Observation of Bloch oscillations and Wannier-Stark localization on a superconducting quantum processor

This paper reports the experimental observation of Bloch oscillations (BOs) and Wannier-Stark localization (WSL) simulated using a 5-qubit superconducting processor. By applying a linear potential to the system, the researchers observed suppressed spin propagation and oscillations near initial positions, characteristic of BOs and WSL. The WSL length was shown to be inversely correlated with the potential gradient. Simultaneous readout of multiple qubits enabled the investigation of thermal transport, which was also found to be blocked under a linear potential. The scalability of this approach suggests its potential for simulating various out-of-equilibrium problems in quantum many-body systems.

Xue-Yi Guo, Zi-Yong Ge, Hekang Li, Zhan Wang, Yu-Ran Zhang, Pengtao Song, Zhongcheng Xiang, Xiaohui Song, Yirong Jin, Li Lu, Kai Xu, Dongning Zheng, Heng Fan