We developed ManQala, a quantum state engineering strategy inspired by the classic African sowing game mancala, that significantly improves the reliability and efficiency of preparing specific quantum states—a fundamental task for quantum computing, networking, and sensing.
ManQala offers a pre-processing step that reduces the problem size before applying existing quantum control methods. Even in small systems where the advantage is smallest, it matches or outperforms current approaches. As systems scale up, the ability to break large problems into parallelizable sublattices becomes increasingly valuable.
We designed ManQala so that it adds a crucial preprocessing step: deterministic unitary permutations that mimic the opening moves of solitaire mancala (Tchoukaillon), rearranging particles between adjacent sites to reduce the problem’s Hilbert space before applying measurement‑based techniques like Zeno‑locking.
Our approach extends to larger systems, such as preparing Mott‑insulator states from superpositions or steering superfluids toward target configurations, by partitioning the lattice into smaller, parallelizable sublattices. By turning a classical game strategy into a practical quantum control protocol, ManQala offers a robust, scalable way to enhance the performance of existing quantum engineering tools.
ManQala is published:
Title: ManQala: Game-inspired strategies for quantum state engineering
Ref: AVS Quantum Sci. 5, 032002 (2023); https://doi.org/10.1116/5.0148240
