Detection of quantum features in mechanical systems at the nanoscale constitutes a challenging task, given the weak interaction with other elements and the available technics. Herewe describe how the interaction between two monomodal transmission-line resonators (TLRs) mediated by vibrations of a nano-electromechanical oscillator can be described. This scheme is then employed for quantum non-demolition detection of the number of phonons in the nano-electromechanical oscillator through a direct current measurement in the output of one of the TLRs. For that to be possible an undepleted field inside one of the TLR works as a amplifier for the interaction between the mechanical resonator and the remaining TLR. We also show how how the non-classical nature of this system can be used for generation of tripartite entanglement and conditioned mechanical coherent superposition states, which may be further explored for detection processes.
Detecting an itinerant microwave photon with high efficiency is an outstanding problem in microwave photonics and its applications. We present a scheme to detect an itinerant microwavephoton in a transmission line via the nonlinearity provided by a transmon in a driven microwave resonator. By performing continuous measurements on the output field of the resonator we theoretically achieve an over-unity signal-to-noise (SNR) for a single shot measurement and 84% distinguishability between zero and one microwave photon with a single transmon and 90% distinguishability with two cascaded transmons. We also show how the measurement diminishes coherence in the photon number basis thereby illustrating a fundamental principle of quantum measurement: the higher the measurement efficiency, the greater is the decoherence.
Circuit cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) is proving to be a powerful platform to implement quantum feedback control schemes due to the ability to control superconducting qubitsand microwaves in a circuit. Here, we present a simple and promising quantum feedback control scheme for deterministic generation and stabilization of a three-qubit W state in the superconducting circuit QED system. The control scheme is based on continuous joint Zeno measurements of multiple qubits in a dispersive regime, which enables us not only to infer the state of the qubits for further information processing but also to create and stabilize the target W state through adaptive quantum feedback control. We simulate the dynamics of the proposed quantum feedback control scheme using the quantum trajectory approach with an effective stochastic maser equation obtained by a polaron-type transformation method and demonstrate that in the presence of moderate environmental decoherence, the average state fidelity higher than 0.9 can be achieved and maintained for a considerable long time (much longer than the single-qubit decoherence time). This control scheme is also shown to be robust against measurement inefficiency and individual qubit decay rate differences. Finally, the comparison of the polaron-type transformation method to the commonly used adiabatic elimination method to eliminate the cavity mode is presented.
Multipartite entanglement of large numbers of physically distinct linear resonators is of both fundamental and applied interest, but there have been no feasible proposals to date forachieving it. At the same time, the Bose-Hubbard model with attractive interactions (ABH) is theoretically known to have a phase transition from the superfluid phase to a highly entangled nonlocal superposition, but observation of this phase transition has remained out of experimental reach. In this theoretical work, we jointly address these two problems by (1) proposing an experimentally accessible quantum simulation of the ABH phase transition in an array of tunably coupled superconducting circuit microwave resonators and (2) incorporating the simulation into a highly scalable protocol that takes as input any microwave resonator state with negligible occupation of number states |0> and |1> and nonlocally superposes it across the whole array of resonators. The large-scale multipartite entanglement produced by the protocol is of the W-type, which is well-known for its robustness. The protocol utilizes the ABH phase transition to generate the multipartite entanglement of all of the resonators in parallel, and is therefore deterministic and permits an increase in resonator number without increase in protocol complexity; the number of resonators is limited instead by system characteristics such as resonator frequency disorder and inter-resonator coupling strength. Only one local and two global controls are required for the protocol. We numerically demonstrate the protocol with realistic system parameters, and estimate that current experimental capabilities can realize the protocol with high fidelity for greater than 40 resonators.
Electromechanical systems currently offer a path to engineering quantum
states of microwave and micromechanical modes that are of both fundamental and
applied interest. Particularlydesirable, but not yet observed, are mechanical
states that exhibit entanglement, wherein non-classical correlations exist
between distinct modes; squeezing, wherein the quantum uncertainty of an
observable quantity is reduced below the standard quantum limit; and
Schr“odinger cats, wherein a single mode is cast in a quantum superposition of
macroscopically distinct classical states. Also, while most investigations of
electromechanical systems have focussed on single- or few-body scenarios, the
many-body regime remains virtually unexplored. In such a regime quantum phase
transitions naturally present themselves as a resource for quantum state
generation, thereby providing a route toward entangling a large number of
electromechanical systems in highly non-classical states. Here we show how to
use existing superconducting circuit technology to implement a (quasi) quantum
phase transition in an array of electromechanical systems such that
entanglement, squeezing, and Schr“odinger cats become simultaneously
observable across multiple microwave and micromechanical oscillators.
We show, in the context of single photon detection, that an atomic
three-level model for a transmon in a transmission line does not support the
predictions of the nonlinear polarisabilitymodel known as the cross-Kerr
effect. We show that the induced displacement of a probe in the presence or
absence of a single photon in the signal field, cannot be resolved above the
quantum noise in the probe. This strongly suggests that cross-Kerr media are
not suitable for photon counting or related single photon applications. Our
results are presented in the context of a transmon in a one dimensional
microwave waveguide, but the conclusions also apply to optical systems.