We develop a quantum simulation approach that enable platforms with controllable bosonic degrees of freedom, such as the trapped ions and circuit-QED, to simulate the dynamics of matter in response to illumination by extremely weak light fields.
The dynamics of matter under weak-field illumination dictates the behavior of photodetectors, photovoltaics, and biochemical systems such as photosynthetic light harvesting complexes. Simulating this dynamics can be computationally demanding, and we show how quantum simulators can alleviate this burden.
The key innovation in our work is a scheme for simulating interactions with a continuum field using only a few discrete bosonic modes, which is enabled by a Green’s function (response function) formalism. Our work expands the reach of quantum simulation to important light-matter interaction models and illustrates the advantages of extracting dynamical quantities such as response functions from quantum simulations.
For details see
“Quantum simulation of weak-field light-matter interactions”, S. M. Young, M. Sarovar. arXiv:2112.07177.