Quantum Computing for High Energy Physics

Electric flux tube in SU(3) lattice gauge theory on a 4x4 spatial torus, showing flux tube spreading as the coupling decreases.

We develop quantum algorithms, simulation methods, and software tools for problems in high energy physics and lattice gauge theory. Based at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Department of Physics.

Circuit Hamiltonians for SU(3) lattice gauge theory. Tools for constructing and simulating Yang-Mills lattice gauge theories on quantum hardware.

A Python package for calculating SU(N) Clebsch-Gordan coefficients.

Expectation value measurements in Qiskit using optimal dense grouping. Provides ~2^m improvement over naive grouping and (3/2)^m over qubit-wise commuting groups. Part of the Qiskit ecosystem.

Wavepacket collision on a 16-site product lattice at g=1.5.

Principal Investigator

Patrick Draper — UIUC Physics

Current Graduate Students

• Praveen Balaji
• Cianan Conefrey-Shinozaki
• Jason Elhaderi
• Drishti Gupta
• Luis Hidalgo
• Dillon McClure
• Rajesh Mishra
• Ajax Quinn

Alumni

• Jiayu Shen — JP Morgan, Quantum Computing Group
• Nouman Butt — Postdoc, University of Rhode Island
• Andrew Lytle — Program Manager, National Quantum Algorithms Center

1. Perturbation theory, irrep truncations, and state preparation methods for quantum simulations of SU(3) lattice gauge theory P. Balaji, C. Conefrey-Shinozaki, P. Draper, J. K. Elhaderi, D. Gupta, L. Hidalgo, A. Lytle (2025) arXiv:2509.25865 — INSPIRE

2. Hamiltonian truncation and quantum simulation of strong-field QED beyond tree level P. Draper, L. Hidalgo, A. Ilderton (2025) arXiv:2509.15495 — INSPIRE

3. Three-qubit encoding in ytterbium-171 atoms for simulating 1+1D quantum chromodynamics W. Huie, C. Conefrey-Shinozaki, Z. Jia, P. Draper, J. P. Covey (2026) arXiv:2507.18426 — PRX Quantum — INSPIRE

4. Quantum circuits for SU(3) lattice gauge theory P. Balaji, C. Conefrey-Shinozaki, P. Draper, J. K. Elhaderi, D. Gupta, L. Hidalgo, A. Lytle, E. Rinaldi (2025) arXiv:2503.08866 — Phys. Rev. D — INSPIRE

5. Quantum simulations for strong-field QED L. Hidalgo, P. Draper (2024) arXiv:2311.18209 — Phys. Rev. D — INSPIRE

6. Fast partitioning of Pauli strings into commuting families for expectation value measurements of dense operators B. Reggio, N. Butt, A. Lytle, P. Draper (2024) arXiv:2305.11847 — Phys. Rev. A — INSPIRE

7. Simulating dimensionally reduced 4D Yang-Mills theory on a quantum computer N. Butt, P. Draper, J. Shen (2023) arXiv:2211.10870 — Phys. Rev. D — INSPIRE

8. Vacuum decay and Euclidean lattice Monte Carlo J. Shen, P. Draper, A. X. El-Khadra (2023) arXiv:2210.05925 — Phys. Rev. D — INSPIRE

9. Simulating quantum mechanics with a θ-term and an 't Hooft anomaly on a synthetic dimension J. Shen, D. Luo, C. Huang, B. K. Clark, A. X. El-Khadra, B. Gadway, P. Draper (2022) arXiv:2107.08073 — Phys. Rev. D — INSPIRE

Full publication list on INSPIRE-HEP