No Arabic abstract
Superconducting quantum circuits possess the ingredients for quantum information processing and for developing on-chip microwave quantum optics. From the initial manipulation of few-level superconducting systems (qubits) to their strong coupling to microwave resonators, the time has come to consider the generation and characterization of propagating quantum microwaves. In this paper, we design a key ingredient that will prove essential in the general frame: a swtichable coupling between qubit(s) and transmission line(s) that can work in the ultrastrong coupling regime, where the coupling strength approaches the qubit transition frequency. We propose several setups where two or more loops of Josephson junctions are directly connected to a closed (cavity) or open transmission line. We demonstrate that the circuit induces a coupling that can be modulated in strength and type. Given recent studies showing the accessibility to the ultrastrong regime, we expect our ideas to have an immediate impact in ongoing experiments.
We study a circuit QED setup where multiple superconducting qubits are ultrastrongly coupled to a single radio-frequency resonator. In this extreme parameter regime of cavity QED the dynamics of the electromagnetic mode is very slow compared to all other relevant timescales and can be described as an effective particle moving in an adiabatic energy landscape defined by the qubits. The focus of this work is placed on settings with two or multiple qubits, where different types of symmetry-breaking transitions in the ground- and excited-state potentials can occur. Specifically, we show how the change in the level structure and the wave packet dynamics associated with these transition points can be probed via conventional excitation spectra and Ramsey measurements performed at GHz frequencies. More generally, this analysis demonstrates that state-of-the-art circuit QED systems can be used to access a whole range of particle-like quantum mechanical phenomena beyond the usual paradigm of coupled qubits and oscillators.
Superconducting qubits behave as artificial two-level atoms and are used to investigate fundamental quantum phenomena. In this context, the study of multi-photon excitations occupies a central role. Moreover, coupling superconducting qubits to on-chip microwave resonators has given rise to the field of circuit QED. In contrast to quantum-optical cavity QED, circuit QED offers the tunability inherent to solid-state circuits. In this work, we report on the observation of key signatures of a two-photon driven Jaynes-Cummings model, which unveils the upconversion dynamics of a superconducting flux qubit coupled to an on-chip resonator. Our experiment and theoretical analysis show clear evidence for the coexistence of one- and two-photon driven level anticrossings of the qubit-resonator system. This results from the symmetry breaking of the system Hamiltonian, when parity becomes a not well-defined property. Our study provides deep insight into the interplay of multiphoton processes and symmetries in a qubit-resonator system.
We present an experimentally feasible scheme to implement holonomic quantum computation in the ultrastrong-coupling regime of light-matter interaction. The large anharmonicity and the Z2 symmetry of the quantum Rabi model allow us to build an effective three-level {Lambda}-structured artificial atom for quantum computation. The proposed physical implementation includes two gradiometric flux qubits and two microwave resonators where single-qubit gates are realized by a two-tone driving on one physical qubit, and a two-qubit gate is achieved with a time-dependent coupling between the field quadratures of both resonators. Our work paves the way for scalable holonomic quantum computation in ultrastrongly coupled systems.
We propose a superconducting circuit platform for simulating spin-1 models. To this purpose we consider a chain of N ultrastrongly coupled qubit-resonator systems interacting through a grounded SQUID. The anharmonic spectrum of the qubit-resonator system and the selection rules imposed by the global parity symmetry allow us to activate well controlled two-body quantum gates via AC-pulses applied to the SQUID. We show that our proposal has the same simulation time for any number of spin-1 interacting particles. This scheme may be implemented within the state-of-the-art circuit QED in the ultrastrong coupling regime.
We propose a new method for frequency conversion of photons which is both versatile and deterministic. We show that a system with two resonators ultrastrongly coupled to a single qubit can be used to realize both single- and multiphoton frequency-conversion processes. The conversion can be exquisitely controlled by tuning the qubit frequency to bring the desired frequency-conversion transitions on or off resonance. Considering recent experimental advances in ultrastrong coupling for circuit QED and other systems, we believe that our scheme can be implemented using available technology.