The quantum Fourier transform (QFT) is a key ingredient of several quantum algorithms and a qudit-specific implementation of the QFT is hence an important step toward the realization of qudit-based quantum computers. This work develops a circuit decomposition of the QFT for hybrid qudits based on generalized Hadamard and generalized controlled-phase gates, which can be implemented using selective rotations in NMR. We experimentally implement the hybrid qudit QFT on an NMR quantum emulator, which uses four qubits to emulate a single qutrit coupled to two qubits.
We experimentally test quantum contextuality of a single qutrit using NMR. The contextuality inequalities based on nine observables developed by Kurzynski et. al. are first reformulated in terms of traceless observables which can be measured in an NMR experiment. These inequalities reveal the contextuality of almost all single-qutrit states. We demonstrate the violation of the inequality on four different initial states of a spin-1 deuterium nucleus oriented in a liquid crystal matrix, and follow the violation as the states evolve in time. We also describe and experimentally perform a single-shot test of contextuality for a subclass of qutrit states whose density matrix is diagonal in the energy basis.
We report a study of the Majorana geometrical representation of a qutrit, where a pair of points on a unit sphere represents its quantum states. A canonical form for qutrit states is presented, where every state can be obtained from a one-parameter family of states via $SO(3)$ action. The notion of spin-1 magnetization which is invariant under $SO(3)$ is geometrically interpreted on the Majorana sphere. Furthermore, we describe the action of several quantum gates in the Majorana picture and experimentally implement these gates on a spin-1 system (an NMR qutrit) oriented in a liquid crystalline environment. We study the dynamics of the pair of points representing a qutrit state under various useful quantum operations and connect them to different NMR operations. Finally, using the Gell Mann matrix picture we experimentally implement a scheme for complete qutrit state tomography.
A quantum thermal transistor is designed by the strong coupling between one qubit and one qutrit which are in contact with three heat baths with different temperatures. The thermal behavior is analyzed based on the master equation by both the numerical and the approximately analytic methods. It is shown that the thermal transistor, as a three-terminal device, allows a weak modulation heat current (at the modulation terminal) to switch on/off and effectively modulate the heat current between the other two terminals. In particular, the weak modulation heat current can induce the strong heat current between the other two terminals with the multiple-region amplification of heat current. Furthermore, the heat currents are quite robust to the temperature (current) fluctuation at the lower-temperature terminal within certain range of temperature, so it can behave as a heat current stabilizer.
The Quantum Fourier Transformation ($QFT$) is a key building block for a whole wealth of quantum algorithms. Despite its proven efficiency, only a few proof-of-principle demonstrations have been reported. Here we utilize $QFT$ to enhance the performance of a quantum sensor. We implement the $QFT$ algorithm in a hybrid quantum register consisting of a nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center electron spin and three nuclear spins. The $QFT$ runs on the nuclear spins and serves to process the sensor - NV electron spin signal. We demonstrate $QFT$ for quantum (spins) and classical signals (radio frequency (RF) ) with near Heisenberg limited precision scaling. We further show the application of $QFT$ for demultiplexing the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) signal of two distinct target nuclear spins. Our results mark the application of a complex quantum algorithm in sensing which is of particular interest for high dynamic range quantum sensing and nanoscale NMR spectroscopy experiments.
In this work, we introduce a definition of the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) on Euclidean lattices in $R^n$, that generalizes the $n$-th fold DFT of the integer lattice $Z^n$ to arbitrary lattices. This definition is not applicable for every lattice, but can be defined on lattices known as Systematic Normal Form (SysNF) introduced in cite{ES16}. Systematic Normal Form lattices are sets of integer vectors that satisfy a single homogeneous modular equation, which itself satisfies a certain number-theoretic property. Such lattices form a dense set in the space of $n$-dimensional lattices, and can be used to approximate efficiently any lattice. This implies that for every lattice $L$ a DFT can be computed efficiently on a lattice near $L$. Our proof of the statement above uses arguments from quantum computing, and as an application of our definition we show a quantum algorithm for sampling from discrete distributions on lattices, that extends our ability to sample efficiently from the discrete Gaussian distribution cite{GPV08} to any distribution that is sufficiently smooth. We conjecture that studying the eigenvectors of the newly-defined lattice DFT may provide new insights into the structure of lattices, especially regarding hard computational problems, like the shortest vector problem.