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
17
Dez
2021
Coherent Qubit Measurement in Cavity-Transmon Quantum Systems
A measurement of the time between quantum jumps implies the capability to measure the next jump. During the time between jumps the quantum system is not evolving in closed or unitary
manner. While the wave function maintains phase coherence it evolves according to a non-hermitian effective hamiltonian. So under null measurement the timing of the next quantum jump can change by very many orders of magnitude when compared to rates obtained by multiplying lifetimes with occupation probabilities obtained via unitary transformation. The theory developed in 1987 for atomic fluorescence is here extended to transitions in transmon qubits. These systems differ from atoms in that they are read out with a harmonic cavity whose resonance is determined by the state of the qubit. We extend our analysis of atomic fluorescence to this infinite level system by treating the cavity as a quantum system. We find that next photon statistics is highly non exponential and when implemented will enable faster readout, such as on time scales shorter than the decay time of the cavity. Commonly used heterodyne measurements are applied on time scales longer than the cavity lifetime. The overlap between the next photon theory and the theory of heterodyne measurement which are described according to the SSE is elucidated.
Frequency-tunable Kerr-free three-wave mixing with a gradiometric SNAIL
Three-wave mixing is a key process in superconducting quantum information processing, being involved in quantum-limited amplification and parametric coupling between superconducting
cavities. These operations can be implemented by SNAIL-based devices that present a Kerr-free flux-bias point where unwanted parasitic effects such as Stark shift are suppressed. However, with a single flux-bias parameter, these circuits can only host one Kerr-free point, limiting the range of their applications. In this Letter, we demonstrate how to overcome this constraint with a gradiometric SNAIL, a doubly-flux biased superconducting circuit for which both effective inductance and Kerr coefficient can be independently tuned. Experimental data show the capability of the gradiometric SNAIL to suppress Kerr effect in a three-wave mixing parametric amplifier over a continuum of flux bias points corresponding to a 1.7 GHz range of operating frequencies.
16
Dez
2021
Photonic heat transport in three terminal superconducting circuit
Quantum heat transport devices are currently intensively studied in theory. Experimental realization of quantum heat transport devices is a challenging task. So far, they have been
mostly investigated in experiments with ultra-cold atoms and single atomic traps. Experiments with superconducting qubits have also been carried out and heat transport and heat rectification has been studied in two terminal devices. The structures with three independent terminals offer additional opportunities for realization of heat transistors, heat switches, on-chip masers and even more complicated devices. Here we report an experimental realization of a three-terminal photonic heat transport device based on a superconducting quantum circuit. Its central element is a flux qubit made of a superconducting loop containing three Josephson junctions, which is connected to three resonators terminated by resistors. By heating one of the resistors and monitoring the temperatures of the other two, we determine photonic heat currents in the system and demonstrate their tunability by magnetic field at the level of 1 aW. We determine system parameters by performing microwave transmission measurements on a separate nominally identical sample and, in this way, demonstrate clear correlation between the level splitting of the qubit and the heat currents flowing through it. Our experiment is an important step in the development of on-chip quantum heat transport devices. On the one hand, such devices are of great interest for fundamental science because they allow one to investigate the effect of quantum interference and entanglement on the transport of heat. On the other hand, they also have great practical importance for the rapidly developing field of quantum computing, in which management of heat generated by qubits is a problem.
15
Dez
2021
Single-junction quantum-circuit refrigerator
We propose a quantum-circuit refrigerator (QCR) based on photon-assisted quasiparticle tunneling through a single normal-metal–insulator–superconductor (NIS) junction. In
contrast to previous works with multiple junctions and an additional charge island for the QCR, we galvanically connect the NIS junction to an inductively shunted electrode of a superconducting microwave resonator making the device immune to low-frequency charge noise. At low characteristic impedance of the resonator and parameters relevant to a recent experiment, we observe that a semiclassical impedance model of the NIS junction reproduces the bias voltage dependence of the QCR-induced damping rate and frequency shift. For high characteristic impedances, we derive a Born–Markov master equation and use it to observe significant non-linearities in the QCR-induced dissipation and frequency shift. We further demonstrate that in this regime, the QCR can be used to initialize the linear resonator into a non-thermal state even in the absence of any microwave drive.
Kinetically constrained quantum dynamics in a circuit-QED transmon wire
We study the dynamical properties of the bosonic quantum East model at low temperature. We show that a naive generalization of the corresponding spin-1/2 quantum East model does not
posses analogous slow dynamical properties. In particular, conversely to the spin case, the bosonic ground state turns out to be not localized. We restore localization by introducing a repulsive nearest-neighbour interaction term. The bosonic nature of the model allows us to construct rich families of many-body localized states, including coherent, squeezed and cat states. We formalize this finding by introducing a set of superbosonic creation-annihilation operators which satisfy the bosonic commutation relations and, when acting on the vacuum, create excitations exponentially localized around a certain site of the lattice. Given the constrained nature of the model, these states retain memory of their initial conditions for long times. Even in the presence of dissipation, we show that quantum information remains localized within decoherence times tunable with the system’s parameters. We propose a circuit QED implementation of the bosonic quantum East model based on state-of-the-art transmon physics, which could be used in the near future to explore kinetically constrained models in superconducting quantum computing platfoms.
Entanglement between superconducting qubits and a tardigrade
Quantum and biological systems are seldom discussed together as they seemingly demand opposing conditions. Life is complex, „hot and wet“ whereas quantum objects are small,
cold and well controlled. Here, we overcome this barrier with a tardigrade — a microscopic multicellular organism known to tolerate extreme physiochemical conditions via a latent state of life known as cryptobiosis. We observe coupling between the animal in cryptobiosis and a superconducting quantum bit and prepare a highly entangled state between this combined system and another qubit. The tardigrade itself is shown to be entangled with the remaining subsystems. The animal is then observed to return to its active form after 420 hours at sub 10 mK temperatures and pressure of 6×10−6 mbar, setting a new record for the conditions that a complex form of life can survive.
Collective bosonic effects in an array of transmon devices
Multiple atoms coherently interacting with an electromagnetic mode give rise to collective effects such as correlated decay and coherent exchange interaction, depending on the separation
of the atoms. By diagonalizing the effective non-Hermitian many-body Hamiltonian we reveal the complex-valued eigenvalue spectrum encoding the decay and interaction characteristics. We show that there are significant differences in the emerging effects for an array of interacting anharmonic oscillators compared to those of two-level systems and harmonic oscillators. The bosonic decay rate of the most superradiant state increases linearly as a function of the filling factor and exceeds that of two-level systems in magnitude. Furthermore, with bosonic systems, dark states are formed at each filling factor. These are in strong contrast with two-level systems, where the maximal superradiance is observed at half filling and with larger filling factors superradiance diminishes and no dark states are formed. As an experimentally relevant setup of bosonic waveguide QED, we focus on arrays of transmon devices embedded inside a rectangular waveguide. Specifically, we study the setup of two transmon pairs realized experimentally in M. Zanner et al., arXiv.2106.05623 (2021), and show that it is necessary to consider transmons as bosonic multilevel emitters to accurately recover correct collective effects for the higher excitation manifolds.
14
Dez
2021
The Effect of Parameter Variations on the Performance of the Josephson Travelling Wave Parametric Amplifiers
We have simulated the performance of the Josephson Travelling Wave Parametric Amplifier (JTWPA) based on the one-dimensional array of RF SQUIDs. Unlike the ideal model in which all
SQUIDs are assumed to be identical, we allowed variation of the device parameters such as the geometric inductance of the SQUID loop, capacitance to ground, Josephson junction capacitance and critical current. Our simulations confirm the negative effects of variation of the device parameters leading to microwave reflections between individual cells and the shift of the flux bias from the optimal point. The strongest effect is caused by the variation of the geometric inductance as it varies both the wave impedance and the flux bias. The most detrimental, however, are point defects, such as shorts to ground making the circuit opaque to microwaves. This imposes stringent requirements on the fabrication process making it extremely challenging. We highlight the strict limitations on parameter spread in these devices while also discussing the robustness of the scheme to variation
13
Dez
2021
Protected hybrid superconducting qubit in an array of gate-tunable Josephson interferometers
We propose a protected qubit based on a modular array of superconducting islands connected by semiconductor Josephson interferometers. The individual interferometers realize effective
cos2ϕ elements that exchange `pairs of Cooper pairs‘ between the superconducting islands when gate-tuned into balance and frustrated by a half flux quantum. If a large capacitor shunts the ends of the array, the circuit forms a protected qubit because its degenerate ground states are robust to offset charge and magnetic field fluctuations for a sizable window around zero offset charge and half flux quantum. This protection window broadens upon increasing the number of interferometers if the individual elements are balanced. We use an effective spin model to describe the system and show that a quantum phase transition point sets the critical flux value at which protection is destroyed.
11
Dez
2021
The Optimization of Flux Trajectories for the Adiabatic Controlled-Z Gate on Split-Tunable Transmons
In a system of two tunable-frequency qubits, it is well-known that adiabatic tuning into strong coupling-interaction regions between the qubit subspace and the rest of the Hilbert space
can be used to generate an effective controlled Z rotation. We address the problem of determining a preferable adiabatic trajectory for which to tune the qubit frequency along, and apply this to the flux-tunable transmon model. The especially minimally anharmonic nature of these quantum processors makes them good candidates for qubit control using non-computational states, as long as higher-level leakage is properly addressed. While the statement of this method has occurred multiple times in literature, there has been little discussion of which trajectories may be used. We present a generalized method for optimizing parameterized families of possible flux trajectories and provide examples of use on five test families of one and two parameters.