Time reversal and charge conjugation in an embedding quantum simulator

Abstract

A quantum simulator is an important device that may soon outperform current classical computations. A basic arithmetic operation, the complex conjugate, however, is considered to be impossible to be implemented in such a quantum system due to the linear character of quantum mechanics. Here, we present the experimental quantum simulation of such an unphysical operation beyond the regime of unitary and dissipative evolutions through the embedding of a quantum dynamics in the electronic multilevels of a 171Yb+ ion. We perform time reversal and charge conjugation, which are paradigmatic examples of antiunitary symmetry operators, in the evolution of a Majorana equation without the tomographic knowledge of the evolving state. Thus, these operations can be applied regardless of the system size. Our approach offers the possibility to add unphysical operations to the toolbox of quantum simulation, and provides a route to efficiently compute otherwise intractable quantities, such as entanglement monotones.