 programmable superconducting qubits. Through digital quantum simulation of a one-dimensional disorder-free stabilizer Hamiltonian, we observe robust long-lived topological edge modes over up to 30 cycles for a wide range of initial states. We show that the interaction between these edge modes and bulk excitations can be suppressed by dimerizing the stabilizer strength, leading to an emergent U(1) × U(1) symmetry in the prethermal regime of the system. Furthermore, we exploit these topological edge modes as logical qubits and prepare a logical Bell state, which exhibits persistent coherence, despite the system being disorder-free and at finite temperature. Our results establish a viable digital simulation approach 15–18 to experimentally study topological matter at finite temperature and demonstrate a potential route to construct long-lived, robust boundary qubits in disorder-free systems.
Article Details
Authors (45)
Feitong Jin
Si Jiang
Xuhao Zhu
Zehang Bao
Fanhao Shen
Ke Wang
Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital Tianjin China
Zitian Zhu
Shibo Xu
Zixuan Song
Jiachen Chen
Ziqi Tan
Yaozu Wu
Chuanyu Zhang
Yu Gao
Ning Wang
Yiren Zou
Aosai Zhang
Tingting Li
Jiarun Zhong
Zhengyi Cui
Yihang Han
Yiyang He
Han Wang
Jia-Nan Yang
Yanzhe Wang
Jiayuan Shen
Gongyu Liu
Jinfeng Deng
Hang Dong
Pengfei Zhang
Weikang Li
Dong Yuan
Zhide Lu
Zheng-Zhi Sun
Hekang Li
Junxiang Zhang
Chao Song
Zhen Wang
Qiujiang Guo
Francisco Machado
Jack Kemp
Thomas Iadecola
Norman Y. Yao
H. Wang
Dong-Ling Deng