Spectroscopic signatures of localization with interacting photons in superconducting qubits.

Roushan, P; Neill, C; Tangpanitanon, J; Bastidas, V M; Megrant, A; Barends, R; Chen, Y; Chen, Z et al. · Science · 2017

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Quantized eigenenergies and their associated wave functions provide extensive information for predicting the physics of quantum many-body systems. Using a chain of nine superconducting qubits, we implement a technique for resolving the energy levels of interacting photons. We benchmark this method by capturing the main features of the intricate energy spectrum predicted for two-dimensional electrons in a magnetic field-the Hofstadter butterfly. We introduce disorder to study the statistics of the energy levels of the system as it undergoes the transition from a thermalized to a localized phase. Our work introduces a many-body spectroscopy technique to study quantum phases of matter.