High-energy Collision of Quarks and Hadrons in the Schwinger Model: From Tensor-Networks to Circuit-QED

With the aim of studying nonperturbative, out-of-equilibrium dynamics of high-energy particle collisions on quantum simulators, we investigate the scattering dynamics of lattice quantum electrodynamics in 1+1 dimensions. Working in the bosonized formulation of the model, an analog circuit-QED implementation is proposed that is native to the platform, hence requires minimal ingredients and approximations, and enables practical schemes for particle wavepacket preparation and evolution. Furthermore, working in the thermodynamic limit, uniform-matrix-product-state tensor networks are used to construct multi-particle wavepacket states, evolve them in time, and detect outgoing particles post collision. This facilitates the numerical simulation of scattering experiments in both confined and deconfined regimes of the model at different energies, giving rise to rich phenomenology, including inelastic production of quark and meson states, meson disintegration, and dynamical string formation and breaking. Elastic and inelastic scattering cross sections are obtained, together with time-resolved momentum and position distributions of the outgoing particles. This study highlights the role of classical and quantum simulation in enhancing our understanding of scattering processes in quantum field theories in real time.