No Arabic abstract
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 $left|nrightrangle$ using only $Oleft(sqrt{n}right)$ 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.
The textit{heavy-fluxonium} circuit is a promising building block for superconducting quantum processors due to its long relaxation and dephasing time at the half-flux frustration point. However, the suppressed charge matrix elements and low transition frequency have made it challenging to perform fast single-qubit gates using standard protocols. We report on new protocols for reset, fast coherent control, and readout, that allow high-quality operation of the qubit with a 14 MHz transition frequency, an order of magnitude lower in energy than the ambient thermal energy scale. We utilize higher levels of the fluxonium to initialize the qubit with $97$% fidelity, corresponding to cooling it to $190~mathrm{mu K}$. We realize high-fidelity control using a universal set of single-cycle flux gates, which are comprised of directly synthesizable fast pulses, while plasmon-assisted readout is used for measurements. On a qubit with $T_1, T_{2e}sim$~300~$mathrm{mu s}$, we realize single-qubit gates in $20-60$~ns with an average gate fidelity of $99.8%$ as characterized by randomized benchmarking.
Macroscopic mechanical objects and electromagnetic degrees of freedom couple to each other via radiation pressure. Optomechanical systems with sufficiently strong coupling are predicted to exhibit quantum effects and are a topic of considerable interest. Devices reaching this regime would offer new types of control of the quantum state of both light and matter and would provide a new arena in which to explore the boundary between quantum and classical physics. Experiments to date have achieved sufficient optomechanical coupling to laser-cool mechanical devices but have not yet reached the quantum regime. The outstanding technical challenge in this field is integrating sensitive micromechanical elements (which must be small, light, and flexible) into high finesse cavities (which are typically much more rigid and massive) without compromising the mechanical or optical properties of either. A second, and more fundamental, challenge is to read out the mechanical elements quantum state: displacement measurements (no matter how sensitive) cannot determine the energy eigenstate of an oscillator, and measurements which couple to quantities other than displacement have been difficult to realize. Here we present a novel optomechanical system which seems to resolve both these challenges. We demonstrate a cavity which is detuned by the motion of a thin dielectric membrane placed between two macroscopic, rigid, high-finesse mirrors. This approach segregates optical and mechanical functionality to physically distinct structures and avoids compromising either. It also allows for direct measurement of the square of the membranes displacement, and thus in principle the membranes energy eigenstate. We estimate it should be practical to use this scheme to observe quantum jumps of a mechanical system.
Electron-spin nitrogen-vacancy color centers in diamond are a natural candidate to act as a quantum memory for superconducting qubits because of their large collective coupling and long coherence times. We report here the first demonstration of strong coupling and coherent exchange of a single quantum of energy between a flux-qubit and an ensemble of nitrogen-vacancy color centers.
The dynamics of qubits coupled to a harmonic oscillator with time-periodic coupling is investigated in the framework of Floquet theory. This system can be used to model nonadiabatic phenomena that require a periodic modulation of the qubit/oscillator coupling. The case of a single qubit coupled to a resonator populated with $n= 0,1$ photons is explicitly treated. The time-dependent Schr{o}dinger equation describing the systems dynamics is solved within the Floquet formalism and a perturbative approach in the time- and Laplace-domain. Good quantitative agreement is found between the analytical and numerical calculations within the Floquet approach, making it the most promising candidate for the study of time-periodic problems. Nonetheless, the time- or Laplace-domain perturbative approaches can be used in the presence of aperiodic time-dependent terms in the Hamiltonian.
A central challenge for implementing quantum computing in the solid state is decoupling the qubits from the intrinsic noise of the material. We investigate the implementation of quantum gates for a paradigmatic, non-Markovian model: A single qubit coupled to a two-level system that is exposed to a heat bath. We systematically search for optimal pulses using a generalization of the novel open systems Gradient Ascent Pulse Engineering (GRAPE) algorithm. We show and explain that next to the known optimal bias point of this model, there are optimal shapes which refocus unwanted terms in the Hamiltonian. We study the limitations of controls set by the decoherence properties. This can lead to a significant improvement of quantum operations in hostile environments.