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Bridging quantum computing and nuclear structure: Atomic nuclei on a trapped-ion quantum computer

Sota Yoshida*

Takeshi Sato

Takumi Ogata

Masaaki Kimura

  • Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan; Photon Science Center, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan; and Research Institute for Photon Science and Laser Technology, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan

  • RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-based Science, RIKEN, Wako 351-0198, Japan and Department of Physics/Quark Nuclear Science Institute, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan

  • *Contact author: syoshida@a.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp
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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 013134 – Published 6 February, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/td9s-z7my

Abstract

We demonstrate quantum simulations of strongly correlated nuclear many-body systems on the RIKEN-Quantinuum Reimei trapped-ion quantum computer, targeting ground states of oxygen, calcium, and nickel isotopes. By combining a hard-core-boson representation of the nuclear shell model with a pair-unitary coupled-cluster doubles ansatz, we achieve subpercent relative error in the ground-state energies compared to noise-free state vector simulations. Our approach leverages symmetry-aware state preparation and particle-number postselection to efficiently capture pairing correlations characteristic of systems with same-species nucleons. These findings highlight the viability of high-fidelity trapped-ion platforms for nuclear physics applications and provide a foundation for scaling to more complex nuclear systems.

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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 013134– Published 6 February, 2026
  • Received 11 November 2025
  • Accepted 20 January 2026
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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.

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