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Quantum simulation of dynamical response functions of equilibrium states

Esther Cruz, Dominik S. Wild, Mari Carmen Bañuls, and J. Ignacio Cirac

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Phys. Rev. A 112, 032610 – Published 12 September, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/lpz2-j7vg

Abstract

The computation of dynamical response functions is central to many problems in condensed matter physics. Owing to the rapid growth of quantum correlations following a quench, classical methods face significant challenges even if an efficient description of the equilibrium state is available. Quantum computing offers a promising alternative. However, existing approaches often assume access to the equilibrium state, which may be difficult to prepare in practice. In this work, we present a method that circumvents this by using energy filter techniques, enabling the computation of response functions and other dynamical properties in both microcanonical and canonical ensembles. Our approach only requires the preparation of states that have significant weight at the desired energy. The dynamical response functions are then reconstructed from measurements after quenches of varying duration by classical postprocessing. We illustrate the algorithm numerically by applying it to compute the dynamical conductivity of a free-fermion model, which unveils the energy-dependent localization properties of the model.

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Phys. Rev. A 112, 032610– Published 12 September, 2025
  • Received 16 May 2025
  • Accepted 5 August 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by Max Planck Society.

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