Hybrid digital-analog protocols for simulating quantum multi-body interactions

Quantum Physics arXiv:2512.21385 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 24 Dec 2025] Title:Hybrid digital-analog protocols for simulating quantum multi-body interactions Authors:Or Katz, Alexander Schuckert, Tianyi Wang, Eleanor Crane, Alexey V. Gorshkov, Marko Cetina View a PDF of the paper titled Hybrid digital-analog protocols for simulating quantum multi-body interactions, by Or Katz and 5 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:While quantum simulators promise to explore quantum many-body physics beyond classical computation, their capabilities are limited by the available native interactions in the hardware. On many platforms, accessible Hamiltonians are largely restricted to one- and two-body interactions, limiting access to multi-body Hamiltonians and to systems governed by simultaneous, non-commuting interaction terms that are central to condensed matter, quantum chemistry, and high-energy physics. We introduce and experimentally demonstrate a hybrid digital-analog protocol that overcomes these limitations by embedding analog evolution between shallow entangling-gate layers. This method produces effective Hamiltonians with simultaneous non-commuting three- and four-body interactions that are generated non-perturbatively and without Trotter error -- capabilities not practically attainable on near-term hardware using purely digital or purely analog schemes. We implement our scheme on a trapped-ion quantum processor and use it to realize a topological spin chain exhibiting prethermal strong zero modes persisting at high temperature, as well as models featuring three- and four-body interactions. Our hardware-agnostic and scalable method opens new routes to realizing complex many-body physics across quantum platforms. Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas); Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech); Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el); High Energy Physics - Lattice (hep-lat) Cite as: arXiv:2512.21385 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2512.21385v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2512.21385 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Alexander Schuckert [view email] [v1] Wed, 24 Dec 2025 19:00:36 UTC (4,062 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Hybrid digital-analog protocols for simulating quantum multi-body interactions, by Or Katz and 5 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2025-12 Change to browse by: cond-mat cond-mat.quant-gas cond-mat.stat-mech cond-mat.str-el hep-lat References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) Links to Code Toggle Papers with Code (What is Papers with Code?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)