Topological prethermal strong zero modes on superconducting processors

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Jin, Feitong; Jiang, Si; Zhu, Xuhao; Bao, Zehang; Shen, Fanhao; Wang, Ke; Zhu, Zitian; Xu, Shibo; Song, Zixuan; Chen, Jiachen; Tan, Ziqi; Wu, Yaozu; Zhang, Chuanyu; Gao, Yu; Wang, Ning; Zou, Yiren; Zhang, Aosai; Li, Tingting; Zhong, Jiarun; Cui, Zhengyi; Han, Yihang; He, Yiyang; Wang, Han; Yang, Jia-Nan; Wang, Yanzhe; Shen, Jiayuan; Liu, Gongyu; Deng, Jinfeng; Dong, Hang; Zhang, Pengfei; Li, Weikang; Yuan, Dong; Lu, Zhide; Sun, Zheng-Zhi; Li, Hekang; Zhang, Junxiang; Song, Chao; Wang, Zhen; Guo, Qiujiang; Machado, Francisco; Kemp, Jack; Iadecola, Thomas; Yao, Norman Y.; Wang, H.; Deng, Dong-Ling
• 署名单位: Zhejiang University; Zhejiang University; Tsinghua University; Shanghai Qi Zhi Institute; Leiden University - Excl LUMC; Leiden University; Hefei National Laboratory; Harvard University; Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory; Smithsonian Institution; Harvard University; University of Cambridge; Iowa State University; United States Department of Energy (DOE); Ames National Laboratory
• 刊物名称: Nature
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0028-1222
• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09476-z
• 发表日期: 2025-09-18
• 关键词: many-body localization; quantum

摘要

Symmetry-protected topological phases1, 2, 3-4 cannot be described by any local order parameter and are beyond the conventional symmetry-breaking model5. They are characterized by topological boundary modes that remain stable under symmetry respecting perturbations1, 2, 3-4,6, 7-8. In clean, gapped systems without disorder, the stability of these edge modes is restricted to the zero-temperature manifold; at finite temperatures, interactions with mobile thermal excitations lead to their decay9, 10-11. Here we report the observation of a distinct type of topological edge mode12, 13-14, which is protected by emergent symmetries and persists across the entire spectrum, in an array of 100 programmable superconducting qubits. Through digital quantum simulation of a one-dimensional disorder-free stabilizer Hamiltonian, we observe robust long-lived topological edge modes over up to 30 cycles for a wide range of initial states. We show that the interaction between these edge modes and bulk excitations can be suppressed by dimerizing the stabilizer strength, leading to an emergent U(1) x U(1) symmetry in the prethermal regime of the system. Furthermore, we exploit these topological edge modes as logical qubits and prepare a logical Bell state, which exhibits persistent coherence, despite the system being disorder-free and at finite temperature. Our results establish a viable digital simulation approach15, 16, 17-18 to experimentally study topological matter at finite temperature and demonstrate a potential route to construct long-lived, robust boundary qubits in disorder-free systems.