Cameron McGarry

Cameron McGarry

Researcher in atomic and photonic physics

Programmable quantum simulation of anharmonic dynamics

Published in ArXiv, 2026

Visual abstract: quantum simulation of dynamics in an anharmonic potential. (a) A double-well potential is synthesised using a parabolic contribution and a cosine contribution from a trigonometric gate. (b) A trapped-ion quantum simulator, with the spin providing the qubit and the motion the oscillator. (c) Dynamics in a symmetric double well; a wavepacket initialised in one well tunnels through the barrier to the opposite well.

This work demonstrates Trigonometric-Gate-Implemented Fourier Synthesis: a scheme that enables the synthesis of anharmonic dynamics on discrete-variable-continuous-variable quantum systems. We demonstrate the implementation of the trigonometric gate, in order to simulate tunnelling in a double-well potential.

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