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Systems of correlated particles appear in many fields of modern science and represent some of the most intractable computational problems in nature. The computational challenge in these systems arises when interactions become comparable to other energy scales, which makes the state of each particle depend on all other particles1. The lack of general solutions for the three-body problem and acceptable theory for strongly correlated electrons shows that our understanding of correlated systems fades when the particle number or the interaction strength increases. One of the hallmarks of interacting systems is the formation of multiparticle bound states2-9. Here we develop a high-fidelity parameterizable fSim gate and implement the periodic quantum circuit of the spin-½ XXZ model in a ring of 24 superconducting qubits. We study the propagation of these excitations and observe their bound nature for up to five photons. We devise a phase-sensitive method for constructing the few-body spectrum of the bound states and extract their pseudo-charge by introducing a synthetic flux. By introducing interactions between the ring and additional qubits, we observe an unexpected resilience of the bound states to integrability breaking. This finding goes against the idea that bound states in non-integrable systems are unstable when their energies overlap with the continuum spectrum. Our work provides experimental evidence for bound states of interacting photons and discovers their stability beyond the integrability limit.

Understanding how interacting particles approach thermal equilibrium is a major challenge of quantum simulators 1,2 . Unlocking the full potential of such systems towards this goal requires flexible initial state preparation, precise time evolution and extensive probes for final state characterization. Here we present a quantum simulator comprising 69 superconducting qubits that supports both universal quantum gates and high-fidelity analogue evolution, with performance beyond the reach of classical simulation in cross-entropy benchmarking experiments. This hybrid platform features more versatile measurement capabilities compared with analogue-only simulators, which we leverage here to reveal a coarsening-induced breakdown of Kibble-Zurek scaling predictions 3 in the XY model, as well as signatures of the classical Kosterlitz-Thouless phase transition 4 . Moreover, the digital gates enable precise energy control, allowing us to study the effects of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis 5-7 in targeted parts of the eigenspectrum. We also demonstrate digital preparation of pairwise-entangled dimer states, and image the transport of energy and vorticity during subsequent thermalization in analogue evolution. These results establish the efficacy of superconducting analogue-digital quantum processors for preparing states across many-body spectra and unveiling their thermalization dynamics., Competing Interests: Competing interests: A provisional patent application has been submitted for the analogue calibration scheme, titled ‘High-accuracy calibration of an analog quantum simulator’ (application number 63/639,509). The listed inventors are T.I.A., J.A.G., D.A.A. and X.M. The other authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Undesired coupling to the surrounding environment destroys long-range correlations in quantum processors and hinders coherent evolution in the nominally available computational space. This noise is an outstanding challenge when leveraging the computation power of near-term quantum processors 1 . It has been shown that benchmarking random circuit sampling with cross-entropy benchmarking can provide an estimate of the effective size of the Hilbert space coherently available 2-8 . Nevertheless, quantum algorithms' outputs can be trivialized by noise, making them susceptible to classical computation spoofing. Here, by implementing an algorithm for random circuit sampling, we demonstrate experimentally that two phase transitions are observable with cross-entropy benchmarking, which we explain theoretically with a statistical model. The first is a dynamical transition as a function of the number of cycles and is the continuation of the anti-concentration point in the noiseless case. The second is a quantum phase transition controlled by the error per cycle; to identify it analytically and experimentally, we create a weak-link model, which allows us to vary the strength of the noise versus coherent evolution. Furthermore, by presenting a random circuit sampling experiment in the weak-noise phase with 67 qubits at 32 cycles, we demonstrate that the computational cost of our experiment is beyond the capabilities of existing classical supercomputers. Our experimental and theoretical work establishes the existence of transitions to a stable, computationally complex phase that is reachable with current quantum processors., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Understanding universal aspects of quantum dynamics is an unresolved problem in statistical mechanics. In particular, the spin dynamics of the one-dimensional Heisenberg model were conjectured as to belong to the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class based on the scaling of the infinite-temperature spin-spin correlation function. In a chain of 46 superconducting qubits, we studied the probability distribution of the magnetization transferred across the chain's center, [Formula: see text]. The first two moments of [Formula: see text] show superdiffusive behavior, a hallmark of KPZ universality. However, the third and fourth moments ruled out the KPZ conjecture and allow for evaluating other theories. Our results highlight the importance of studying higher moments in determining dynamic universality classes and provide insights into universal behavior in quantum systems.

Engineered dissipative reservoirs have the potential to steer many-body quantum systems toward correlated steady states useful for quantum simulation of high-temperature superconductivity or quantum magnetism. Using up to 49 superconducting qubits, we prepared low-energy states of the transverse-field Ising model through coupling to dissipative auxiliary qubits. In one dimension, we observed long-range quantum correlations and a ground-state fidelity of 0.86 for 18 qubits at the critical point. In two dimensions, we found mutual information that extends beyond nearest neighbors. Lastly, by coupling the system to auxiliaries emulating reservoirs with different chemical potentials, we explored transport in the quantum Heisenberg model. Our results establish engineered dissipation as a scalable alternative to unitary evolution for preparing entangled many-body states on noisy quantum processors.

Inherent symmetry of a quantum system may protect its otherwise fragile states. Leveraging such protection requires testing its robustness against uncontrolled environmental interactions. Using 47 superconducting qubits, we implement the one-dimensional kicked Ising model, which exhibits nonlocal Majorana edge modes (MEMs) with [Formula: see text] parity symmetry. We find that any multiqubit Pauli operator overlapping with the MEMs exhibits a uniform late-time decay rate comparable to single-qubit relaxation rates, irrespective of its size or composition. This characteristic allows us to accurately reconstruct the exponentially localized spatial profiles of the MEMs. Furthermore, the MEMs are found to be resilient against certain symmetry-breaking noise owing to a prethermalization mechanism. Our work elucidates the complex interplay between noise and symmetry-protected edge modes in a solid-state environment.

We study variants of Shor's code that are adept at handling single-axis correlated idling errors, which are commonly observed in many quantum systems. By using the repetition code structure of the Shor's code basis states, we calculate the logical channel applied to the encoded information when subjected to coherent and correlated single qubit idling errors, followed by stabilizer measurement. Changing the signs of the stabilizer generators allows us to change how the coherent errors interfere, leading to a quantum error-correcting code which performs as well as a classical repetition code of equivalent distance against these errors. We demonstrate a factor of 3.78±1.20 improvement of the logical T2^{*} in a distance-3 logical qubit implemented on a trapped-ion quantum computer. Even-distance versions of our Shor-code variants are decoherence-free subspaces and fully robust to identical and independent coherent idling noise.

Quantum error correction protects fragile quantum information by encoding it into a larger quantum system 1,2 . These extra degrees of freedom enable the detection and correction of errors, but also increase the control complexity of the encoded logical qubit. Fault-tolerant circuits contain the spread of errors while controlling the logical qubit, and are essential for realizing error suppression in practice 3-6 . Although fault-tolerant design works in principle, it has not previously been demonstrated in an error-corrected physical system with native noise characteristics. Here we experimentally demonstrate fault-tolerant circuits for the preparation, measurement, rotation and stabilizer measurement of a Bacon-Shor logical qubit using 13 trapped ion qubits. When we compare these fault-tolerant protocols to non-fault-tolerant protocols, we see significant reductions in the error rates of the logical primitives in the presence of noise. The result of fault-tolerant design is an average state preparation and measurement error of 0.6 per cent and a Clifford gate error of 0.3 per cent after offline error correction. In addition, we prepare magic states with fidelities that exceed the distillation threshold 7 , demonstrating all of the key single-qubit ingredients required for universal fault-tolerant control. These results demonstrate that fault-tolerant circuits enable highly accurate logical primitives in current quantum systems. With improved two-qubit gates and the use of intermediate measurements, a stabilized logical qubit can be achieved., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

Coherent errors are a dominant noise process in many quantum computing architectures. Unlike stochastic errors, these errors can combine constructively and grow into highly detrimental overrotations. To combat this, we introduce a simple technique for suppressing systematic coherent errors in low-density parity-check stabilizer codes, which we call stabilizer slicing. The essential idea is to slice low-weight stabilizers into two equally weighted Pauli operators and then apply them by rotating in opposite directions, causing their overrotations to interfere destructively on the logical subspace. With access to native gates generated by three-body Hamiltonians, we can completely eliminate purely coherent overrotation errors, and for overrotation noise of 0.99 unitarity we achieve a 135-fold improvement in the logical error rate of surface-17. For more conventional two-body ion trap gates, we observe an 89-fold improvement for Bacon-Shor-13 with purely coherent errors which should be testable in near-term fault-tolerance experiments. This second scheme takes advantage of the prepared gauge degrees of freedom, and to our knowledge is the first example in which the state of the gauge directly affects the robustness of a code's memory. This Letter demonstrates that coherent noise is preferable to stochastic noise within certain code and gate implementations when the coherence is utilized effectively.