BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:Icfo X-PUBLISHED-TTL:P1W BEGIN:VEVENT UID:6a086e08a4841 DTSTART:20260529T083000Z SEQUENCE:0 TRANSP:OPAQUE LOCATION:Elements Room SUMMARY:ICFO | PAVEL PEYCHEV POPOV CLASS:PUBLIC DESCRIPTION:The spectacular progress in controlling quantum matter has open ed new avenues for studying fundamental physics. Various experimental plat forms now host hundreds of quantum units\, capable of quantum state engine ering\, Hamiltonian simulation and universal computation\, already surpass ing what is classically tractable. Remarkably\, the versatility of such qu antum simulators allows for investigating the physics from very high to ve ry low energy scales.\nWhile the long-term goal is to be able to perform f ault-tolerant quantum computation\, noisy intermediate scale quantum (NISQ ) devices are prone to errors and quantum algorithms need to be tailored t o the underlying physical platform by exploiting its advantages. In that r egard\, qudits offer enhanced Hilbert space dimension per information carr ier with respect to qubits\, allowing for significant reduction of costly entanglement operations. Moreover\, the higher-dimensional Hilbert space o f qudits natively accommodates complex many-body models\, thereby minimizi ng algorithmic overhead.\nIn this thesis\, we investigate the opportunitie s that qudit devices offer for the quantum simulation of lattice gauge the ories. Being extremely successful nonperturbative framework for studying t hree of the four fundamental interactions--electrodynamics\, the weak and the strong force-- lattice gauge theories can be formulated as many-body s ystems amenable to quantum simulation. This approach overcomes the intrins ic bottlenecks of classical methods\, unlocking the ability to explore out -of-equilibrium phenomena and finite-density equilibrium states. \;\nT he first part of this thesis is dedicated to the development of encoding p rocedures for lattice gauge theories with Abelian and non-Abelian symmetry on qudit quantum hardware. Building upon advances in the understanding of the structure of the gauge-invariant Hilbert space for specific symmetry groups\, we propose scalable qudit implementation of gauge theory models i n arbitrary spatial dimensions and devise variational protocols for their equilibrium and out-of-equilibrium simulation. Crucially\, our methods app ly to gauge theories with dynamical fermionic matter\, without the need fo r nonlocal encodings for the fermions\, as they are unitarily removed in t he encoding process.\nIn the second part of this thesis\, we use quantum-i nspired numerical techniques to reveal some of the plethora of physical ph enomena simple many-body models with local symmetry host. Using the multi- flavour Schwinger model (quantum electrodynamics in one spatial dimension) as an example\, we show how to identify signatures of fractons &mdash\; g auge field configurations with fractional topological charge. Furthermore\ , by examining pure gauge theories with non-Abelian dihedral symmetry\, we identify the importance of the central subgroup for the spectrum and the dynamics of the many-body model\, relating nontrivial fusion rules to lack of confinement and presence of exotic particle excitations. Most importan tly\, the lattice gauge models for both examples above\, due to their simp licity\, are amenable to near-term implementation on qudit quantum hardwar e.\nUltimately\, this work takes a significant step toward harnessing qudi t quantum devices for the simulation of high-energy and condensed-matter s ystems. By detailing resource-efficient hardware implementations and outli ning near-term applications\, our findings provide compelling motivation f or the continued symbiosis of theoretical design and experimental realizat ion.\n \;\nFriday May 29\, 10:30 h. Elements Room\nThesis Director: Pr of. Dr. Maciej Lewenstein and Dr Valentin Kasper DTSTAMP:20260516T131552Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR