Measurement-Induced State Transitions in a Superconducting Qubit: Within the Rotating Wave Approximation

  1. Mostafa Khezri,
  2. Alex Opremcak,
  3. Zijun Chen,
  4. Andreas Bengtsson,
  5. Theodore White,
  6. Ofer Naaman,
  7. Rajeev Acharya,
  8. Kyle Anderson,
  9. Markus Ansmann,
  10. Frank Arute,
  11. Kunal Arya,
  12. Abraham Asfaw,
  13. Joseph C Bardin,
  14. Alexandre Bourassa,
  15. Jenna Bovaird,
  16. Leon Brill,
  17. Bob B. Buckley,
  18. David A. Buell,
  19. Tim Burger,
  20. Brian Burkett,
  21. Nicholas Bushnell,
  22. Juan Campero,
  23. Ben Chiaro,
  24. Roberto Collins,
  25. Alexander L. Crook,
  26. Ben Curtin,
  27. Sean Demura,
  28. Andrew Dunsworth,
  29. Catherine Erickson,
  30. Reza Fatemi,
  31. Vinicius S. Ferreira,
  32. Leslie Flores-Burgos,
  33. Ebrahim Forati,
  34. Brooks Foxen,
  35. Gonzalo Garcia,
  36. William Giang,
  37. Marissa Giustina,
  38. Raja Gosula,
  39. Alejandro Grajales Dau,
  40. Michael C. Hamilton,
  41. Sean D. Harrington,
  42. Paula Heu,
  43. Jeremy Hilton,
  44. Markus R. Hoffmann,
  45. Sabrina Hong,
  46. Trent Huang,
  47. Ashley Huff,
  48. Justin Iveland,
  49. Evan Jeffrey,
  50. Julian Kelly,
  51. Seon Kim,
  52. Paul V. Klimov,
  53. Fedor Kostritsa,
  54. John Mark Kreikebaum,
  55. David Landhuis,
  56. Pavel Laptev,
  57. Lily Laws,
  58. Kenny Lee,
  59. Brian J. Lester,
  60. Alexander T. Lill,
  61. Wayne Liu,
  62. Aditya Locharla,
  63. Erik Lucero,
  64. Steven Martin,
  65. Matt McEwen,
  66. Anthony Megrant,
  67. Xiao Mi,
  68. Kevin C. Miao,
  69. Shirin Montazeri,
  70. Alexis Morvan,
  71. Matthew Neeley,
  72. Charles Neill,
  73. Ani Nersisyan,
  74. Jiun How Ng,
  75. Anthony Nguyen,
  76. Murray Nguyen,
  77. Rebecca Potter,
  78. Chris Quintana,
  79. Charles Rocque,
  80. Pedram Roushan,
  81. Kannan Sankaragomathi,
  82. Kevin J. Satzinger,
  83. Christopher Schuster,
  84. Michael J. Shearn,
  85. Aaron Shorter,
  86. Vladimir Shvarts,
  87. Jindra Skruzny,
  88. W. Clarke Smith,
  89. George Sterling,
  90. Marco Szalay,
  91. Douglas Thor,
  92. Alfredo Torres,
  93. Bryan W. K. Woo,
  94. Z. Jamie Yao,
  95. Ping Yeh,
  96. Juhwan Yoo,
  97. Grayson Young,
  98. Ningfeng Zhu,
  99. Nicholas Zobrist,
  100. and Daniel Sank
Superconducting qubits typically use a dispersive readout scheme, where a resonator is coupled to a qubit such that its frequency is qubit-state dependent. Measurement is performed
by driving the resonator, where the transmitted resonator field yields information about the resonator frequency and thus the qubit state. Ideally, we could use arbitrarily strong resonator drives to achieve a target signal-to-noise ratio in the shortest possible time. However, experiments have shown that when the average resonator photon number exceeds a certain threshold, the qubit is excited out of its computational subspace, which we refer to as a measurement-induced state transition. These transitions degrade readout fidelity, and constitute leakage which precludes further operation of the qubit in, for example, error correction. Here we study these transitions using a transmon qubit by experimentally measuring their dependence on qubit frequency, average photon number, and qubit state, in the regime where the resonator frequency is lower than the qubit frequency. We observe signatures of resonant transitions between levels in the coupled qubit-resonator system that exhibit noisy behavior when measured repeatedly in time. We provide a semi-classical model of these transitions based on the rotating wave approximation and use it to predict the onset of state transitions in our experiments. Our results suggest the transmon is excited to levels near the top of its cosine potential following a state transition, where the charge dispersion of higher transmon levels explains the observed noisy behavior of state transitions. Moreover, occupation in these higher energy levels poses a major challenge for fast qubit reset.

Readout of a quantum processor with high dynamic range Josephson parametric amplifiers

  1. T. C. White,
  2. Alex Opremcak,
  3. George Sterling,
  4. Alexander Korotkov,
  5. Daniel Sank,
  6. Rajeev Acharya,
  7. Markus Ansmann,
  8. Frank Arute,
  9. Kunal Arya,
  10. Joseph C Bardin,
  11. Andreas Bengtsson,
  12. Alexandre Bourassa,
  13. Jenna Bovaird,
  14. Leon Brill,
  15. Bob B. Buckley,
  16. David A. Buell,
  17. Tim Burger,
  18. Brian Burkett,
  19. Nicholas Bushnell,
  20. Zijun Chen,
  21. Ben Chiaro,
  22. Josh Cogan,
  23. Roberto Collins,
  24. Alexander L. Crook,
  25. Ben Curtin,
  26. Sean Demura,
  27. Andrew Dunsworth,
  28. Catherine Erickson,
  29. Reza Fatemi,
  30. Leslie Flores-Burgos,
  31. Ebrahim Forati,
  32. Brooks Foxen,
  33. William Giang,
  34. Marissa Giustina,
  35. Alejandro Grajales Dau,
  36. Michael C. Hamilton,
  37. Sean D. Harrington,
  38. Jeremy Hilton,
  39. Markus Hoffmann,
  40. Sabrina Hong,
  41. Trent Huang,
  42. Ashley Huff,
  43. Justin Iveland,
  44. Evan Jeffrey,
  45. Mária Kieferová,
  46. Seon Kim,
  47. Paul V. Klimov,
  48. Fedor Kostritsa,
  49. John Mark Kreikebaum,
  50. David Landhuis,
  51. Pavel Laptev,
  52. Lily Laws,
  53. Kenny Lee,
  54. Brian J. Lester,
  55. Alexander Lill,
  56. Wayne Liu,
  57. Aditya Locharla,
  58. Erik Lucero,
  59. Trevor McCourt,
  60. Matt McEwen,
  61. Xiao Mi,
  62. Kevin C. Miao,
  63. Shirin Montazeri,
  64. Alexis Morvan,
  65. Matthew Neeley,
  66. Charles Neill,
  67. Ani Nersisyan,
  68. Jiun How Ng,
  69. Anthony Nguyen,
  70. Murray Nguyen,
  71. Rebecca Potter,
  72. Chris Quintana,
  73. Pedram Roushan,
  74. Kannan Sankaragomathi,
  75. Kevin J. Satzinger,
  76. Christopher Schuster,
  77. Michael J. Shearn,
  78. Aaron Shorter,
  79. Vladimir Shvarts,
  80. Jindra Skruzny,
  81. W. Clarke Smith,
  82. Marco Szalay,
  83. Alfredo Torres,
  84. Bryan Woo,
  85. Z. Jamie Yao,
  86. Ping Yeh,
  87. Juhwan Yoo,
  88. Grayson Young,
  89. Ningfeng Zhu,
  90. Nicholas Zobrist,
  91. Yu Chen,
  92. Anthony Megrant,
  93. Julian Kelly,
  94. and Ofer Naaman
We demonstrate a high dynamic range Josephson parametric amplifier (JPA) in which the active nonlinear element is implemented using an array of rf-SQUIDs. The device is matched to the
50 Ω environment with a Klopfenstein-taper impedance transformer and achieves a bandwidth of 250-300 MHz, with input saturation powers up to -95 dBm at 20 dB gain. A 54-qubit Sycamore processor was used to benchmark these devices, providing a calibration for readout power, an estimate of amplifier added noise, and a platform for comparison against standard impedance matched parametric amplifiers with a single dc-SQUID. We find that the high power rf-SQUID array design has no adverse effect on system noise, readout fidelity, or qubit dephasing, and we estimate an upper bound on amplifier added noise at 1.6 times the quantum limit. Lastly, amplifiers with this design show no degradation in readout fidelity due to gain compression, which can occur in multi-tone multiplexed readout with traditional JPAs.

Resolving catastrophic error bursts from cosmic rays in large arrays of superconducting qubits

  1. Matt McEwen,
  2. Lara Faoro,
  3. Kunal Arya,
  4. Andrew Dunsworth,
  5. Trent Huang,
  6. Seon Kim,
  7. Brian Burkett,
  8. Austin Fowler,
  9. Frank Arute,
  10. Joseph C Bardin,
  11. Andreas Bengtsson,
  12. Alexander Bilmes,
  13. Bob B. Buckley,
  14. Nicholas Bushnell,
  15. Zijun Chen,
  16. Roberto Collins,
  17. Sean Demura,
  18. Alan R. Derk,
  19. Catherine Erickson,
  20. Marissa Giustina,
  21. Sean D. Harrington,
  22. Sabrina Hong,
  23. Evan Jeffrey,
  24. Julian Kelly,
  25. Paul V. Klimov,
  26. Fedor Kostritsa,
  27. Pavel Laptev,
  28. Aditya Locharla,
  29. Xiao Mi,
  30. Kevin C. Miao,
  31. Shirin Montazeri,
  32. Josh Mutus,
  33. Ofer Naaman,
  34. Matthew Neeley,
  35. Charles Neill,
  36. Alex Opremcak,
  37. Chris Quintana,
  38. Nicholas Redd,
  39. Pedram Roushan,
  40. Daniel Sank,
  41. Kevin J. Satzinger,
  42. Vladimir Shvarts,
  43. Theodore White,
  44. Z. Jamie Yao,
  45. Ping Yeh,
  46. Juhwan Yoo,
  47. Yu Chen,
  48. Vadim Smelyanskiy,
  49. John M. Martinis,
  50. Hartmut Neven,
  51. Anthony Megrant,
  52. Lev Ioffe,
  53. and Rami Barends
Scalable quantum computing can become a reality with error correction, provided coherent qubits can be constructed in large arrays. The key premise is that physical errors can remain
both small and sufficiently uncorrelated as devices scale, so that logical error rates can be exponentially suppressed. However, energetic impacts from cosmic rays and latent radioactivity violate both of these assumptions. An impinging particle ionizes the substrate, radiating high energy phonons that induce a burst of quasiparticles, destroying qubit coherence throughout the device. High-energy radiation has been identified as a source of error in pilot superconducting quantum devices, but lacking a measurement technique able to resolve a single event in detail, the effect on large scale algorithms and error correction in particular remains an open question. Elucidating the physics involved requires operating large numbers of qubits at the same rapid timescales as in error correction, exposing the event’s evolution in time and spread in space. Here, we directly observe high-energy rays impacting a large-scale quantum processor. We introduce a rapid space and time-multiplexed measurement method and identify large bursts of quasiparticles that simultaneously and severely limit the energy coherence of all qubits, causing chip-wide failure. We track the events from their initial localised impact to high error rates across the chip. Our results provide direct insights into the scale and dynamics of these damaging error bursts in large-scale devices, and highlight the necessity of mitigation to enable quantum computing to scale.