Quantum Simulation of Oscillatory Unruh Effect with Superposed Trajectories

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2510.23050v1
• Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2025 06:26:11 GMT
• Title: Quantum Simulation of Oscillatory Unruh Effect with Superposed Trajectories
• Authors: Xu Cheng, Yue Li, Zehua Tian, Xingyu Zhao, Xi Qin, Yiheng Lin,
• Abstract summary: We use a laser-controlled trapped ion to experimentally simulate an oscillating detector coupled with a cavity field.<n>We observe joint excitation of both the detector and the field in the detector's frame, coincide with the coordinated dynamics predicted by the Unruh effect.<n>Our demonstration reveals properties of quantum coherent superposition of accelerating trajectories associated with quantum gravity theories.
• Score: 10.800274801719725
• License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/
• Abstract: The Unruh effect predicts an astonishing phenomenon that an accelerated detector would detect counts despite being in a quantum field vacuum in the rest frame. Since the required detector acceleration for its direct observation is prohibitively large, recent analog studies on quantum simulation platforms help to reveal various properties of the Unruh effect and explore the not-yet-understood physics of quantum gravity. To further reveal the quantum aspect of the Unruh effect, analogous experimental exploration of the correlation between the detector and the field, and the consequences for coherent quantum trajectories of the detector without classical counterparts, are essential steps but are currently missing. Here, we utilize a laser-controlled trapped ion to experimentally simulate an oscillating detector coupled with a cavity field. We observe joint excitation of both the detector and the field in the detector's frame, coincide with the coordinated dynamics predicted by the Unruh effect. Particularly, we simulate the detector moving in single and superposed quantum trajectories, where the latter case shows coherent interference of excitation. Our demonstration reveals properties of quantum coherent superposition of accelerating trajectories associated with quantum gravity theories that have no classical counterparts, and may offer a new avenue to investigate phenomena in quantum field theory and quantum gravity. We also show how a generalization of the method and results in this work may be beneficial for direct observation of the Unruh effect.

Related papers

• Experimental Demonstration of the Timelike Unruh Effect with a Trapped-Ion System [5.4343251275908635]
  Foundational theory shows that an equivalent thermal response, known as the timelike Unruh effect, can occur for detectors following specific timelike trajectories without acceleration.<n>Here, we report a proof-of-principle demonstration of the timelike Unruh effect in a quantum system of trapped ion.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2025-10-28T08:09:08Z)
• Velocity effects slightly mitigating the quantumness degradation of an Unruh-DeWitt detector [0.0]
  This work investigates the velocity effects on information degradation due to the Unruh effect in accelerated quantum systems.<n>The quantum systems studied were: accelerated single-qubit, quantum interferometric circuit, and which-path distinguishability circuit.<n>Results show that the addition of the non-relativistic, transverse and constant motion of an accelerated detector can play a protective role in quantumness in systems at high accelerations.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2025-09-30T20:01:24Z)
• Detectability of post-Newtonian classical and quantum gravity via quantum clock interferometry [9.13755431537592]
  We propose and theoretically analyze an experimental scheme to investigate how post-Newtonian gravity affects quantum systems.<n>We consider two setups: (i) a quantum clock interferometry setup designed to detect the gravitational field of a rotating mass, and (ii) a scheme exploring whether such effects could be used to generate gravity-induced entanglement.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2025-06-17T23:03:22Z)
• Entangled Unruh-DeWitt detectors amplify quantum coherence [10.476470705835427]
  We explore the quantum coherence between a pair of entangled Unruh-DeWitt detectors, interacting with a quantum field, using a nonperturbative approach.<n>For a maximally entangled state, increasing the coupling strength enhances the detectors' initial quantum coherence while simultaneously causing a monotonic decrease in their initial entanglement.<n>This reveals a remarkable phenomenon: through nonperturbative interactions, entangled Unruh-DeWitt detectors can exhibit a dual effect-amplifying quantum coherence while degrading quantum entanglement.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2025-06-17T02:16:36Z)
• Quantum Information meets High-Energy Physics: Input to the update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics [43.15404275280645]
  Some of the most astonishing and prominent properties of Quantum Mechanics, such as entanglement and Bell nonlocality, have only been studied extensively in dedicated low-energy laboratory setups.<n>The feasibility of these studies in the high-energy regime explored by particle colliders was only recently shown and has gathered the attention of the scientific community.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2025-03-31T18:00:01Z)
• Amplification of quantum transfer and quantum ratchet [56.47577824219207]
  We study a model of amplification of quantum transfer and making it directed which we call the quantum ratchet model. The ratchet effect is achieved in the quantum control model with dissipation and sink, where the Hamiltonian depends on vibrations in the energy difference synchronized with transitions between energy levels. Amplitude and frequency of the oscillating vibron together with the dephasing rate are the parameters of the quantum ratchet which determine its efficiency.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-12-31T14:04:43Z)
• Quantum data learning for quantum simulations in high-energy physics [55.41644538483948]
  We explore the applicability of quantum-data learning to practical problems in high-energy physics. We make use of ansatz based on quantum convolutional neural networks and numerically show that it is capable of recognizing quantum phases of ground states. The observation of non-trivial learning properties demonstrated in these benchmarks will motivate further exploration of the quantum-data learning architecture in high-energy physics.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-06-29T18:00:01Z)
• Simulating Chern insulators on a superconducting quantum processor [24.532662078542266]
  We experimentally demonstrate three types of Chern insulators with synthetic dimensions on a programable 30-qubit-ladder superconducting processor. Our work shows the potential of using superconducting qubits for investigating different intriguing topological phases of quantum matter.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2022-07-24T19:28:23Z)
• Trapped-Ion Quantum Simulation of Collective Neutrino Oscillations [55.41644538483948]
  We study strategies to simulate the coherent collective oscillations of a system of N neutrinos in the two-flavor approximation using quantum computation. We find that the gate complexity using second order Trotter- Suzuki formulae scales better with system size than with other decomposition methods such as Quantum Signal Processing.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2022-07-07T09:39:40Z)
• Coherence revival under the Unruh effect and its metrological advantage [2.3772112135888945]
  We find that quantum coherence as a nonclassical correlation can be generated through the Markovian evolution of the detector system.<n>We verify such coherence revival by inspecting its metrological advantage on the quantum Fisher information (QFI) enhancement.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-11-02T03:57:32Z)
• Simulation of Collective Neutrino Oscillations on a Quantum Computer [117.44028458220427]
  We present the first simulation of a small system of interacting neutrinos using current generation quantum devices. We introduce a strategy to overcome limitations in the natural connectivity of the qubits and use it to track the evolution of entanglement in real-time.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-02-24T20:51:25Z)
• Unruh Effect of Detectors with Quantized Center-of-Mass [0.0]
  The Unruh effect is the prediction that particle detectors accelerated through the vacuum get excited by the apparent presence of radiation quanta. Here, we study more realistic detectors whose center of mass is a quantized degree of freedom being accelerated by an external classical field. We find that the recoil due to the emission of Unruh quanta may be a relevant experimental signature of the Unruh effect.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-02-05T19:00:02Z)
• Information Scrambling in Computationally Complex Quantum Circuits [56.22772134614514]
  We experimentally investigate the dynamics of quantum scrambling on a 53-qubit quantum processor. We show that while operator spreading is captured by an efficient classical model, operator entanglement requires exponentially scaled computational resources to simulate.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-01-21T22:18:49Z)
• Probing the Universality of Topological Defect Formation in a Quantum Annealer: Kibble-Zurek Mechanism and Beyond [46.39654665163597]
  We report on experimental tests of topological defect formation via the one-dimensional transverse-field Ising model. We find that the quantum simulator results can indeed be explained by the KZM for open-system quantum dynamics with phase-flip errors. This implies that the theoretical predictions of the generalized KZM theory, which assumes isolation from the environment, applies beyond its original scope to an open system.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2020-01-31T02:55:35Z)

This list is automatically generated from the titles and abstracts of the papers in this site.

This site does not guarantee the quality of this site (including all information) and is not responsible for any consequences.