Date/Time
Date(s) - 19/10/2023
1:30 pm - 2:30 pm

Please join us this week on Thursday for our department seminar, featuring Dr. Ryan MacDonnell from Dalhousie University, hosted by Dr. Rodrigo Vargas Hernandez. This presentation will be available via Zoom only.

Title: Not your regular computers: Simulating chemical dynamics with analog quantum simulators

Date: Thursday October 19

Time: 1:30-2:30pm

Host: Dr. Rodrigo Vargas Hernandez

Abstract: Our theoretical understanding of photochemistry remains poor despite nearly a century of developments in quantum chemistry, particularly for non-radiative transitions between electronic states. After photoexcitation, a molecule may be in an energetically unstable structure on an excited electronic state. This instability can lead to ultrafast structural changes, nuclear quantum effects, and internal conversion. The dynamical and quantum mechanical nature of photochemistry hinders its simulation on conventional computers. In recent years, quantum computing has been proposed as an advantageous platform for quantum chemistry. Recently, we showed how vibronic coupling Hamiltonians map onto the Hamiltonians of certain quantum devices in a controllable manner, making them an ideal analog simulation platform for vibronic photochemical dynamics. Our approach can be used to determine properties such as electronic state populations, absorption spectra, and nuclear densities. It also has the ability to incorporate environmental noise to simulate system-bath interactions. To move beyond the classical pre-calcuation needed for vibronic coupling models, we are developing quantum simulation techniques with explicit treatment of electronic and nuclear interactions, with the goal of demonstrating a practical quantum advantage in the near term.