Inelastic Reactions on a Quantum Computer

Radiative processes, where a photon/neutrino is emitted, play an important role in atomic, nuclear, and particle physics. I present an algorithm for calculating radiative, and in general inelastic processes such as charge exchange reactions, on a quantum computer. The algorithm relies on an extra qubit that, in a certain sense, represents the photon/neutrino. It is used to drive the system near a resonance of the Rabi oscillations between initial and final states. The transition matrix elements are related to the frequency of the oscillations. We demonstrate the feasibility of the method by performing actual quantum computations and simulations of simple systems.