Analog Hawking Radiation on a 156-Qubit Superconducting Quan tum Processor
Abstract:
Hawking radiation, predicted in 1974, establishes a fundamental bridge between quantum mechanics, general relativity, and thermodynamics. Direct observation remains impossible for astrophysical black holes due to their extremely low temperatures (~10⁻⁸ K for stellar-mass holes). We present the first large-scale kinematic analog simulation of Hawking radiation on a superconducting quantum processor, using 71 usable qubits from the 156-qubit IBM Quantum Heron processor (ibm_fez). Our MHIL (Multi-Horizon Interleaved Layout) architecture enables up to four simultaneous "Hawking universes" with O (1) circuit depth independent of sys tem size, requiring no SWAP gates due to native heavy-hex topology mapping. Key results include: (1) spatial localization ratio of 83.2× between horizon and far-field entanglement flux; (2) 91.6% signal degradation un der permutation control, proving genuine spatial correlation structure; (3) perfect monotonicity (R² > 0.997) between impulse strength and horizon flux; (4) Hawking signature verification with r = 0.997 for ⟨XX⟨ ≈ -⟨YY⟨ anti-correlation. This work demonstrates kinematic (not thermodynamic) Hawking radiation analog. We observe spatial localization and pair correlations characteristic of horizon physics, but cannot claim exact thermal spectrum reproduction. Preliminary wormhole analog experiments show trans-throat flux (p = 0.031, requiring confirmation). These results establish superconducting quantum processors as viable platforms for analog gravity experiments, with O (1) scaling enabling future investigations at unprecedented scales.
