A minimal implementation of Yang-Mills theory on a digital quantum computer

We present a minimal implementation of SU(N) pure Yang-Mills theory in 3+1 dimensions for digital quantum simulation, designed to enable quantum advantage. Building on the orbifold lattice simulation protocol with logarithmic scaling in the local Hilbert-space truncation, we introduce further simplified Hamiltonians. Furthermore, we test simple methods that improve the convergence to the infinite mass limit, thereby removing the requirement of a large scalar mass to obtain the Kogut-Susskind Hamiltonian. For the SU(2) theory, we can cut the resource requirement further by utilizing the embedding of SU(2)congS³ into mathbb{R}⁴. Monte Carlo simulations of the Euclidean path integral were used to benchmark the accuracy of these new analytical improvements to the theory. These results provide further support for the noncompact-variable-based approach as a practical framework for quantum simulation of non-Abelian gauge theories.