State preparation and measurement in a quantum simulation of the O(3) sigma model

Recently, Singh and Chandrasekharan [Phys. Rev. D 100, 054505 (2019)] showed that fixed points of the nonlinear O(3) sigma model can be reproduced near a quantum phase transition of a spin model with just two qubits per lattice site. In a paper by the NuQS Collaboration [Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 090501 (2019)], the proposal is made to simulate such field theories on a quantum computer using the universal properties of a similar model. In this paper, following that direction, we demonstrate how to prepare the ground state of the model from Singh and Chandrasekharan and measure a dynamical quantity of interest, the O(3) Noether charge, on a quantum computer. In particular, we apply Trotter methods to obtain results for the complexity of adiabatic ground state preparation in both the weak-coupling and quantum-critical regimes and use shadow tomography to measure the dynamics of local observables. We then present and analyze a quantum algorithm based on nonunitary randomized simulation methods that may yield an approach suitable for intermediate-term noisy quantum devices.