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
31
Mai
2016
The Quantum Socket: Three-Dimensional Wiring for Extensible Quantum Computing
Quantum computing architectures are on the verge of scalability, a key requirement for the implementation of a universal quantum computer. The next stage in this quest is the realization
of quantum error correction codes, which will mitigate the impact of faulty quantum information on a quantum computer. Architectures with ten or more quantum bits (qubits) have been realized using trapped ions and superconducting circuits. While these implementations are potentially scalable, true scalability will require systems engineering to combine quantum and classical hardware. One technology demanding imminent efforts is the realization of a suitable wiring method for the control and measurement of a large number of qubits. In this work, we introduce an interconnect solution for solid-state qubits: The quantum socket. The quantum socket fully exploits the third dimension to connect classical electronics to qubits with higher density and better performance than two-dimensional methods based on wire bonding. The quantum socket is based on spring-mounted micro wires the three-dimensional wires that push directly on a micro-fabricated chip, making electrical contact. A small wire cross section (~1 mmm), nearly non-magnetic components, and functionality at low temperatures make the quantum socket ideal to operate solid-state qubits. The wires have a coaxial geometry and operate over a frequency range from DC to 8 GHz, with a contact resistance of ~150 mohm, an impedance mismatch of ~10 ohm, and minimal crosstalk. As a proof of principle, we fabricated and used a quantum socket to measure superconducting resonators at a temperature of ~10 mK.
Measurement of a microwave field amplitude beyond the standard quantum limit
We report a quantum measurement beyond the standard quantum limit (SQL) for the amplitude of a small displacement acting on a cavity field. This measurement uses as resource an entangled
mesoscopic state, prepared by the resonant interaction of a circular Rydberg atom with a field stored in a superconducting cavity. We analyse the measurement process in terms of Fisher information and prove that it is, in principle, optimal. The achieved experimental precision, 2.4 dB below the SQL, is well understood in terms of experimental imperfections.This method could be transposed to other systems, particularly to circuit QED, for the precise measurements of weak forces acting on oscillators.
28
Mai
2016
Method for identifying electromagnetically induced transparency in a tunable circuit quantum electrodynamics system
Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) has been realized in atomic systems, but fulfilling the EIT conditions for artificial atoms made from superconducting circuits is a more
difficult task. Here we report an experimental observation of the EIT in a tunable three-dimensional transmon by probing the cavity transmission. To fulfill the EIT conditions, we tune the transmon to adjust its damping rates by utilizing the effect of the cavity on the transmon states. From the experimental observations, we clearly identify the EIT and Autler-Townes splitting (ATS) regimes as well as the transition regime in between. Also, the experimental data demonstrate that the threshold ΩAIC determined by the Akaike information criterion can describe the EIT-ATS transition better than the threshold ΩEIT given by the EIT theory.
Quantum state reconstruction made easy: a direct method for tomography
In quantum mechanics, the state of the system, or set of systems, is encoded as a vector in a state space. While this sounds simple, it has several implications that are not limited
to the more well known and „spooky“ consequences of quantum physics, such as entanglement. One of these is that we can never directly observe the state of the system itself; we are only able to measure its observable properties, such as position and momentum, that are affected by the system’s state. By making many measurements of this set of observables of the state, we can generate marginal distributions of each. From these distributions, we can reconstruct the original state vector from its associated phase-space Wigner function. It has been shown that such a measurement of the Wigner function is possible for light. Here we give a procedure for the direct measurement and reconstruction of the Wigner function for a series of quantum spin states that should be applicable to any quantum system. We have applied our procedure to IBM’s Quantum Experience five qubit quantum processor to demonstrate that we can directly measure and distinguish two different Bell states – states central to understanding entanglement – via this method. We have also performed direct measurements of the five qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state Wigner function.
26
Mai
2016
Quantum nondemolition measurement of mechanical squeezed state beyond the 3 dB limit
We use a reservoir engineering technique based on two-tone driving to generate and stabilize a quantum squeezed state of a micron-scale mechanical oscillator in a microwave optomechanical
system. Using an independent backaction evading measurement to directly quantify the squeezing, we observe 4.7±0.9 dB of squeezing below the zero-point level, surpassing the 3 dB limit of standard parametric squeezing techniques. Our measurements also reveal evidence for an additional mechanical parametric effect. The interplay between this effect and the optomechanical interaction enhances the amount of squeezing obtained in the experiment.
25
Mai
2016
Continuous quantum nondemolition measurement of the transverse component of a qubit
Quantum jumps of a qubit are usually observed between its energy eigenstates, also known as its longitudinal pseudo-spin component. Is it possible, instead, to observe quantum jumps
between the transverse superpositions of these eigenstates? We answer positively by presenting the first continuous quantum nondemolition measurement of the transverse component of an individual qubit. In a circuit QED system irradiated by two pump tones, we engineer an effective Hamiltonian whose eigenstates are the transverse qubit states, and a dispersive measurement of the corresponding operator. Such transverse component measurements are a useful tool in the driven-dissipative operation engineering toolbox, which is central to quantum simulation and quantum error correction.
Investigating surface loss effects in superconducting transmon qubits
Superconducting qubits are sensitive to a variety of loss mechanisms including dielectric loss from interfaces. By changing the physical footprint of the qubit it is possible to modulate
sensitivity to surface loss. Here we show a systematic study of planar superconducting transmons of differing physical footprints to optimize the qubit design for maximum coherence. We find that qubits with small footprints are limited by surface loss and that qubits with large footprints are limited by other loss mechanisms which are currently not understood.
24
Mai
2016
Experimental Freezing of mid-Evolution Fluctuations with a Programmable Annealer
For randomly selected couplers and fields, the D-Wave device typically yields a highly Boltzmann like distribution [ indicating equilibration. These equilibrated data however do not
contain much useful information about the dynamics which lead to equilibration. To illuminate the dynamics, special Hamiltonians can be chosen which contain large energy barriers. In this paper we generalize this approach by considering a class of Hamiltonians which map clusters of spin-like qubits into ’superspins‘, thereby creating an energy landscape where local minima are separated by large energy barriers. These large energy barriers allow us to observe signatures of the transverse field frozen. To study these systems, we assume that the these frozen spins are describes by the Kibble-Zurek mechanism which was originally developed to describe formation of topological defects in the early universe. It was soon realized that it also has applications in analogous superconductor systems and later realized to also be important for the transverse field Ising model . We demonstrate that these barriers block equilibration and yield a non-trivial distribution of qubit states in a regime where quantum effects are expected to be strong, suggesting that these data should contain signatures of whether the dynamics are fundamentally classical or quantum. We exhaustively study a class of 3×3 square lattice superspin Hamiltonians and compare the experimental results with those obtained by exact diagonalisation. We find that the best fit to the data occurs at finite transverse field. We further demonstrate that under the right conditions, the superspins can be relaxed to equilibrium, erasing the signature of the transverse field. These results are interesting for a number of reasons. They suggest a route to detect signatures of quantum mechanics on the device on a statistical level.
Witnessing topological Weyl semimetal phase in a minimal circuit-QED lattice
We present a feasible protocol to mimic topological Weyl semimetal phase in a small one-dimensional circuit-QED lattice. By modulating the photon hopping rates and on-site photon frequencies
in parametric spaces, we demonstrate that the momentum space of this one-dimensional lattice model can be artificially mapped to three dimensions accompanied by the emergence of topological Weyl semimetal phase. Furthermore, via a lattice-based cavity input-output process, we show that all the essential topological features of Weyl semimetal phase, including the topological charge associated with each Weyl point and the open Fermi arcs, can be unambiguously detected in a circuit with four dissipative resonators by measuring the reflection spectra. These remarkable features may open a new prospect in using well-controlled small quantum lattices to mimic and study topological phases.
22
Mai
2016
An efficient and compact quantum switch for quantum circuits
The engineering of quantum devices has reached the stage where we now have small scale quantum processors containing multiple interacting qubits within them. Simple quantum circuits
have been demonstrated and scaling up to larger numbers is underway. However as the number of qubits in these processors increases, it becomes challenging to implement switchable or tunable coherent coupling among them. The typical approach has been to detune each qubit from others or the quantum bus it connected to, but as the number of qubits increases this becomes problematic to achieve in practice due to frequency crowding issues. Here, we demonstrate that by applying a fast longitudinal control field to the target qubit, we can turn off its couplings to other qubits or buses (in principle on/off ratio higher than 100 dB). This has important implementations in superconducting circuits as it means we can keep the qubits at their optimal points, where the coherence properties are greatest, during coupling/decoupling processing. Our approach suggests a new way to control coupling among qubits and data buses that can be naturally scaled up to large quantum processors without the need for auxiliary circuits and yet be free of the frequency crowding problems.