Quantum simulation of quantum field theory in the light-front formulation

Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) describes the structure of hadrons such as the proton at a fundamental level. The precision of calculations in QCD limits the precision of the values of many physical parameters extracted from collider data. For example, uncertainty in the parton distribution function is the dominant source of error in the W mass measurement at the Large Hadron Collider. Improving the precision of such measurements is essential in the search for new physics. Quantum simulation offers an efficient way of studying quantum field theories (QFTs) such as QCD nonperturbatively. Previous quantum algorithms for simulating QFTs have qubit requirements that are well beyond the most ambitious experimental proposals for large-scale quantum computers. Can the qubit requirements for such algorithms be brought into range of quantum computation with several thousand logical qubits? We show how this can be achieved by using the light-front formulation of quantum field theory. This work was inspired by the similarity of the light-front formulation to quantum chemistry, first noted by Wilson [Nucl. Phys. B, Proc. Suppl. 17, 82 (1990)].