University College London Researchers Validate Quantum Thermodynamic Sampling with Graphene System
Researchers from University College London and London South Bank University have successfully developed and validated a framework for extracting thermodynamic properties of materials using the QuEra Aquila neutral-atom quantum system. This system, scaled to 78 sites, was tested on nitrogen-doped graphene. Initially, the team used exhaustive enumeration for validation on a smaller 28-site graphene nanoflake, before expanding to the larger 78-site system. Monte Carlo sampling confirmed the preferential sampling of low-energy configurations. The research involved translating energetics derived from Density Functional Theory into a Rydberg-atom Hamiltonian suitable for quantum annealing. A significant challenge was the limited energy scale accessible on the hardware, which required a rescaling strategy based on a single parameter, λ, to ensure accurate sampling at an effective temperature. 
