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
21
Nov
2016
Superradiance with an ensemble of superconducting flux qubits
Superconducting flux qubits are a promising candidate for realizing quantum information processing and quantum simulations. Such devices behave like artificial atoms, with the advantage
that one can easily tune the „atoms“ internal properties. Here, by harnessing this flexibility, we propose a technique to minimize the inhomogeneous broadening of a large ensemble of flux qubits by tuning only the external flux. In addition, as an example of many-body physics in such an ensemble, we show how to observe superradiance, and its quadratic scaling with ensemble size, using a tailored microwave control pulse that takes advantage of the inhomogeneous broadening itself to excite only a sub-ensemble of the qubits. Our scheme opens up an approach to using superconducting circuits to explore the properties of quantum many-body systems.
Circuit QED: Cross-Kerr-effect induced by a superconducting qutrit without classical pulses
The realization of cross-Kerr nonlinearity is an important task for many applications in quantum information processing. In this work, we propose a method for realizing cross-Kerr nonlinearity
interaction between two superconducting coplanar waveguide resonators coupled by a three-level superconducting flux qutrit (coupler). By employing the qutrit-resonator dispersive interaction, we derive an effective Hamiltonian involving two-photon number operators and a coupler operator. This Hamiltonian can be used to describe a cross-Kerr nonlinearity interaction between two resonators when the coupler is in the ground state. Because the coupler is unexcited during the entire process, the effect of coupler decoherence can be greatly minimized. More importantly, compared with the previous proposals, our proposal does not require classical pulses. Furthermore, due to use of only a three-level qutrit, the experimental setup is much simplified when compared with previous proposals requiring a four-level artificial atomic systems. Based on our Hamiltonian, we implement a two-resonator qubits controlled-phase gate and generate a two-resonator entangled coherent state. Numerical simulation shows that the high-fidelity implementation of the phase gate and creation of the entangled coherent state are feasible with current circuit QED technology.
Theory of Multiwave Mixing within the Superconducting Kinetic-Inductance Traveling-Wave Amplifier
We present a theory of parametric mixing within the coplanar waveguide (CPW) of a superconducting nonlinear kinetic-inductance traveling-wave (KIT) amplifier engineered with periodic
dispersion loadings. This is done by first developing a metamaterial band theory of the dispersion-engineered KIT using a Floquet-Bloch construction and then applying it to the description of mixing of the nonlinear RF traveling waves. Our theory allows us to calculate signal gain vs. signal frequency in the presence of a frequency stop gap, based solely on loading design. We present results for both three-wave mixing (3WM), with applied DC bias, and four-wave mixing (4WM), without DC. Our theory predicts an intrinsic and deterministic origin to undulations of 4WM signal gain with signal frequency, apart from extrinsic sources, such as impedance mismatch, and shows that such undulations are absent from 3WM signal gain achievable with DC. Our theory is extensible to amplifiers based on Josephson junctions in a lumped LC transmission line (TWPA).
15
Nov
2016
Restless Tuneup of High-Fidelity Qubit Gates
We present a tuneup protocol for qubit gates with tenfold speedup over traditional methods reliant on qubit initialization by energy relaxation. This speedup is achieved by constructing
a cost function for Nelder-Mead optimization from real-time correlation of non-demolition measurements interleaving gate operations without pause. Applying the protocol on a transmon qubit achieves 0.999 average Clifford fidelity in one minute, as independently verified using randomized benchmarking and gate set tomography. The adjustable sensitivity of the cost function allows detecting fractional changes in gate error with nearly constant signal-to-noise ratio. The restless concept demonstrated can be readily extended to the tuneup of two-qubit gates and measurement operations.
10
Nov
2016
Quantum Channel Construction with Circuit Quantum Electrodynamics
Quantum channels can describe all transformations allowed by quantum mechanics. We provide an explicit universal protocol to construct all possible quantum channels, using a single
qubit ancilla with quantum non-demolition readout and adaptive control. Our construction is efficient in both physical resources and circuit depth, and can be demonstrated using superconducting circuits and various other physical platforms. There are many applications of quantum channel construction, including system stabilization and quantum error correction, Markovian and exotic channel simulation, implementation of generalized quantum measurements and more general quantum instruments. Efficient construction of arbitrary quantum channels opens up exciting new possibilities for quantum control, quantum sensing and information processing tasks.
07
Nov
2016
Micromachined integrated quantum circuit containing a superconducting qubit
We present a device demonstrating a lithographically patterned transmon integrated with a micromachined cavity resonator. Our two-cavity, one-qubit device is a multilayer microwave
integrated quantum circuit (MMIQC), comprising a basic unit capable of performing circuit-QED (cQED) operations. We describe the qubit-cavity coupling mechanism of a specialized geometry using an electric field picture and a circuit model, and finally obtain specific system parameters using simulations. Fabrication of the MMIQC includes lithography, etching, and metallic bonding of silicon wafers. Superconducting wafer bonding is a critical capability that is demonstrated by a micromachined storage cavity lifetime 34.3 μs, corresponding to a quality factor of 2 million at single-photon energies. The transmon coherence times are T1=6.4 μs, and TEcho2=11.7 μs. We measure qubit-cavity dispersive coupling with rate χqμ/2π=−1.17 MHz, constituting a Jaynes-Cummings system with an interaction strength g/2π=49 MHz. With these parameters we are able to demonstrate cQED operations in the strong dispersive regime with ease. Finally, we highlight several improvements and anticipated extensions of the technology to complex MMIQCs.
04
Nov
2016
Topologically-enforced bifurcations in superconducting circuits
The relation of topological insulators and superconductors and the field of nonlinear dynamics is widely unexplored. To address this subject, we adopt the linear coupling geometry of
the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model, a paradigmatic example for a topological insulator, and render it nonlinearly in the context of superconducting circuits. As a consequence, the system exhibits topologically-enforced bifurcations as a function of the topological control parameter, which finally gives rise to chaotic dynamics, separating phases which exhibit clear topological features.
03
Nov
2016
Degeneracy-preserving quantum non-demolition measurement of parity-type observables for cat-qubits
A central requirement for any quantum error correction scheme is the ability to perform quantum non-demolition measurements of an error syndrome, corresponding to a special symmetry
property of the encoding scheme. It is in particular important that such a measurement does not introduce extra error mechanisms, not included in the error model of the correction scheme. In this letter, we ensure such a robustness by designing an interaction with a measurement device that preserves the degeneracy of the measured observable. More precisely, we propose a scheme to perform continuous and quantum non-demolition measurement of photon-number parity in a microwave cavity. This corresponds to the error syndrome in a class of error correcting codes called the cat-codes, which have recently proven to be efficient and versatile for quantum information processing. In our design, we exploit the strongly nonlinear Hamiltonian of a high-impedance Josephson circuit, coupling a high-Q cavity storage cavity mode to a low-Q readout one. By driving the readout resonator at its resonance, the phase of the reflected/transmitted signal carries directly exploitable information on parity-type observables for encoded cat-qubits of the high-Q mode.
31
Okt
2016
Experimentally simulating the dynamics of quantum light and matter at ultrastrong coupling
The quantum Rabi model describing the fundamental interaction between light and matter is a cornerstone of quantum physics. It predicts exotic phenomena like quantum phase transitions
and ground-state entanglement in the ultrastrong-coupling (USC) regime, where coupling strengths are comparable to subsystem energies. Despite progress in many experimental platforms, the few experiments reaching USC have been limited to spectroscopy: demonstrating USC dynamics remains an outstanding challenge. Here, we employ a circuit QED chip with moderate coupling between a resonator and transmon qubit to realise accurate digital quantum simulation of USC dynamics. We advance the state of the art in solid-state digital quantum simulation by using up to 90 second-order Trotter steps and probing both subsystems in a combined Hilbert space dimension ∼80, demonstrating the Schr\“odinger-cat like entanglement and build-up of large photon numbers characteristic of deep USC. This work opens the door to exploring extreme USC regimes, quantum phase transitions and many-body effects in the Dicke model.
28
Okt
2016
Phonon-Mediated Quasiparticle Poisoning of Superconducting Microwave Resonators
Nonequilibrium quasiparticles represent a significant source of decoherence in superconducting quantum circuits. Here we investigate the mechanism of quasiparticle poisoning in devices
subjected to local quasiparticle injection. We find that quasiparticle poisoning is dominated by the propagation of pair-breaking phonons across the chip. We characterize the energy dependence of the timescale for quasiparticle poisoning. Finally, we observe that incorporation of extensive normal metal quasiparticle traps leads to a more than order of magnitude reduction in quasiparticle loss for a given injected quasiparticle power.