Magnon dark modes and gradient memory

  1. Xufeng Zhang,
  2. Chang-Ling Zou,
  3. Na Zhu,
  4. Florian Marquardt,
  5. Liang Jiang,
  6. and Hong X. Tang
Extensive efforts have been expended in developing hybrid quantum systems to overcome the short coherence time of superconducting circuits by introducing the naturally long-lived spin
degree of freedom. Among all the possible materials, single-crystal yttrium iron garnet has shown up very recently as a promising candidate for hybrid systems, and various highly coherent interactions, including strong and even ultra-strong coupling, have been demonstrated. One distinct advantage of these systems is that the spins are in the form of well-defined magnon modes, which allows flexible and precise tuning. Here we demonstrate that by dissipation engineering, a non-Markovian interaction dynamics between the magnon and the microwave cavity photon can be achieved. Such a process enables us to build a magnon gradient memory to store information in the magnon dark modes, which decouple from the microwave cavity and thus preserve a long life-time. Our findings provide a promising approach for developing long-lifetime, multimode quantum memories.

Remote Entanglement by Coherent Multiplication of Concurrent Quantum Signals

  1. Ananda Roy,
  2. Liang Jiang,
  3. A. Douglas Stone,
  4. and Michel Devoret
Concurrent remote entanglement of distant, non-interacting quantum entities is a crucial function for quantum information processing. In contrast with the existing protocols which employ
addition of signals to generate entanglement between two remote qubits, the protocol we present is based on multiplication of signals. This protocol can be straightforwardly implemented by a novel Josephson junction mixing circuit. Our scheme would be able to generate provable entanglement even in presence of practical imperfections: finite quantum efficiency of detectors and undesired photon loss in current state-of-the-art devices.

Violating Bell’s inequality with an artificial atom and a cat state in a cavity

  1. Brian Vlastakis,
  2. Andrei Petrenko,
  3. Nissim Ofek,
  4. Luayn Sun,
  5. Zaki Leghtas,
  6. Katrina Sliwa,
  7. Yehan Liu,
  8. Michael Hatridge,
  9. Jacob Blumoff,
  10. Luigi Frunzio,
  11. Mazyar Mirrahimi,
  12. Liang Jiang,
  13. M. H. Devoret,
  14. and R. J. Schoelkopf
The `Schr“odinger’s cat‘ thought experiment highlights the counterintuitive facet of quantum theory that entanglement can exist between microscopic and macroscopic
systems, producing a superposition of distinguishable states like the fictitious cat that is both alive and dead. The hallmark of entanglement is the detection of strong correlations between systems, for example by the violation of Bell’s inequality. Using the CHSH variant of the Bell test, this violation has been observed with photons, atoms, solid state spins, and artificial atoms in superconducting circuits. For larger, more distinguishable states, the conflict between quantum predictions and our classical expectations is typically resolved due to the rapid onset of decoherence. To investigate this reconciliation, one can employ a superposition of coherent states in an oscillator, known as a cat state. In contrast to discrete systems, one can continuously vary the size of the prepared cat state and therefore its dependence on decoherence. Here we demonstrate and quantify entanglement between an artificial atom and a cat state in a cavity, which we call a `Bell-cat‘ state. We use a circuit QED architecture, high-fidelity measurements, and real-time feedback control to violate Bell’s inequality without post-selection or corrections for measurement inefficiencies. Furthermore, we investigate the influence of decoherence by continuously varying the size of created Bell-cat states and characterize the entangled system by joint Wigner tomography. These techniques provide a toolset for quantum information processing with entangled qubits and resonators. While recent results have demonstrated a high level of control of such systems, this experiment demonstrates that information can be extracted efficiently and with high fidelity, a crucial requirement for quantum computing with resonators.

Cavity State Manipulation Using Photon-Number Selective Phase Gates

  1. Reinier W. Heeres,
  2. Brian Vlastakis,
  3. Eric Holland,
  4. Stefan Krastanov,
  5. Victor V. Albert,
  6. Luigi Frunzio,
  7. Liang Jiang,
  8. and Robert J. Schoelkopf
The large available Hilbert space and high coherence of cavity resonators makes these systems an interesting resource for storing encoded quantum bits. To perform a quantum gate on
this encoded information, however, complex nonlinear operations must be applied to the many levels of the oscillator simultaneously. In this work, we introduce the Selective Number-dependent Arbitrary Phase (SNAP) gate, which imparts a different phase to each Fock state component using an off-resonantly coupled qubit. We show that the SNAP gate allows control over the quantum phases by correcting the unwanted phase evolution due to the Kerr effect. Furthermore, by combining the SNAP gate with oscillator displacements, we create a one-photon Fock state with high fidelity. Using just these two controls, one can construct arbitrary unitary operations, offering a scalable route to performing logical manipulations on oscillator-encoded qubits.

Universal Control of an Oscillator with Dispersive Coupling to a Qubit

  1. Stefan Krastanov,
  2. Victor V. Albert,
  3. Chao Shen,
  4. Chang-Ling Zou,
  5. Reinier W. Heeres,
  6. Brian Vlastakis,
  7. Robert J. Schoelkopf,
  8. and Liang Jiang
We investigate quantum control of an oscillator mode off-resonantly coupled to an ancillary qubit. In the strong dispersive regime, we may drive the qubit conditioned on number states
of the oscillator, which together with displacement operations can achieve universal control of the oscillator. Based on our proof of universal control, we provide explicit constructions for arbitrary state preparation and arbitrary unitary operation of the oscillator. Moreover, we present an efficient procedure to prepare the number state ∣∣n⟩ using only O(n‾‾√) operations. We also compare our scheme with known quantum control protocols for coupled qubit-oscillator systems. This universal control scheme of the oscillator can readily be implemented using superconducting circuits.

Dynamically protected cat-qubits: a new paradigm for universal quantum computation

  1. Mazyar Mirrahimi,
  2. Zaki Leghtas,
  3. Victor V. Albert,
  4. Steven Touzard,
  5. Robert J. Schoelkopf,
  6. Liang Jiang,
  7. and Michel H. Devoret
We present a new hardware-efficient paradigm for universal quantum computation which is based on encoding, protecting and manipulating quantum information in a quantum harmonic oscillator.
This proposal exploits multi-photon driven dissipative processes to encode quantum information in logical bases composed of Schr\“odinger cat states. More precisely, we consider two schemes. In a first scheme, a two-photon driven dissipative process is used to stabilize a logical qubit basis of two-component Schr\“odinger cat states. While such a scheme ensures a protection of the logical qubit against the photon dephasing errors, the prominent error channel of single-photon loss induces bit-flip type errors that cannot be corrected. Therefore, we consider a second scheme based on a four-photon driven dissipative process which leads to the choice of four-component Schr\“odinger cat states as the logical qubit. Such a logical qubit can be protected against single-photon loss by continuous photon number parity measurements. Next, applying some specific Hamiltonians, we provide a set of universal quantum gates on the encoded qubits of each of the two schemes. In particular, we illustrate how these operations can be rendered fault-tolerant with respect to various decoherence channels of participating quantum systems. Finally, we also propose experimental schemes based on quantum superconducting circuits and inspired by methods used in Josephson parametric amplification, which should allow to achieve these driven dissipative processes along with the Hamiltonians ensuring the universal operations in an efficient manner.