Universal controlled-phase gate with cat-state qubits in circuit QED

Cat-state qubits (qubits encoded with cat states) have recently drawn intensive attention due to their long lifetimes. We here propose a method to implement a universal controlled-phase gate of two cat-state qubits, via two microwave resonators coupled to a superconducting transmon qutrit. During the gate operation, the qutrit remains in the ground state; thus decoherence from the qutrit is greatly suppressed. This proposal requires only two basic operations and neither classical pulse nor measurement is needed; therefore the gate realization is simple. Numerical simulations show that high-fidelity implementation of this gate is feasible with current circuit QED technology. The proposal is quite general and can be applied to implement the proposed gate with two microwave resonators or two optical cavities coupled to a single three-level natural or artificial atom.