Scattering of mesons in quantum simulators

Simulating real-time evolution in theories of fundamental interactions represents one of the central challenges in contemporary theoretical physics, due to the failure of conventional analytical techniques and numerical simulations. Cold-atom platforms represent promising candidates to realize quantum simulations of non-perturbative phenomena in gauge theories, such as vacuum decay and hadron collisions, in extreme conditions prohibitive for direct experiments. In our work, we demonstrate that present-day quantum simulators can give access to S-matrix measurements of elastic and inelastic meson collisions in Abelian gauge theories, mimicking experiments with linear particle accelerators. Considering for definiteness a (1 + 1)-dimensional Z2-lattice gauge theory realizable with Rydberg-atom arrays, we solve the meson scattering problem exactly in the limit of large fermion mass and for arbitrary coupling strength.