Digital Quantum Simulation of the quantum β-FPUT Lattice: Formulation and Resource Estimation

Heat conduction in low-dimensional systems exhibits strong deviations from Fourier behavior due to anharmonicity and long-lived vibrational correlations, challenging conventional computational approaches. The β-Fermi--Pasta--Ulam--Tsingou (β-FPUT) chain provides a minimal nonlinear lattice model for studying anomalous transport, yet its quantum real-time dynamics remain difficult to access with classical methods. We develop a first-quantized digital quantum-simulation framework for the quantum β-FPUT lattice, targeting fault-tolerant quantum computers. By working directly with discretized lattice displacements rather than truncated phonon occupation spaces, the approach captures anharmonic interactions while avoiding bosonic encoding overheads. We construct Trotterized circuit blocks for real-time evolution and introduce a Hermitian quadrature decomposition of Fourier-mode displacement operators that enables shallow quantum circuits for mode-resolved displacement correlators. We analyze the quantum resources required for the full simulation and measurement workflow, providing qubit counts, gate complexity, circuit-depth and resource estimates as functions of system size and resolution within a fault-tolerant workflow. These results establish a concrete algorithmic blueprint for simulating quantum transport dynamics in nonlinear low-dimensional lattice models on fault-tolerant quantum hardware.