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Physicists at the University of Oxford have observed the Aharonov–Bohm effect using a hybrid quantum computer made of qubits and quantum oscillators. This phenomenon occurs when a charged particle acquires a measurable phase by traveling around a magnetic flux without passing through a region where a magnetic field exists. The study, published in Nature Physics, shows how these systems can simulate interactions between matter and gauge fields that are too complex for classical computers to model.

The experiment began in 2022 with lead author Dr. Sebastian Saner and colleagues working with Dr. Alejandro Bermudez from Madrid. They used qubits to represent gauge fields and quantum oscillators to represent matter, arranging them into a loop. The team prepared the qubits in an entangled state to create a magnetic flux within the loop. As Dr. Saner explained, this allowed the magnetic flux to be part of the system’s own dynamics rather than a fixed background, which was a practical workaround that proved scientifically interesting.

When researchers watched a matter particle tunnel around the loop, they found that without flux, it tunneled freely. However, with the flux present, the two paths interfered destructively, suppressing tunneling completely and freezing the system in its starting state. This result demonstrates the Aharonov–Bohm effect in a dynamical setting within lattice gauge theory. The findings were coordinated with similar independent work from the University of Maryland to highlight the potential of hybrid quantum architectures for simulating fundamental interactions.