Speaker
Description
Quantum technologies offer the prospect to efficiently simulate sign-problem afflicted phenomena, such as topological terms, chemical potentials, and out-of-equilibrium dynamics. In this work, we derive the 3+1D topological $\theta$-term for Abelian and non-Abelian lattice gauge theories in the Hamiltonian formulation, paving the way towards Hamiltonian-based simulations of such terms on quantum and classical computers. We further study numerically a 3+1D U(1) lattice gauge theory with the $\theta$-term via exact diagonalization. Our results suggest the occurrence of a phase transition at constant values of $\theta$, as indicated by an avoided level-crossing and abrupt changes in the plaquette expectation value, the electric energy density, and the topological charge density.
