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
27
Nov
2014
Precise Time Evolution of Superconductive Phase Qubits
New procedure on precise analysis of superconducting phase qubits using the concept of Feynman path integral in quantum mechanics and quantum field theory has been introduced. The wave
function and imaginary part of the energy of the pseudo ground state of the Hamiltonian in phase qubits has been obtained from semi classical approximation and we we estimate decay rate, and thus the life time of meta stable using the approach of Instanton model. We devote the main effort to study the evolution of spectrum of Hamiltonian in time after addition of interaction Hamiltonian, in order to obtain the high fidelity quantum gates.
26
Nov
2014
State preservation by repetitive error detection in a superconducting quantum circuit
Quantum computing becomes viable when a quantum state can be preserved from environmentally-induced error. If quantum bits (qubits) are sufficiently reliable, errors are sparse and
quantum error correction (QEC) is capable of identifying and correcting them. Adding more qubits improves the preservation by guaranteeing increasingly larger clusters of errors will not cause logical failure – a key requirement for large-scale systems. Using QEC to extend the qubit lifetime remains one of the outstanding experimental challenges in quantum computing. Here, we report the protection of classical states from environmental bit-flip errors and demonstrate the suppression of these errors with increasing system size. We use a linear array of nine qubits, which is a natural precursor of the two-dimensional surface code QEC scheme, and track errors as they occur by repeatedly performing projective quantum non-demolition (QND) parity measurements. Relative to a single physical qubit, we reduce the failure rate in retrieving an input state by a factor of 2.7 for five qubits and a factor of 8.5 for nine qubits after eight cycles. Additionally, we tomographically verify preservation of the non-classical Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state. The successful suppression of environmentally-induced errors strongly motivates further research into the many exciting challenges associated with building a large-scale superconducting quantum computer.
Fate of False Vacuum in Superconducting Flux Qubits
We propose a similarity between the scenario of fate of false vacuum in cosmology at early universe and the situation in where the quantum state decays in superconducting Flux qubit.
This is due to the fact that both cases have two homogeneous stable equilibrium states in scalar field, which in quantum theory, could penetrate through the barrier in different possibilities and hence considered unstable decaying in time. In quantum computation, decay rate is among the most important factors in characteristics of the system like coherency, reliability, measurement fidelity, etc. In this considered potential, the decay rate from the penetrating (False vacuum) state to the stable (absolute minimum) state is achieved to leading order in Planck constant by the approach of Instanton model. In case of the superconducting flux qubit having thin barrier potential, the decay rate is calculated and its relations with actual set of parameters in flux qubit design are introduced.
Driven Spin-Boson Luttinger Liquids
We introduce a lattice model of interacting spins and bosons that leads to Luttinger-liquid physics, and allows for quantitative tests of the theory of bosonization by means of trapped-ion
or superconducting-circuit experiments. By using a variational bosonization ansatz, we calculate the power-law decay of spin and boson correlation functions, and study their dependence on a single tunable parameter, namely a bosonic driving. For small drivings, Matrix-Product-States (MPS) numerical methods are shown to be efficient and validate our ansatz. Conversely, even static MPS become inefficient for large-driving regimes, such that the experiment can potentially outperform classical numerics, achieving one of the goals of quantum simulations.
Robust quantum state transfer using tunable couplers
We analyze the transfer of a quantum state between two resonators connected by a superconducting transmission line. Nearly perfect state-transfer efficiency can be achieved by using
adjustable couplers and destructive interference to cancel the back-reflection into the transmission line at the receiving coupler. We show that the transfer protocol is robust to parameter variations affecting the transmission amplitudes of the couplers. We also show that the effects of Gaussian filtering, pulse-shape noise, and multiple reflections on the transfer efficiency are insignificant. However, the transfer protocol is very sensitive to frequency mismatch between the two resonators. Moreover, the tunable coupler we considered produces time-varying frequency detuning caused by the changing coupling. This detuning requires an active frequency compensation with an accuracy better than 90% to yield the transfer efficiency above 99%.
24
Nov
2014
Stationary discrete solitons in circuit QED
We demonstrate that stationary localized solutions (discrete solitons) exist in a one dimensional Bose-Hubbard lattices with gain and loss in the semiclassical regime. Stationary solutions,
by defi- nition, are robust and do not demand for state preparation. Losses, unavoidable in experiments, are not a drawback, but a necessary ingredient for these modes to exist. The semiclassical calculations are complemented with their classical limit and dynamics based on a Gutzwiller Ansatz. We argue that circuit QED architectures are ideal platforms for realizing the physics developed here. Finally, within the input-output formalism, we explain how to experimentally access the different phases, including the solitons, of the chain.
20
Nov
2014
Fermion parity measurement and control in Majorana circuit quantum electrodynamics
Combining superconducting qubits with mesoscopic devices that carry topological states of matter may lead to compact and improved qubit devices with properties useful for fault-tolerant
quantum computation. Recently, a charge qubit device based on a topological superconductor circuit has been introduced where signatures of Majorana fermions could be detected spectroscopically in the transmon regime. This device stores quantum information in coherent superpositions of fermion parity states originating from the Majorana fermions, generating a highly isolated qubit whose coherence time could be greatly enhanced. We extended the conventional semi-classical method and obtained analytical derivations for strong transmon-photon coupling. The analytical challenge is rendered tractable via a formalism based on the WKB method that allows to extract the energy eigenstates of the qubit and its dipole matrix elements. Using this formalism, we study the effect of the Majorana fermions on the quantum electrodynamics of the device embedded within an optical cavity and develop protocols to initialise, control and measure the parity states. We show that, remarkably, the parity eigenvalue can be detected via dispersive shifts of the optical cavity in the strong coupling regime and its state can be coherently manipulated via a second order sideband transition.
Detecting bit-flip errors in a logical qubit using stabilizer measurements
Quantum data is susceptible to decoherence induced by the environment and to errors in the hardware processing it. A future fault-tolerant quantum computer will use quantum error correction
(QEC) to actively protect against both. In the smallest QEC codes, the information in one logical qubit is encoded in a two-dimensional subspace of a larger Hilbert space of multiple physical qubits. For each code, a set of non-demolition multi-qubit measurements, termed stabilizers, can discretize and signal physical qubit errors without collapsing the encoded information. Experimental demonstrations of QEC to date, using nuclear magnetic resonance, trapped ions, photons, superconducting qubits, and NV centers in diamond, have circumvented stabilizers at the cost of decoding at the end of a QEC cycle. This decoding leaves the quantum information vulnerable to physical qubit errors until re-encoding, violating a basic requirement for fault tolerance. Using a five-qubit superconducting processor, we realize the two parity measurements comprising the stabilizers of the three-qubit repetition code protecting one logical qubit from physical bit-flip errors. We construct these stabilizers as parallelized indirect measurements using ancillary qubits, and evidence their non-demolition character by generating three-qubit entanglement from superposition states. We demonstrate stabilizer-based quantum error detection (QED) by subjecting a logical qubit to coherent and incoherent bit-flip errors on its constituent physical qubits. While increased physical qubit coherence times and shorter QED blocks are required to actively safeguard quantum information, this demonstration is a critical step toward larger codes based on multiple parity measurements.
Optimized pulse shapes for a resonator-induced phase gate
The resonator-induced phase gate is a multi-qubit controlled-phase gate for fixed-frequency superconducting qubits. Through off-resonant driving of a bus resonator, statically coupled
qubits acquire a state-dependent phase. However, photon loss leads to dephasing during the gate, and any residual entanglement between the resonator and qubits after the gate leads to decoherence. Here we consider how to shape the drive pulse to minimize these unwanted effects. First, we review how the gate’s entangling and dephasing rates depend on the system parameters and validate closed-form solutions against direct numerical solution of a master equation. Next, we propose spline pulse shapes that reduce residual qubit-bus entanglement, are robust to imprecise knowledge of the resonator shift, and can be shortened by using higher-degree polynomials. Finally, we present a procedure that optimizes over the subspace of pulses that leave the resonator unpopulated. This finds shaped drive pulses that further reduce the gate duration. Assuming realistic parameters, we exhibit shaped pulses that have the potential to realize ~212 ns spline pulse gates and ~120 ns optimized gates with ~6e-4 average gate infidelity. These examples do not represent fundamental limits of the gate and in principle even shorter gates may be achievable.
18
Nov
2014
Machine learning for discriminating quantum measurement trajectories and improving readout
High-fidelity measurements are important for the physical implementation of quantum information protocols. Current methods for classifying measurement trajectories in superconducting
qubit systems produce fidelities that are systematically lower than those predicted by experimental parameters. Here, we place current classification methods within the framework of machine learning algorithms and improve on them by investigating more sophisticated ML approaches. We find that non-linear algorithms and clustering methods produce significantly higher assignment fidelities that help close the gap to the fidelity achievable under ideal noise conditions. Clustering methods group trajectories into natural subsets within the data, which allows for the diagnosis of specific systematic errors. We find large clusters in the data associated with relaxation processes and show these are the main source of discrepancy between our experimental and achievable fidelities. These error diagnosis techniques help provide a concrete path forward to improve qubit measurements.