AbstractIn a conventional experiment, scientists typically aim to learn about target systems by manipulating source systems of the same material type. In an analogue quantum simulation, by contrast, scientists typically aim to learn about target quantum systems of one material type via an experiment on a source quantum system of a different material type. In this article, we argue that such inferences can be justified by reference to source and target quantum systems being of the same empirical type. We illustrate this novel experimental practice of wavefunction engineering with reference to the example of Bose–Hubbard systems.