Preparing thermal states of frustrated quantum spin systems using 139 qubits
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Quantum Physics arXiv:2605.26245 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 25 May 2026] Title:Preparing thermal states of frustrated quantum spin systems using 139 qubits Authors:Roland C. Farrell, Yongtao Zhan, Lucas Katschke, Lode Pollet, Ilan T. Rosen, Jad C. Halimeh View a PDF of the paper titled Preparing thermal states of frustrated quantum spin systems using 139 qubits, by Roland C. Farrell and 4 other authors View PDF Abstract:Finite-temperature properties of strongly correlated quantum matter are central to condensed matter, chemistry, and high-energy physics, yet are often inaccessible to classical methods such as quantum Monte Carlo (QMC). Here, we investigate dissipative thermal state preparation of frustrated spin systems using digital quantum computers. We focus on two paradigmatic models on the kagome lattice: the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model (AFHM), whose finite-temperature properties are inaccessible to QMC due to a severe sign problem, and the antiferromagnetic Ising model (AFIM), which serves as a sign-problem-free benchmark. Using IBM quantum processors, we prepare approximate thermal states of the AFIM on kagome lattices with up to $79$ spins coupled to $60$ environment qubits. We observe the emergence of a robust steady state with an adjustable effective temperature that persists in circuits with over 1000 layers of two-qubit gates. We further study the scalability of the dissipative protocol through classical statevector simulations of the AFIM and AFHM. On lattices with up to 24 sites, we find that the circuit depth to reach thermal equilibrium is independent of system size and grows at most linearly with inverse temperature. These results establish engineered dissipation as a promising approach to finite-temperature quantum simulation of frustrated matter, and point toward regimes where quantum devices may outperform classical methods. Comments: Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech); Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) Cite as: arXiv:2605.26245 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2605.26245v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2605.26245 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Roland Farrell [view email] [v1] Mon, 25 May 2026 18:12:10 UTC (7,637 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Preparing thermal states of frustrated quantum spin systems using 139 qubits, by Roland C. Farrell and 4 other authorsView PDFTeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-05 Change to browse by: cond-mat cond-mat.stat-mech cond-mat.str-el 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?) 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?)