Determining quantum phase diagrams of topological Kitaev-inspired models on NISQ quantum hardware

Understand

Topological protection is employed in fault-tolerant error correction and in developing quantum algorithms with topological qubits.

• But, topological protection intrinsic to models being simulated, also robustly protects calculations, even on NISQ hardware.
• We leverage it by simulating Kitaev-inspired models on IBM quantum computers and accurately determining their phase diagrams.
• This requires constructing conventional quantum circuits for Majorana braiding to prepare the ground states of Kitaev-inspired models.