Observing the fate of the false vacuum with a quantum laboratory

Understand

We design and implement a quantum laboratory to experimentally observe and study dynamical processes of quantum field theories.

• Our approach encodes the field theory as an Ising model, which is then solved by a quantum annealer.
• As a proof-of-concept, we encode a scalar field theory and measure the probability for it to tunnel from the false to the true vacuum for various tunnelling times, vacuum displacements and potential profiles.
• The results are in accord with those predicted theoretically, showing that a quantum annealer is a genuine quantum system that can be used as a quantum laboratory.