Simulating Spin Chains Using a Superconducting Circuit: Gauge Invariance, Superadiabatic Transport, and Broken Time-Reversal Symmetry

Abstract

Simulation of materials by using quantum processors is envisioned to be a major direction of development in quantum information science. Here, the mathematical analogies between a triangular spin lattice with Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya coupling on one edge and a three-level system driven by three fields in a loop configuration are exploited to emulate spin-transport effects. It is shown that the spin transport efficiency, seen in the three-level system as population transfer, is enhanced when the conditions for superadiabaticity are satisfied. It is demonstrated experimentally that phenomena characteristic to spin lattices due to gauge invariance, non-reciprocity, and broken time-reversal symmetry can be reproduced in the three-level system.