Journal ArticleSimulating Meson Scattering on Spin Quantum SimulatorsBennewitz, Elizabeth R [Joint Quantum Institute, NIST/University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 USA]; Ware, Brayden [Joint Quantum Institute, NIST/University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 USA]; Schuckert, Alexander [Joint Quantum Institute, NIST/University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 USA]; Lerose, Alessio [Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford OX1 3PU, United Kingdom]; Surace, Federica M [Department of Physics and Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA]; Belyansky, Ron [Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA]; Morong, William [Joint Quantum Institute, NIST/University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 USA]; Luo, De [Duke Quantum Center, Department of Physics and Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC 27701 USA]; De, Arinjoy [Joint Quantum Institute, NIST/University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 USA] (ORCID:0000000191848434); Collins, Kate S [Joint Quantum Institute, NIST/University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 USA]; Katz, Or [School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853.] (ORCID:0000000176341993); Monroe, Christopher [Duke Quantum Center, Department of Physics and Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC 27701 USA]; Davoudi, Zohreh [Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics and Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA] (ORCID:0000000272882810); Gorshkov, Alexey V [Joint Quantum Institute, NIST/University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 USA]<p>Studying high-energy collisions of composite particles, such as hadrons and nuclei, is an outstanding goal for quantum simulators. However, preparation of hadronic wave packets has posed a significant challenge, due to the complexity of hadrons and the precise structure of wave packets. This has limited demonstrations of hadron scattering on quantum simulators to date. Observations of confinement and composite excitations in quantum spin systems have opened up the possibility to explore scattering dynamics in spin models. In this article, we develop two methods to create entangled spin states corresponding to wave packets of composite particles in analog quantum simulators of Ising spin Hamiltonians. One wave-packet preparation method uses the blockade effect enabled by beyond-nearest-neighbor Ising spin interactions. The other method utilizes a quantum-bus-mediated exchange, such as the native spin-phonon coupling in trapped-ion arrays. With a focus on trapped-ion simulators, we numerically benchmark both methods and show that high-fidelity wave packets can be achieved in near-term experiments. We numerically study scattering of wave packets for experimentally realizable parameters in the Ising model and find inelastic-scattering regimes, corresponding to particle production in the scattering event, with prominent and distinct experimental signals. Our proposal, therefore, demonstrates the potential of observing inelastic scattering in near-term quantum simulators.</p>Quantum2025-06-1710678983Quantum917732521-327Xhttps://doi.org/10.22331/q-2025-06-17-17732120757National Science Foundation