I am going to post here all newly submitted articles on the arXiv related to superconducting circuits. If your article has been accidentally forgotten, feel free to contact me
15
Nov
2021
Robust preparation of Wigner-negative states with optimized SNAP-displacement sequences
Hosting non-classical states of light in three-dimensional microwave cavities has emerged as a promising paradigm for continuous-variable quantum information processing. Here we experimentally
demonstrate high-fidelity generation of a range of Wigner-negative states useful for quantum computation, such as Schrödinger-cat states, binomial states, Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) states, as well as cubic phase states. The latter states have been long sought after in quantum optics and were never achieved experimentally before. To do so, we use a sequence of interleaved selective number-dependent arbitrary phase (SNAP) gates and displacements. We optimize the state preparation in two steps. First we use a gradient-descent algorithm to optimize the parameters of the SNAP and displacement gates. Then we optimize the envelope of the pulses implementing the SNAP gates. Our results show that this way of creating highly non-classical states in a harmonic oscillator is robust to fluctuations of the system parameters such as the qubit frequency and the dispersive shift.
13
Nov
2021
Strain-spectroscopy of strongly interacting defects in superconducting qubits
The proper functioning of some micro-fabricated novel quantum devices, such as superconducting resonators and qubits, is severely affected by the presence of parasitic structural material
defects known as tunneling two-level-systems (TLS). Recent experiments have reported unambiguous evidence of the strong interaction between individual (coherent) TLS using strain-assisted spectroscopy. This work provides an alternative and simple theoretical insight that illustrates how to obtain the spectral response of such strongly interacting defects residing inside the amorphous tunnel barrier of a qubit’s Josephson junction. Moreover, the corresponding spectral signatures obtained here may serve to quickly and efficiently elucidate the actual state of these interacting TLS in experiments based on strain- or electric-field spectroscopy.
Predicting non-Markovian superconducting qubit dynamics from tomographic reconstruction
Non-Markovian noise presents a particularly relevant challenge in understanding and combating decoherence in quantum computers, yet is challenging to capture in terms of simple models.
Here we show that a simple phenomenological dynamical model known as the post-Markovian master equation (PMME) accurately captures and predicts non-Markovian noise in a superconducting qubit system. The PMME is constructed using experimentally measured state dynamics of an IBM Quantum Experience cloud-based quantum processor, and the model thus constructed successfully predicts the non-Markovian dynamics observed in later experiments. The model also allows the extraction of information about cross-talk and measures of non-Markovianity. We demonstrate definitively that the PMME model predicts subsequent dynamics of the processor better than the standard Markovian master equation.
11
Nov
2021
Period tripling due to parametric down-conversion in circuit QED
Discrete time-translation symmetry breaking can be observed in periodically-driven systems oscillating at a fraction of the frequency of the driving force. However, with the exception
of the parametric instability in period-doubling, multi-periodic driving does not lead to an instability threshold. In this paper, we point out that quantum vacuum fluctuations can be generically employed to induce period multiplication. In particular, we discuss the period-tripled states in circuit QED and propose a microwave setup. We show that for weak dissipation or strong driving, the time scale over which the period-tripled state is generated can be arbitrarily separated from the time-scale of the subsequent dephasing.
Broadband continuous variable entanglement generation using Kerr-free Josephson metamaterial
Entangled microwave photons form a fundamental resource for quantum information processing and sensing with continuous variables. We use a low-loss Josephson metamaterial comprising
superconducting non-linear asymmetric inductive elements to generate frequency (colour) entangled photons from vacuum fluctuations at a rate of 11 mega entangled bits per second with a potential rate above gigabit per second. The device is operated as a traveling wave parametric amplifier under Kerr-relieving biasing conditions. Furthermore, we realize the first successfully demonstration of single-mode squeezing in such devices – 2.4±0.7 dB below the zero-point level at half of modulation frequency.
Fast Universal Control of an Oscillator with Weak Dispersive Coupling to a Qubit
Efficient quantum control of an oscillator is necessary for many bosonic applications including error-corrected computation, quantum-enhanced sensing, robust quantum communication,
and quantum simulation. For these applications, oscillator control is often realized through off-resonant hybridization to a qubit with dispersive shift χ where typical operation times of 2π/χ are routinely assumed. Here, we challenge this assumption by introducing and demonstrating a novel control method with typical operation times over an order of magnitude faster than 2π/χ. Using large auxiliary displacements of the oscillator to enhance gate speed, we introduce a universal gate set with built-in dynamical decoupling consisting of fast conditional displacements and qubit rotations. We demonstrate the method using a superconducting cavity weakly coupled to a transmon qubit in a regime where previously known methods would fail. Our demonstrations include preparation of a single-photon state 30 times faster than 2π/χ with 98±1(%) fidelity and preparation of squeezed vacuum with a squeezing level of 11.1 dB, the largest intracavity squeezing reported in the microwave regime. Finally, we demonstrate fast measurement-free preparation of logical states for the binomial and Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) code, and we identify possible fidelity limiting mechanisms including oscillator dephasing.
10
Nov
2021
Single Shot i-Toffoli Gate in Dispersively Coupled Superconducting Qubits
Quantum algorithms often benefit from the ability to execute multi-qubit (>2) gates. To date such multi-qubit gates are typically decomposed into single- and two-qubit gates, particularly
in superconducting qubit architectures. The ability to perform multi-qubit operations in a single step could vastly improve the fidelity and execution time of many algorithms. Here, we propose a single shot method for executing an i-Toffoli gate, a three-qubit gate gate with two control and one target qubit, using currently existing superconducting hardware. We show numerical evidence for a process fidelity over 98% and a gate time of 500 ns for superconducting qubits interacting via tunable couplers. Our method can straight forwardly be extended to implement gates with more than two control qubits at similar fidelities.
Direct calculation of the ZZ-interaction rates in the multi-mode circuit-QED
Hamiltonians of the superconducting qubits of Transmon type involve non-zero ZZ-interaction terms due to their finite and small anharmonicities. These terms might lead to the unwanted
accumulation of spurious phases during the execution of the two-qubit gates. Exact calculation of the ZZ-interaction rates requires the full diagonalization of the circuit Hamiltonians which very quickly becomes computationally demanding as the number of the modes in the coupler circuit increases. Here we propose a direct analytical method for the accurate estimation of the ZZ-interaction rates between low-anharmonicity qubits in the dispersive limit of the multi-mode circuit-QED. We observe very good agreement between the predictions of our method and the measurement data collected from the multi-qubit devices. Our method being an extension of our previous work in [1] is a new addition to the toolbox of the quantum microwave engineers as it relates the ZZ-interaction rates directly to the entries of the impedance matrix defined between the qubit ports.
On-Demand Storage and Retrieval of Microwave Photons Using a Superconducting Multiresonator Quantum Memory
A quantum memory that can store quantum states faithfully and retrieve them on demand has wide applications in quantum information science. An efficient quantum memory in the microwave
regime working alongside quantum processors based on superconducting quantum circuits may serve as an important architecture for quantum computers. Here we realize on-demand storage and retrieval of weak coherent microwave photon pulses at the single-photon level. We implement a superconducting multi-resonator quantum memory which is composed of a set of frequency-tunable coplanar transmission line (CPW) resonators. By dynamically tuning the resonant frequencies of the resonators, we achieve tunable memory bandwidth from 10 MHz to 55 MHz, with an overall storage efficiency up to 12 % with well preserved phase coherence. We further demonstrate on-demand storage and retrieval of a time-bin flying qubit. This result opens up a prospect to integrate our chip-based quantum memory with the state-of-the-art superconducting quantum circuit technology for quantum information processing.
09
Nov
2021
Three-Josephson Junctions Flux Qubit Couplings
We analyze the coupling of two flux qubits with a general many-body projector into the low-energy subspace. Specifically, we extract the effective Hamiltonians that controls the dynamics
of two qubits when they are coupled via a capacitor and/or via a Josephson junction. While the capacitor induces a static charge coupling tunable by design, the Josephson junction produces a magnetic-like interaction easily tunable by replacing the junction with a SQUID. Those two elements allow to engineer qubits Hamiltonians with XX, YY and ZZ interactions, including ultra-strongly coupled ones. We present an exhaustive numerical study for two three-Josephson junctions flux qubit that can be directly used in experimental work. The method developed here, namely the numerical tool to extract qubit effective Hamiltonians at strong coupling, can be applied to replicate our analysis for general systems of many qubits and any type of coupling.