[RBRC seminar] Towards quantum simulations of heavy-ion collisions (and a bit of cosmology)

by Dr David Frenklakh (BNL)

Thursday 20 Nov 2025, 12:30 → 14:30 US/Eastern

2-160 ( https://bnl.zoomgov.com/j/1600983728?pwd=RAD7OLcqre7Ycsp6JfFp6HAnpyLxex.1)

Understanding real-time, nonperturbative dynamics in strongly interacting matter, such as the quark–gluon plasma, is notoriously difficult for Euclidean lattice methods because of the sign problem. Recently, however, quantum-simulation platforms and classical Hamiltonian techniques have made remarkable progress, offering a natural approach to real-time physics.

 

In this talk, I will present two applications of this emerging program using controlled (1+1)-dimensional toy models, studied with Hamiltonian methods on classical computers. In the first part, we explore the dynamics of a thermal medium, examining how meson spectral properties change with temperature and how energy-flow correlators behave in both vacuum and finite-temperature settings. These observables provide a new window into microscopic dynamics and medium effects.

 

In the second part, I will turn to quantum dynamics in an expanding background, implemented through a time-dependent metric. Starting from the vacuum, we observe particle production, correlation growth, and the emergence of entanglement—phenomena that are challenging to capture in an interacting QFT using traditional approaches. Besides their direct connection to cosmology, these results provide a foundation for future simulations with more realistic initial conditions relevant to heavy-ion physics.