Exploring three-body interaction in a superconducting circuit quantum simulator

Superconducting quantum circuits provide a natural platform to realize different lattice models for analog quantum simulation of many-body phases comprised of strongly interacting microwave photons. Most experiments so far employ arrays of transmon qubits as two-level systems to realize the hard-core Bose-Hubbard model with a strong effective on-site two-body interaction. Using higher levels of transmon offers new possibilities for analog quantum simulation. Here, we explore methods to tune the effective two-body interaction in transmon arrays using modulation-assisted tunneling. This opens the possibility of realizing lattice models with dominant three-body interaction, which is expected to result in novel density-wave phases. The proposed model and phases can be probed with lattice spectroscopy and from the dynamics of correlated multi-particle quantum walks. We will present numerical simulations and experimental progress.