No Arabic abstract
We propose a fully operational framework to study the non-equilibrium thermodynamics of a quantum system $S$ that is coupled to a detector $D$ whose state is continuously monitored, allowing to single out individual quantum trajectories of $S$. We focus on detailed fluctuation theorems and characterize the entropy production of the system. We establish fundamental differences with respect to the thermodynamic of unmonitored, unitarily evolved systems. We consider the paradigmatic example of circuit-QED, where superconducting qubits can be coupled to a continuously monitored resonator and show numerical simulations using state of the art experimental parameters.
Superconducting circuits are one of the leading quantum platforms for quantum technologies. With growing system complexity, it is of crucial importance to develop scalable circuit models that contain the minimum information required to predict the behaviour of the physical system. Based on microwave engineering methods, divergent and non-divergent Hamiltonian models in circuit quantum electrodynamics have been proposed to explain the dynamics of superconducting quantum networks coupled to infinite-dimensional systems, such as transmission lines and general impedance environments. Here, we study systematically common linear coupling configurations between networks and infinite-dimensional systems. The main result is that the simple Lagrangian models for these configurations present an intrinsic natural length that provides a natural ultraviolet cutoff. This length is due to the unavoidable dressing of the environment modes by the network. In this manner, the coupling parameters between their components correctly manifest their natural decoupling at high frequencies. Furthermore, we show the requirements to correctly separate infinite-dimensional coupled systems in local bases. We also compare our analytical results with other analytical and approximate methods available in the literature. Finally, we propose several applications of these general methods to analog quantum simulation of multi-spin-boson models in non-perturbative coupling regimes.
Superconducting quantum circuits based on Josephson junctions have made rapid progress in demonstrating quantum behavior and scalability. However, the future prospects ultimately depend upon the intrinsic coherence of Josephson junctions, and whether superconducting qubits can be adequately isolated from their environment. We introduce a new architecture for superconducting quantum circuits employing a three dimensional resonator that suppresses qubit decoherence while maintaining sufficient coupling to the control signal. With the new architecture, we demonstrate that Josephson junction qubits are highly coherent, with $T_2 sim 10 mu$s to $20 mu$s without the use of spin echo, and highly stable, showing no evidence for $1/f$ critical current noise. These results suggest that the overall quality of Josephson junctions in these qubits will allow error rates of a few $10^{-4}$, approaching the error correction threshold.
Significant advances in coherence have made superconducting quantum circuits a viable platform for fault-tolerant quantum computing. To further extend capabilities, highly coherent quantum systems could act as quantum memories for these circuits. A useful quantum memory must be rapidly addressable by qubits, while maintaining superior coherence. We demonstrate a novel superconducting microwave cavity architecture that is highly robust against major sources of loss that are encountered in the engineering of circuit QED systems. The architecture allows for near-millisecond storage of quantum states in a resonator while strong coupling between the resonator and a transmon qubit enables control, encoding, and readout at MHz rates. The observed coherence times constitute an improvement of almost an order of magnitude over those of the best available superconducting qubits. Our design is an ideal platform for studying coherent quantum optics and marks an important step towards hardware-efficient quantum computing with Josephson junction-based quantum circuits.
We address the out-of-equilibrium thermodynamics of an isolated quantum system consisting of a cavity optomechanical device. We explore the dynamical response of the system when driven out of equilibrium by a sudden quench of the coupling parameter and compute analytically the full distribution of the work generated by the process. We consider linear and quadratic optomechanical coupling, where the cavity field is parametrically coupled to either the position or the square of the position of a mechanical oscillator, respectively. In the former case we find that the average work generated by the quench is zero, whilst the latter leads to a non-zero average value. Through fluctuations theorems we access the most relevant thermodynamical figures of merit, such as the free energy difference and the amount of irreversible work generated. We thus provide a full characterization of the out-of-equilibrium thermodynamics in the quantum regime for nonlinearly coupled bosonic modes. Our study is the first due step towards the construction and full quantum analysis of an optomechanical machine working fully out of equilibrium.
We point out that superconducting quantum computers are prospective for the simulation of the dynamics of spin models far from equilibrium, including nonadiabatic phenomena and quenches. The important advantage of these machines is that they are programmable, so that different spin models can be simulated in the same chip, as well as various initial states can be encoded into it in a controllable way. This opens an opportunity to use superconducting quantum computers in studies of fundamental problems of statistical physics such as the absence or presence of thermalization in the free evolution of a closed quantum system depending on the choice of the initial state as well as on the integrability of the model. In the present paper, we performed proof-of-principle digital simulations of two spin models, which are the central spin model and the transverse-field Ising model, using 5- and 16-qubit superconducting quantum computers of the IBM Quantum Experience. We found that these devices are able to reproduce some important consequences of the symmetry of the initial state for the systems subsequent dynamics, such as the excitation blockade. However, lengths of algorithms are currently limited due to quantum gate errors. We also discuss some heuristic methods which can be used to extract valuable information from the imperfect experimental data.