Understanding the Dynamics of SU(2) Gauge Theories in Max Tree Gauge

ORAL

Abstract

Simulating lattice gauge theories on quantum devices necessitates utilizing the Hamiltonian formulation. In recent years, much effort has focused on constructing various approaches, using myriad bases, truncation schemes and degrees of gauge fixing. Ideally, a formulation would be systematically improvable, efficient for fine lattices, and gauge invariant. No such formulation has yet been developed and so at least one of these desired properties must be sacrificed. In this talk, I focus on a formulation, developed in the last several years, that utilizes the axis-angle representation of SU(2) and is gauge-fixed using a max-tree gauge fixing procedure. Due to gauge fixing, not only can this formulation be simulate close to the continuum limit more efficiently than many non-gauge fixed formations, but there is a plethora of analytic results that can help bound simulation results. I will present several of these analytic results and discuss their implications for numerical simulations of the dynamics of an SU(2) gauge theory. I will also touch briefly on results from simulations of this system on small lattice volumes.

*DMG is supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics, InQubator for Quantum Simulation (IQuS) under Award Number DOE (NP) Award DE-SC0020970 via the program on Quantum Horizons: QIS Research and Innovation for Nuclear Science. DMG is also supported, in part, through the Department of Physics and the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington. 

Publication: Fully gauge-fixed SU(2) Hamiltonian for quantum simulations (arXiv: 2409.10610; Phys.Rev.D 111 (2025) 11, 114516)
New basis for Hamiltonian SU(2) simulations (arXiv: 2307.11829; Phys.Rev.D 109 (2024) 7, 074501 )
Dynamics of Two Plaquettes in Fully Gauge Fixed SU(2) (work in progress; working title, to be put on arXiv 12/2025)
Analytic Results for SU(2) Gauge Theories in Max Tree Gauge (work in progress; no title yet, expected on arXiv 02/2026)

Presenters

  • Dorota Grabowska

    • University of Washington, Seattle

Authors

  • Dorota Grabowska

    • University of Washington, Seattle
  • Henry F Froland

    • University of Washington
  • Zhiyao Li

    • University of Washington