Many-body Quantum Score: a scalable benchmark for digital and analog quantum processors and first test on a commercial neutral atom device

Abstract: We propose the Many-body Quantum Score (MBQS), a practical and scalable application-level benchmark protocol designed to evaluate the capabilities of quantum processing units (QPUs)--both gate-based and analog--for simulating many-body quantum dynamics. MBQS quantifies performance by identifying the maximum number of qubits with which a QPU can reliably reproduce correlation functions of the transverse-field Ising model following a specific quantum quench. This paper presents the MBQS protocol and highlights its design principles, supported by analytical insights, classical simulations, and experimental data. It also displays results obtained with Ruby, an analog QPU based on Rydberg atoms developed by the Pasqal company. These findings demonstrate MBQS's potential as a robust and informative tool for benchmarking near-term quantum devices for many-body physics.