The superconducting transmon qubit is currently a leading qubit modality for quantum computing, but gate performance in quantum processor with transmons is often insufficient to supportrunning complex algorithms for practical applications. It is thus highly desirable to further improve gate performance. Due to the weak anharmonicity of transmon, a static ZZ interaction between coupled transmons commonly exists, undermining the gate performance, and in long term, it can become performance limiting. Here we theoretically explore a previously unexplored parameter region in an all-transmon system to address this issue. We show that an experimentally feasible parameter region, where the ZZ interaction is heavily suppressed while leaving XY interaction with an adequate strength to implement two-qubit gates, can be found in an all-transmon system. Thus, two-qubit gates, such as cross-resonance gate or iSWAP gate, can be realized without the detrimental effect from static ZZ interaction. To illustrate this, we show that an iSWAP gate with fast gate speed and dramatically lower conditional phase error can be achieved. Scaling up to large-scale transmon quantum processor, especially the cases with fixed coupling, addressing error, idling error, and crosstalk that arises from static ZZ interaction could also be heavily suppressed.
Monopoles play a center role in gauge theories and topological matter. Examples of monopoles include the Dirac monopole in 3D and Yang monopole in 5D, which have been extensively studiedand observed in condensed matter or artificial systems. However, tensor monopoles in 4D are less studied, and their observation has not been reported. Here we experimentally construct a tunable spin-1 Hamiltonian to generate a tensor monopole and then measure its unique features with superconducting quantum circuits. The energy structure of a 4D Weyl-like Hamiltonian with three-fold degenerate points acting as tensor monopoles is imaged. Through quantum-metric measurements, we report the first experiment that measures the Dixmier-Douady invariant, the topological charge of the tensor monopole. Moreover, we observe topological phase transitions characterized by the topological Dixmier-Douady invariant, rather than the Chern numbers as used for conventional monopoles in odd-dimensional spaces.
High-quality two-qubit gate operations are crucial for scalable quantum information processing. Often, the gate fidelity is compromised when the system becomes more integrated. Therefore,a low-error-rate, easy-to-scale two-qubit gate scheme is highly desirable. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a new two-qubit gate scheme that exploits fixed-frequency qubits and a tunable coupler in a superconducting quantum circuit. The scheme requires less control lines, reduces crosstalk effect, simplifies calibration procedures, yet produces a controlled-Z gate in 30ns with a high fidelity of 99.5%. Error analysis shows that gate errors are mostly coherence-limited. Our demonstration paves the way for large-scale implementation of high-fidelity quantum operations.
Based on the geometrical nature of quantum phases, non-adiabatic holonomic quantum control (NHQC) has become a standard technique for enhancing robustness in constructing quantum gates.However, the conventional approach of NHQC is sensitive to control instability, as it requires the driving pulses to cover a fixed pulse area. Furthermore, even for small-angle rotations, all operations need to be completed with the same duration of time. Here we experimentally demonstrate a time-optimal and unconventional approach of NHQC (called TOUNHQC), which can optimize the operation time of any holonomic gate. Compared with the conventional approach, TOUNHQC provides an extra layer of robustness to decoherence and control errors. The experiment involves a scalable architecture of superconducting circuit, where we achieved a fidelity of 99.51% for a single qubit gate using interleaved randomized benchmarking. Moreover, a two-qubit holonomic control-phase gate has been implemented where the gate error can be reduced by as much as 18% compared with NHQC.
For building a scalable quantum processor with superconducting qubits, the ZZ interaction is of great concert because of relevant for implementing two-qubit gates, and the close contactbetween gate infidelity and its residual. Two-qubit gates with fidelity beyond fault-tolerant thresholds have been demonstrated using the ZZ interaction. However, as the performance of quantum processor improves, the residual static-ZZ can also become a performance-limiting factor for quantum gate operations and quantum error correction. Here, we introduce a scalable superconducting architecture for addressing this challenge. We demonstrate that by coupling two superconducting qubits with opposite-sign anharmonicities together, high-contrast ZZ interaction can be realized in this architecture. Thus, we can control ZZ interaction with high on/off ratio for implementing two-qubit CZ gate, or suppress it during the two-qubit gate operations using XY interaction (e.g. iSWAP). Meanwhile, the ZZ crosstalk related to neighboring spectator qubits can also be heavily suppressed in fixed coupled multi-qubit systems. This architecture could provide a promising way towards scalable superconducting quantum processor with high gate fidelity and low qubit crosstalk.
We propose a protocol to realize parametric control of two-qubit coupling, where the amplitude and phase are tuned by a longitudinal field. Based on the tunable Hamiltonian, we demonstratethe superadiabatic two-qubit quantum gate using superconducting quantum circuits. Our experimental results show that the state of qubits evolves adiabatically during the gate operation even though the processing time is close to the quantum limit. In addition, the quantum state transition is insensitive to the variation of control parameters, and the fidelity of a SWAP gate achieved 98.5%. This robust parametric two-qubit gate can alleviate the tension of frequency crowding for quantum computation with multiple qubits.
Berry curvature is an imaginary component of the quantum geometric tensor (QGT) and is well studied in many branches of modern physics; however, the quantum metric as a real componentof the QGT is less explored. Here, by using tunable superconducting circuits, we experimentally demonstrate two methods to directly measure the quantum metric tensor for characterizing the geometry and topology of underlying quantum states in parameter space. The first method is to probe the transition probability after a sudden quench, and the second one is to detect the excitation rate under weak periodic driving. Furthermore, based on quantum-metric and Berry-curvature measurements, we explore a topological phase transition in a simulated time-reversal-symmetric system, which is characterized by the Euler characteristic number instead of the Chern number. The work opens up a unique approach to explore the topology of quantum states with the QGT.
Hopf-link semimetals exhibit exotic gapless band structures with fascinating topological properties, which have never been observed in nature. Here we demonstrated nodal lines withtopological form of Hopf-link chain in artificial semimetal-bands. Driving superconducting quantum circuits with elaborately designed microwave fields, we mapped the momentum space of a lattice to the parameter space, realizing the Hamiltonian of a Hopf-link semimetal. By measuring the energy spectrum, we directly imaged nodal lines in cubic lattices. By tuning the driving fields we adjusted various parameters of Hamiltonian. Important topological features, such as link-unlink topological transition and the robustness of Hopf-link chain structure are investigated. Moreover, we extracted linking number by detecting Berry phase associated with different loops enclosing or disclosing nodal lines. The topological invariant clearly reveals the scenery of the connection between two nodal rings. Our simulations provide foremost knowledge for developing new materials and quantum devices.
We propose a realizable circuit QED architecture for engineering states of a superconducting resonator off-resonantly coupled to an ancillary superconducting qubit. The qubit-resonatordispersive interaction together with a microwave drive applied to the qubit gives rise to a Kerr resonator with two-photon driving that enables us to efficiently engineer the quantum state of the resonator such as generation of the Schrodinger cat states for resonator-based universal quantum computation. Moreover, the presented architecture is easily scalable for solving optimization problem mapped into the Ising spin glass model, and thus served as a platform for quantum annealing. Although various scalable architecture with superconducting qubits have been proposed for realizing quantum annealer, the existing annealers are currently limited to the coherent time of the qubits. Here, based on the protocol for realizing two-photon driven Kerr resonator in three-dimensional circuit QED (3D cQED), we propose a flexible and scalable hardware for implementing quantum annealer that combines the advantage of the long coherence times attainable in 3D cQED and the recently proposed resonator based Lechner-Hauke-Zoller (LHZ) scheme. In the proposed resonator based LHZ annealer, each spin is encoded in the subspace formed by two coherent state of 3D microwave superconducting resonator with opposite phase, and thus the fully-connected Ising model is mapped onto the network of the resonator with local tunable three-resonator interaction. This hardware architecture provides a promising physical platform for realizing quantum annealer with improved coherence.
We experimentally explore the topological Maxwell metal bands by mapping the momentum space of condensed-matter models to the tunable parameter space of superconducting quantum circuits.An exotic band structure that is effectively described by the spin-1 Maxwell equations is imaged. Three-fold degenerate points dubbed Maxwell points are observed in the Maxwell metal bands. Moreover, we engineer and observe the topological phase transition from the topological Maxwell metal to a trivial insulator, and report the first experiment to measure the Chern numbers that are higher than one.