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Putting fermions onto a digital quantum computer

arXiv Quantum Physics
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⚡ Quantum Brief
A team of 11 quantum physicists challenges the misconception that simulating multi-dimensional fermionic systems on qubit-based quantum computers is inherently harder than one-dimensional cases. The paper reviews established and emerging methods for encoding fermionic degrees of freedom into qubits, emphasizing practical implementations for digital quantum computers. Authors argue that fermion-to-qubit mappings—long used in classical physics—can be efficiently adapted for quantum simulations, debunking persistent scalability myths. Key focus includes optimizing transformations like Jordan-Wigner and Bravyi-Kitaev for near-term quantum hardware, balancing accuracy and resource constraints. The work aims to accelerate quantum chemistry and condensed matter physics applications by clarifying fermionic system simulation feasibility on current and future devices.
Putting fermions onto a digital quantum computer

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Quantum Physics arXiv:2602.07151 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 6 Feb 2026] Title:Putting fermions onto a digital quantum computer Authors:Riley W. Chien, Mitchell L. Chiew, Brent Harrison, Jason Necaise, Weishi Wang, Maryam Mudassar, Campbell McLauchlan, Thomas M. Henderson, Gustavo E. Scuseria, Sergii Strelchuk, James D. Whitfield View a PDF of the paper titled Putting fermions onto a digital quantum computer, by Riley W. Chien and 10 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Quantum computers are expected to become a powerful tool for studying physical quantum systems. Consequently, a number of quantum algorithms for studying the physical properties of such systems have been developed. While qubit-based quantum computers are naturally suited to the study of spin-1/2 systems, systems containing other degrees of freedom must first be encoded into qubits. Transformations to and from fermionic degrees of freedom have long been an important tool in physics and, now the simulation of fermionic systems on quantum computers based on qubits provides yet another application. In this perspective, we review methods for encoding fermionic degrees of freedom into qubits and attempt to dispel the persistent notion that fermionic systems beyond one dimension are fundamentally more difficult to deal with. Comments: Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2602.07151 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2602.07151v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2602.07151 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: James Whitfield [view email] [v1] Fri, 6 Feb 2026 19:50:44 UTC (352 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Putting fermions onto a digital quantum computer, by Riley W. Chien and 10 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-02 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?)

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government-funding
quantum-computing
quantum-algorithms
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Source: arXiv Quantum Physics