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
26
Jul
2023
High-sensitivity AC-charge detection with a MHz-frequency fluxonium qubit
Owing to their strong dipole moment and long coherence times, superconducting qubits have demonstrated remarkable success in hybrid quantum circuits. However, most qubit architectures
are limited to the GHz frequency range, severely constraining the class of systems they can interact with. The fluxonium qubit, on the other hand, can be biased to very low frequency while being manipulated and read out with standard microwave techniques. Here, we design and operate a heavy fluxonium with an unprecedentedly low transition frequency of 1.8 MHz. We demonstrate resolved sideband cooling of the „hot“ qubit transition with a final ground state population of 97.7 %, corresponding to an effective temperature of 23 μK. We further demonstrate coherent manipulation with coherence times T1=34 μs, T∗2=39 μs, and single-shot readout of the qubit state. Importantly, by directly addressing the qubit transition with a capacitively coupled waveguide, we showcase its high sensitivity to a radio-frequency field. Through cyclic qubit preparation and interrogation, we transform this low-frequency fluxonium qubit into a frequency-resolved charge sensor. This method results in a charge sensitivity of 33 μe/Hz‾‾‾√, or an energy sensitivity (in joules per hertz) of 2.8 ℏ. This method rivals state-of-the-art transport-based devices, while maintaining inherent insensitivity to DC charge noise. The high charge sensitivity combined with large capacitive shunt unlocks new avenues for exploring quantum phenomena in the 1−10 MHz range, such as the strong-coupling regime with a resonant macroscopic mechanical resonator.
17
Jul
2023
Demonstrating a long-coherence dual-rail erasure qubit using tunable transmons
Quantum error correction with erasure qubits promises significant advantages over standard error correction due to favorable thresholds for erasure errors. To realize this advantagein practice requires a qubit for which nearly all errors are such erasure errors, and the ability to check for erasure errors without dephasing the qubit. We experimentally demonstrate that a „dual-rail qubit“ consisting of a pair of resonantly-coupled transmons can form a highly coherent erasure qubit, where the erasure error rate is given by the transmon T1 but for which residual dephasing is strongly suppressed, leading to millisecond-scale coherence within the qubit subspace. We show that single-qubit gates are limited primarily by erasure errors, with erasure probability perasure=2.19(2)×10−3 per gate while the residual errors are ∼40 times lower. We further demonstrate mid-circuit detection of erasure errors while introducing <0.1% dephasing error per check. Finally, we show that the suppression of transmon noise allows this dual-rail qubit to preserve high coherence over a broad tunable operating range, offering an improved capacity to avoid frequency collisions. This work establishes transmon-based dual-rail qubits as an attractive building block for hardware-efficient quantum error correction.[/expand]
16
Jul
2023
Enhancing Dispersive Readout of Superconducting Qubits Through Dynamic Control of the Dispersive Shift: Experiment and Theory
The performance of a wide range of quantum computing algorithms and protocols depends critically on the fidelity and speed of the employed qubit readout. Examples include gate sequences
benefiting from mid-circuit, real-time, measurement-based feedback, such as qubit initialization, entanglement generation, teleportation, and perhaps most importantly, quantum error correction. A prominent and widely-used readout approach is based on the dispersive interaction of a superconducting qubit strongly coupled to a large-bandwidth readout resonator, frequently combined with a dedicated or shared Purcell filter protecting qubits from decay. By dynamically reducing the qubit-resonator detuning and thus increasing the dispersive shift, we demonstrate a beyond-state-of-the-art two-state-readout error of only 0.25% in 100 ns integration time. Maintaining low readout-drive strength, we nearly quadruple the signal-to-noise ratio of the readout by doubling the readout mode linewidth, which we quantify by considering the hybridization of the readout-resonator and its dedicated Purcell-filter. We find excellent agreement between our experimental data and our theoretical model. The presented results are expected to further boost the performance of new and existing algorithms and protocols critically depending on high-fidelity, fast, mid-circuit measurements.
A superconducting quantum information processor with high qubit connectivity
Coupling of transmon qubits to resonators that serve as storage for information provides alternative routes for quantum computing. Such a scheme paves the way for achieving high qubit
connectivity, which is a great challenge in cQED systems. Implementations either involve an ancillary transmon’s direct excitation, or virtual photon interactions. Virtual coupling scheme promises advantages such as the parallel, virtual gate operations and better coherence properties since the transmon’s decoherence effects are suppressed. However, virtual gates rely on nonuniform frequency separation of the modes in the system and acquiring this feature is not a straightforward task. Here, we propose an architecture that incorporates the four-wave mixing capabilities of the transmon into a chain of resonators coupled collectively by qubits in between. The system, consisting of numerous resonators all operating within the single mode approximation, maintains the above-mentioned nonuniformity by accommodating different resonators with appropriate frequencies.
13
Jul
2023
Flip-chip-based fast inductive parity readout of a planar superconducting island
Properties of superconducting devices depend sensitively on the parity (even or odd) of the quasiparticles they contain. Encoding quantum information in the parity degree of freedom
is central in several emerging solid-state qubit architectures. Yet, accurate, non-destructive, and time-resolved parity measurement is a challenging and long-standing issue. Here we report on control and real-time parity measurement in a superconducting island embedded in a superconducting loop and realized in a hybrid two-dimensional heterostructure using a microwave resonator. Device and readout resonator are located on separate chips, connected via flip-chip bonding, and couple inductively through vacuum. The superconducting resonator detects the parity-dependent circuit inductance, allowing for fast and non-destructive parity readout. We resolved even and odd parity states with signal-to-noise ratio SNR ≈3 with an integration time of 20 μs and detection fidelity exceeding 98%. Real-time parity measurement showed state lifetime extending into millisecond range. Our approach will lead to better understanding of coherence-limiting mechanisms in superconducting quantum hardware and provide novel readout schemes for hybrid qubits.
Quantum control of a cat-qubit with bit-flip times exceeding ten seconds
Binary classical information is routinely encoded in the two metastable states of a dynamical system. Since these states may exhibit macroscopic lifetimes, the encoded information inherits
a strong protection against bit-flips. A recent qubit – the cat-qubit – is encoded in the manifold of metastable states of a quantum dynamical system, thereby acquiring bit-flip protection. An outstanding challenge is to gain quantum control over such a system without breaking its protection. If this challenge is met, significant shortcuts in hardware overhead are forecast for quantum computing. In this experiment, we implement a cat-qubit with bit-flip times exceeding ten seconds. This is a four order of magnitude improvement over previous cat-qubit implementations, and six orders of magnitude enhancement over the single photon lifetime that compose this dynamical qubit. This was achieved by introducing a quantum tomography protocol that does not break bit-flip protection. We prepare and image quantum superposition states, and measure phase-flip times above 490 nanoseconds. Most importantly, we control the phase of these superpositions while maintaining the bit-flip time above ten seconds. This work demonstrates quantum operations that preserve macroscopic bit-flip times, a necessary step to scale these dynamical qubits into fully protected hardware-efficient architectures.
Solomon equations for qubit and two-level systems
We model and measure the combined relaxation of a qubit, a.k.a. central spin, coupled to a discrete two-level system (TLS) environment. We present a derivation of the Solomon equations
starting from a general Lindblad equation for the qubit and an arbitrary number of TLSs. If the TLSs are much longer lived than the qubit, the relaxation becomes non-exponential. In the limit of large numbers of TLSs the populations are likely to follow a power law, which we illustrate by measuring the relaxation of a superconducting fluxonium qubit. Moreover, we show that the Solomon equations predict non-Poissonian quantum jump statistics, which we confirm experimentally.
Autoparametric resonance extending the bit-flip time of a cat qubit up to 0.3 s
Cat qubits, for which logical |0⟩ and |1⟩ are coherent states |±α⟩ of a harmonic mode, offer a promising route towards quantum error correction. Using dissipation to our advantage
so that photon pairs of the harmonic mode are exchanged with single photons of its environment, it is possible to stabilize the logical states and exponentially increase the bit-flip time of the cat qubit with the photon number |α|2. Large two-photon dissipation rate κ2 ensures fast qubit manipulation and short error correction cycles, which are instrumental to correct the remaining phase-flip errors in a repetition code of cat qubits. Here we introduce and operate an autoparametric superconducting circuit that couples a mode containing the cat qubit to a lossy mode whose frequency is set at twice that of the cat mode. This passive coupling does not require a parametric pump and reaches a rate κ2/2π≈2 MHz. With such a strong two-photon dissipation, bit-flip errors of the autoparametric cat qubit are prevented for a characteristic time up to 0.3 s with only a mild impact on phase-flip errors. Besides, we illustrate how the phase of a quantum superposition between |α⟩ and |−α⟩ can be arbitrarily changed by driving the harmonic mode while keeping the engineered dissipation active.
10
Jul
2023
Detection of temporal fluctuation in superconducting qubits for quantum error mitigation
We have investigated instability of a superconducting quantum computer by continuously monitoring the qubit output. We found that qubits exhibit a step-like change in the error rates.
This change is repeatedly observed, and each step persists for several minutes. By analyzing the correlation between the increased errors and anomalous variance of the output, we demonstrate quantum error mitigation based on post-selection. Numerical analysis on the proposed method was also conducted.
08
Jul
2023
Coupling high-overtone bulk acoustic wave resonators via superconducting qubits
In this work, we present a device consisting of two coupled transmon qubits, each of which are coupled to an independent high-overtone bulk acoustic wave resonator (HBAR). Both HBAR
resonators support a plethora of acoustic modes, which can couple to the qubit near resonantly. We first show qubit-qubit interaction in the multimode system, and finally quantum state transfer where an excitation is swapped from an HBAR mode of one qubit, to an HBAR mode of the other qubit.