Quantum computer simulates how stored energy can become new particles

• Researchers used a programmable chain of 13 trapped ions to reproduce string-breaking dynamics analogous to the particle-antiparticle creation associated with quark confinement.
• Instead of the expected uniform production of charge pairs, the experiment revealed an unusual edge-driven mechanism in which pairs formed near the ends of the simulated string and spread inward.
• The Nature Physics experiment does not simulate full quantum chromodynamics, but it demonstrates how quantum machines could eventually tackle real-time high-energy physics problems that overwhelm classical computers.

A string stretched between two confined charges can store so much energy that breaking it becomes cheaper than stretching it farther. When that happens in particle physics, energy can transform into new particle-antiparticle pairs.

Researchers have now watched an analogue of that process unfold inside a programmable quantum simulator.

A Duke Quantum Center-led team encoded a simplified gauge theory into 13 trapped ions and followed its evolution in real time. The experiment reproduced charge confinement and string-breaking dynamics while revealing an unexpected way that simulated particle pairs can emerge from the string's edges.