Simulating Black Hole Thermality and Interior Scrambling on a Superconducting Quantum Processor
Abstract
We implement a chiral spin-chain black hole simulator on IBM superconducting quantum hardware and probe, within a common microscopic framework, both semiclassical horizon physics and interacting quantum scrambling. We first measure the dispersion relation across the exterior, horizon and over-tilted interior regimes, reproducing the predicted evolution of the effective light-cone structure. To probe Hawking thermality, we prepare a localised excitation inside the horizon and monitor its density response at an exterior site, observing the predicted inverse relation between the peak arrival time and the surface gravity, thereby establishing a calibrated dynamical estimator of the Hawking temperature. Beyond the semiclassical regime, we continuously tune the interactions and distinguish non-exponential operator spreading in the free-fermion limit from Lyapunov-like OTOC decay in the strongly interacting chiral regime. These measurements use observable-specific Floquet circuits derived from the same parent chiral model, including its mean-field and coordinate-equivalent XY descriptions, to reduce circuit depth while preserving the physics relevant to each probe. Our results provide a unified programmable platform for studying horizon geometry, Hawking thermality and interacting scrambling on quantum hardware.
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BibTeX
@misc{smith2026simulating,
title = {{Simulating Black Hole Thermality and Interior Scrambling on a Superconducting Quantum Processor}},
author = {Ryan Smith and Ewan Forbes and Iason A. Sofos and Andrew Hallam and Jiannis K. Pachos},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2608.19318},
eprint = {2608.19318},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.19318},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Simulating Black Hole Thermality and Interior Scrambling on a Superconducting Quantum Processor
AU - Ryan Smith
AU - Ewan Forbes
AU - Iason A. Sofos
AU - Andrew Hallam
AU - Jiannis K. Pachos
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/14
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2608.19318
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.19318
AB - We implement a chiral spin-chain black hole simulator on IBM superconducting quantum hardware and probe, within a common microscopic framework, both semiclassical horizon physics and interacting quantum scrambling. We first measure the dispersion relation across the exterior, horizon and over-tilted interior regimes, reproducing the predicted evolution of the effective light-cone structure. To probe Hawking thermality, we prepare a localised excitation inside the horizon and monitor its density response at an exterior site, observing the predicted inverse relation between the peak arrival time and the surface gravity, thereby establishing a calibrated dynamical estimator of the Hawking temperature. Beyond the semiclassical regime, we continuously tune the interactions and distinguish non-exponential operator spreading in the free-fermion limit from Lyapunov-like OTOC decay in the strongly interacting chiral regime. These measurements use observable-specific Floquet circuits derived from the same parent chiral model, including its mean-field and coordinate-equivalent XY descriptions, to reduce circuit depth while preserving the physics relevant to each probe. Our results provide a unified programmable platform for studying horizon geometry, Hawking thermality and interacting scrambling on quantum hardware.
ER -