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  • Open Access

Configurable Photonic Simulator for Quantum Field Dynamics

Mauro D’Achille1,*, Martin Gärttner1,†, and Tobias Haas2,3,‡

  • *Contact author: mauro.dachille@uni-jena.de
  • †Contact author: martin.gaerttner@uni-jena.de
  • ‡Contact author: tobias.haas@uni-ulm.de
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PRX Quantum 7, 020370 – Published 25 June, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/8z9p-tygz

Abstract

Quantum field simulators provide unique opportunities for investigating the dynamics of quantum fields through tabletop experiments. A primary drawback of standard encoding schemes is their rigidity: altering the theory, its coupling geometry, metric structure, or simulation time typically requires redesigning the experimental setup, which imposes strong constraints on the types of dynamics and theories that can be simulated. Here, we introduce the Optical Time Algorithm (OTA) as a unifying framework, enabling the efficient simulation of large classes of free quantum field dynamics using a single optical circuit design that separates the time from the Hamiltonian’s structure. By modifying the parameters of the optical elements, our method allows us to engineer timescales, coupling graphs, spacetime metrics, and boundary conditions, thereby facilitating the implementation of relativistic and nonrelativistic, real- and complex-valued, short- and long-range quantum field theories on both flat and curved spacetimes. We exploit the OTA’s configurability to investigate the spreading of quantum correlations in space and time for theories with continuously varying coupling ranges. Relevant features predicted by quantum field theory can be observed in systems with 10 to 20 modes under realistic conditions, paving the way for experimental implementations.

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Popular Summary

Quantum field theories (QFTs) are used to model physical phenomena across extreme scales, from the interactions between elementary particles to the evolution of the universe as a whole, making it difficult to observe their predictions directly.

We develop a scheme to realize QFTs in the lab using light fields manipulated by optical elements. When spatially discretized, real scalar field theories map to a collection of coupled oscillators, or equivalently, modes of the quantized electromagnetic field. Our quantum simulation algorithm, the optical time algorithm (OTA), decomposes the unitary time evolution of a large class of QFTs into beam splitters, phase shifters, and squeezers in a versatile and experimentally friendly way.

The OTA is robust to the experimental noise typical of integrated-optics experiments and captures continuum QFT predictions using only a dozen spatial grid points, or modes. If augmented with photon-number-resolving detectors, the proposed experiment resembles a Gaussian boson sampler, offering a means to probe effects that are hard to simulate on classical computers.

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PRX Quantum 7, 020370– Published 25 June, 2026
  • Received 10 July 2025
  • Revised 27 March 2026
  • Accepted 12 May 2026
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