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
16
Jul
2023
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.
06
Jul
2023
Demonstrating a superconducting dual-rail cavity qubit with erasure-detected logical measurements
A critical challenge in developing scalable error-corrected quantum systems is the accumulation of errors while performing operations and measurements. One promising approach is to
design a system where errors can be detected and converted into erasures. A recent proposal aims to do this using a dual-rail encoding with superconducting cavities. In this work, we implement such a dual-rail cavity qubit and use it to demonstrate a projective logical measurement with erasure detection. We measure logical state preparation and measurement errors at the 0.01%-level and detect over 99% of cavity decay events as erasures. We use the precision of this new measurement protocol to distinguish different types of errors in this system, finding that while decay errors occur with probability ∼0.2% per microsecond, phase errors occur 6 times less frequently and bit flips occur at least 170 times less frequently. These findings represent the first confirmation of the expected error hierarchy necessary to concatenate dual-rail erasure qubits into a highly efficient erasure code.
05
Jul
2023
High-Energy Collision of Quarks and Hadrons in the Schwinger Model: From Tensor Networks to Circuit QED
With the aim of studying nonperturbative out-of-equilibrium dynamics of high-energy particle collisions on quantum simulators, we investigate the scattering dynamics of lattice quantum
electrodynamics in 1+1 dimensions. Working in the bosonized formulation of the model, we propose an analog circuit-QED implementation that is native to the platform, requires minimal ingredients and approximations, and enables practical schemes for particle wave-packet preparation and evolution. Furthermore, working in the thermodynamic limit, we use uniform-matrix-product-state tensor networks to construct multi-particle wave-packet states, evolve them in time, and detect outgoing particles post collision. This facilitates the numerical simulation of scattering experiments in both confined and deconfined regimes of the model at different energies, giving rise to rich phenomenology, including inelastic production of quark and meson states, meson disintegration, and dynamical string formation and breaking. We obtain elastic and inelastic scattering cross sections, together with time-resolved momentum and position distributions of the outgoing particles. This study highlights the role of classical and quantum simulation in enhancing our understanding of scattering processes in quantum field theories in real time.
30
Jun
2023
Improved Parameter Targeting in {3D}-Integrated Superconducting Circuits through a Polymer Spacer Process
Three-dimensional device integration facilitates the construction of superconducting quantum information processors with more than several tens of qubits by distributing elements such
as control wires, qubits, and resonators between multiple layers. The frequencies of resonators and qubits in flip-chip-bonded multi-chip modules depend on the details of their electromagnetic environment defined by the conductors and dielectrics in their vicinity. Accurate frequency targeting therefore requires precise control of the separation between chips and minimization of their relative tilt. Here, we describe a method to control the inter-chip separation by using polymer spacers. Compared to an identical process without spacers, we reduce the measured planarity error by a factor of 3.5, to a mean tilt of 76(35) μrad, and the deviation from the target inter-chip separation by a factor of ten, to a mean of 0.4(8) μm. We apply this process to coplanar waveguide resonator samples and observe chip-to-chip resonator frequency variations below 50 MHz (≈ 1 %). We measure internal quality factors of 5×105 at the single-photon level, suggesting that the added spacers are compatible with low-loss device fabrication.