Quantum phase transitions exhibit very complex quantum behavior, making them particularly relevant for study on the latest generation of computational hardware – namely,  quantum computers.

In the simulation, the systems beings in the so-called classical ferromagnetic state (with all spins aligned in the same direction) and is then slowly and continuously driven into antiferromagnetic state, where neighboring spins point in opposite directions. During this transition, the system's state can split along two paths, forcing the quantum computer to either select one of the two or attain kind of superposition of both. The former case is known as spontaneous symmetry breaking, a phenomenon that occurs widely in nature – Arguably, one of the most famous examples is that of the Higgs field in particle physics.

The new quantum algorithm, called digitized adiabatic evolution,  was developed in a collaboration between researchers in Brazil, Spain and at IFA. The algorithm is an extension of an similar approach that has for many years been used for analog quantum simulations. The key difference is that the new algorithm can be applied to industrial quantum computers. This means it is already useful today – and perhaps even more importantly: it can be used on the fault-tolerant quantum computers of the future.

The driving force in the developments done at the Dept. of Physics and Astronomy at Aarhus University was Kasper Poulsen, who obtained his PhD in 2024 under the supervision of Nikolaj Zinner. He is now working on quantum algorithm development at Kvantify.

The original paper can be found here: www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-57812-8