Many problems of interest in physics, chemistry and computer science are equivalent toproblems defined on systems of interacting spins. However, most such problems requirecomputational resources that are out of reach with classical computers. A promising solutionto overcome this challenge is quantum simulation. several ‘analogue’ quantum simulations ofinteracting spin systems have been realized experimentally, where ground states were preparedusing adiabatic techniques. Here we report a ‘digital’ quantum simulation of thermal states;a three-spin frustrated magnet was simulated using a nuclear magnetic resonance quantuminformation processor, and we were able to explore the phase diagram of the system at anysimulated temperature and external field. These results help to identify the challenges forperforming quantum simulations of physical systems at finite temperatures, and suggestmethods that may be useful in simulating thermal open quantum systems.
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