Demonstration of deterministic SWAP gate between superconducting and frequency-encoded microwave-photon qubits

  1. Kazuki Koshino,
  2. and Kunihiro Inomata
The number of superconducting qubits contained in a single quantum processor is increasing steadily. However, to realize a truly useful quantum computer, it is inevitable to increase
the number of qubits much further by distributing quantum information among distant processors using flying qubits. Here, we demonstrate a key element towards this goal, namely, a SWAP gate between the superconducting-atom and microwave-photon qubits. The working principle of this gate is the single-photon Raman interaction, which results from strong interference in one-dimensional optical systems and enables a high gate fidelity insensitively to the pulse shape of the photon qubit, by simply bouncing the photon qubit at a cavity attached to the atom qubit. We confirm the bidirectional quantum state transfer between the atom and photon qubits. The averaged fidelity of the photon-to-atom (atom-to-photon) state transfer reaches 0.829 (0.801), limited mainly by the energy relaxation time of the atom qubit. The present atom-photon gate, equipped with an in situ tunability of the gate type, would enable various applications in distributed quantum computation using superconducting qubits and microwave photons.

Saturable Purcell filter for circuit QED

  1. Ivan Iakoupov,
  2. and Kazuki Koshino
We consider a typical circuit QED setup where a data artificial atom encodes a qubit and is dispersively coupled to a measurement resonator that in turn is coupled to a transmission
line. We show theoretically that by placing a filter artificial atom in this transmission line, the effective decay of the data artificial atom into the transmission line (the Purcell decay) is suppressed. When strong control fields are present in the transmission line, the filter artificial atom is saturated and hence effectively switched off. This permits both control and measurement of the data artificial atom using a single transmission line, while maintaining the Purcell filtering capability and therefore a long coherence time of the data artificial atom in the absence of the control pulses. We also apply open systems optimal control techniques to optimize the π-pulse on the data artificial atom, achieving high fidelity. The considered setup is compatible with the frequency multiplexing, potentially enabling both control and measurement of several qubits using a single Purcell-filtered transmission line. Our work helps with the scalability of the superconducting quantum computers by decreasing the ratio between the number of qubits and the number of the required transmission lines. For the setups that already use one transmission line both for measurement and control, our work provides a way to add Purcell filtering without removing the possibility of controlling the system.

Effects of higher levels of qubits on control of qubit protected by a Josephson quantum filter

  1. Shumpei Masuda,
  2. and Kazuki Koshino
A Josephson quantum filter (JQF) protects a data qubit (DQ) from the radiative decay into transmission lines in superconducting quantum computing architectures. A transmon, which is
a weakly nonlinear harmonic oscillator rather than a pure two-level system, can play a role of a JQF or a DQ. However, in the previous study, a JQF and a DQ were modeled as two-level systems neglecting the effects of higher levels. We theoretically examine the effects of the higher levels of the JQF and the DQ on the control of the DQ. It is shown that the higher levels of the DQ cause the shift of the resonance frequency and the decrease of the maximum population of the first excited state of the DQ in the controls with a continuous wave (cw) field and a pulsed field, while the higher levels of the JQF do not. Moreover, we present optimal parameters of the pulsed field, which maximize the control efficiency.

Effects of an environment on the ground state of circuit QED systems in the deep-strong coupling regime

  1. Tomohiro Shitara,
  2. Motoaki Bamba,
  3. Fumiki Yoshihara,
  4. Tomoko Fuse,
  5. Sahel Ashhab,
  6. Kouichi Semba,
  7. and Kazuki Koshino
We investigate theoretically how the ground state of a qubit-resonator system in the deep-strong coupling (DSC) regime is affected by the coupling to an environment. We employ a superposition
of coherent states displaced in the qubit-state-dependent directions as a variational ansatz for the ground state of the qubit-resonator-environment system. We show that the reduced density matrix of the qubit-resonator system strongly depends on types of the resonator-waveguide and resonator-qubit coupling, i.e., capacitive or inductive, because of the broken rotational symmetry of the eigenstates of the DSC system in the resonator phase space. When the resonator couples to the qubit and the environment in different ways (for instance, one is inductive and the other is capacitive), the system is almost unaffected by the resonator-waveguide coupling. In contrast, when the types of two couplings are the same (for instance, both are inductive), by increasing the resonator-waveguide coupling strength, the average number of virtual photons increases and the quantum superposition realized in the qubit-resonator entangled ground state is partially degraded. Since the superposition becomes more fragile when the qubit-resonator coupling strength gets large, there exists an optimal strength of the qubit-resonator coupling to maximize the nonclassicality of the qubit-resonator system.

Breaking the trade-off between fast control and long lifetime of a superconducting qubit

  1. Shingo Kono,
  2. Kazuki Koshino,
  3. Dany Lachance-Quirion,
  4. Arjan F. Van Loo,
  5. Yutaka Tabuchi,
  6. Atsushi Noguchi,
  7. and Yasunobu Nakamura
The rapid development in designs and fabrication techniques of superconducting qubits has helped making coherence times of qubits longer. In the near future, however, the radiative
decay of a qubit into its control line will be a fundamental limitation, imposing a trade-off between fast control and long lifetime of the qubit. In this work, we successfully break this trade-off by strongly coupling another superconducting qubit along the control line. This second qubit, which we call a Josephson quantum filter~(JQF), prevents the qubit from emitting microwave photons and thus suppresses its relaxation, while faithfully transmitting large-amplitude control microwave pulses due to the saturation of the quantum filter, enabling fast qubit control. We observe an improvement of the qubit relaxation time without a reduction of the Rabi frequency. This device could potentially help in the realization of a large-scale superconducting quantum information processor in terms of the heating of the qubit environments and the crosstalk between qubits.

On-demand generation and characterization of a microwave time-bin qubit

  1. Jesper Ilves,
  2. Shingo Kono,
  3. Yoshiki Sunada,
  4. Shota Yamazaki,
  5. Minkyu Kim,
  6. Kazuki Koshino,
  7. and Yasunobu Nakamura
Superconducting circuits offer a scalable platform for the construction of large-scale quantum networks where information can be encoded in multiple temporal modes of propagating microwaves.
Characterization of such microwave signals with a method extendable to an arbitrary number of temporal modes with a single detector and demonstration of their phase-robust nature are of great interest. Here we show the on-demand generation and Wigner tomography of a microwave time-bin qubit with superconducting circuit quantum electrodynamics architecture. We perform the tomography with a single heterodyne detector by dynamically changing the measurement quadrature with a phase-sensitive amplifier independently for the two temporal modes. By generating and measuring the qubits with hardware lacking a shared phase reference, we demonstrate conservation of phase information in each time-bin qubit generated.

Inversion of qubit energy levels in qubit-oscillator circuits in the deep-strong-coupling regime

  1. Fumiki Yoshihara,
  2. Tomoko Fuse,
  3. Ziqiao Ao,
  4. Sahel Ashhab,
  5. Kosuke Kakuyanagi,
  6. Shiro Saito,
  7. Takao Aoki,
  8. Kazuki Koshino,
  9. and Kouichi Semba
We report on experimentally measured light shifts of superconducting flux qubits deep-strongly-coupled to an LC oscillator, where the coupling constant is comparable to the qubit’s
transition frequency and the oscillator’s resonance frequency. By using two-tone spectroscopy, the energies of the six-lowest levels of the coupled circuits are determined. We find a huge Lamb shift that exceeds 90% of the bare qubit frequencies and inversion of the qubits‘ ground and excited states when there is a finite number of photons in the oscillator. Our experimental results agree with theoretical predictions based on the quantum Rabi model.

Single microwave-photon detector using an artificial Λ-type three-level system

  1. Kunihiro Inomata,
  2. Zhirong Lin,
  3. Kazuki Koshino,
  4. William D. Oliver,
  5. Jaw-Shen Tsai,
  6. Tsuyoshi Yamamoto,
  7. and Yasunobu Nakamura
Single photon detection is a requisite technique in quantum-optics experiments in both the optical and the microwave domains. However, the energy of microwave quanta are four to five
orders of magnitude less than their optical counterpart, making the efficient detection of single microwave photons extremely challenging. Here, we demonstrate the detection of a single microwave photon propagating through a waveguide. The detector is implemented with an „impedance-matched“ artificial Λ system comprising the dressed states of a driven superconducting qubit coupled to a microwave resonator. We attain a single-photon detection efficiency of 0.66±0.06 with a reset time of ∼400~ns. This detector can be exploited for various applications in quantum sensing, quantum communication and quantum information processing.

Dressed-state engineering for continuous detection of itinerant microwave photons

  1. Kazuki Koshino,
  2. Zhirong Lin,
  3. Kunihiro Inomata,
  4. Tsuyoshi Yamamoto,
  5. and Yasunobu Nakamura
We propose a scheme for continuous detection of itinerant microwave photons in circuit quantum electrodynamics. In the proposed device, a superconducting qubit is coupled dispersively
to two resonators: one is used to form an impedance-matched Λ system that deterministically captures incoming photons, and the other is used for continuous monitoring of the event. The present scheme enables efficient photon detection: for realistic system parameters, the detection efficiency reaches 0.9 with a bandwidth of about ten megahertz.

Theory of microwave single-photon detection using an impedance-matched Λ system

  1. Kazuki Koshino,
  2. Kunihiro Inomata,
  3. Zhirong Lin,
  4. Yasunobu Nakamura,
  5. and Tsuyoshi Yamamoto
By properly driving a qubit-resonator system in the strong dispersive regime, we implement an „impedance-matched“ Λ system in the dressed states, where a resonant single
photon deterministically induces a Raman transition and excites the qubit. Combining this effect and a fast dispersive readout of the qubit, we realize a detector of itinerant microwave photons. We theoretically analyze the single-photon response of the Λ system and evaluate its performance as a detector. We achieve a high detection efficiency close to unity without relying on precise temporal control of the input pulse shape and under a conservative estimate of the system parameters. The detector can also be reset quickly by applying microwave pulses, which allows a short dead time and a high repetition rate.