Curator's Take
This research tackles one of quantum computing's most promising applications by developing a practical framework for simulating topological quantum materials on gate-based quantum computers. The work is particularly significant because it demonstrates how to probe the delicate interplay between topology and many-body interactions in the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger-Hubbard model, revealing that topological protection can survive weak interactions but breaks down beyond certain thresholds. What makes this especially valuable is the polynomial scaling of computational resources with system size, suggesting this approach could be feasible on near-term quantum devices to study exotic quantum phases that are extremely difficult to analyze classically. This represents a concrete step toward using quantum simulators to unlock new physics in topological materials, which could ultimately inform the design of robust quantum devices and novel electronic materials.
— Mark Eatherly
Summary
We develop an adiabatic quantum simulation framework on gate-based quantum computers to probe topological signatures of the one-dimensional fermionic Su--Schrieffer--Heeger--Hubbard (SSHH) model. We present explicit quantum-circuit constructions for initial-state preparation and time evolution, together with a practical measurement protocol and classical post-processing procedure for extracting the many-body Berry phase and the spatial profile of the sublattice polarization. Using classical simulations of the proposed circuits, we demonstrate -- for the first time within a genuine many-body framework -- that the topological characteristics of the SSH model remain robust against weak Hubbard interactions but eventually break down as the chiral-symmetry-breaking component of the interaction exceeds a threshold. The required qubit number, gate complexity, measurement shots, and classical pre- and post-processing costs all scale polynomially with system size. Our results provide a proof-of-concept framework for probing topological properties of interacting many-body systems via adiabatic quantum simulation on future large-scale quantum computers.