Accelerating Population Transfer in a Transmon Qutrit Via Shortcuts to Adiabaticity

In this paper, a method to accelerate population transfer by designing nonadiabatic evolution paths is proposed. We apply the method to realize robust and accelerated population transfer with a transmon qutrit. By numerical simulation, we show that this method allows a robust population transfer between the ground states in a Λ system. Moreover, the total pulse area for the population transfer is low as 1.9π that verifies the evolution is accelerated without increasing the pulse intensity. Therefore, the method is easily implementable based on the modern pulse shaper technology and it provides selectable schemes with interesting applications in quantum information processing.     

Demonstration of quantum permutation parity determine algorithm in a superconducting qutrit

A quantum algorithm provides a new way in solving certain computing problems and usually faster than classical algorithms. Here we report an implementation of a quantum algorithm to determine the parity of permutation in a single three-dimensional(3D) superconducting transmon qutrit system. The experiment shows the capacity to speed up in a qutrit,which can also be extended to a multi-level system for solving high-dimensional permutation parity determination problem.     

Control and tomography of a three level superconducting artificial atom

A number of superconducting qubits, such as the transmon or the phase qubit, have an energy level structure with small anharmonicity. This allows for convenient access of higher excited states with similar frequencies. However, special care has to be taken to avoid unwanted higher-level populations when using short control pulses. Here we demonstrate the preparation of arbitrary three level superposition states using optimal control techniques in a transmon. Performing dispersive readout, we extract the populations of all three levels of the qutrit and study the coherence of its excited states. Finally we demonstrate full quantum state tomography of the prepared qutrit states and evaluate the fidelities of a set of states, finding on average 95%.     

Speeding up the Generation of Entangled State between a Superconducting Qubit and Cavity Photons via Counterdiabatic Driving

Optimal generation of entangled states is of critical significance for robust quantum information processing. An effective scheme is presented for speeding up the generation of an entangled state between a superconducting qubit and microwave photons via counterdiabatic driving. At a magic bias point, the first three levels of a charge-phase quantum circuit constitute an effective qutrit. An entangled state based on adiabatic population transfer is first achieved. By the technique of shortcuts to adiabaticity, a counterdiabatic driving is applied to the qutrit, which then accelerates the entanglement generation significantly. Moreover, with the accessible decoherence rates, the rapid operations in a shortcut way are highly robust when compared with adiabatic manipulations. The scheme could offer a promising approach toward optimal preparation of entangled states with superconducting artificial atoms in circuit quantum electrodynamics, experimentally.     

Dissipative generation for steady-state entanglement of two transmons in circuit QED

We present a dissipative scheme to generate an entangled steady-state between two superconducting transmon qutrits separately embedded in two coupled transmission line resonators in a circuit quantum electrodynamics(QED) setup. In our scheme, the resonant qutrit-resonator interaction and photon hopping between resonators jointly induce asymmetric energy gaps in the dressed state subspaces. The coherent driving fields induce the specific dressed state transition and the dissipative processes lead to the gradual accumulation in the population of target state, combination of both drives the system into a steady-state entanglement. Numerical simulation shows that the maximally entangled state can be produced with high fidelity and strong robustness against the cavity decay and qutrit decay, and no requirements for accurate time control. The scheme is achievable with the current experimental technologies.     

Error self-correction in the tri-node indirect teleportation of a qutrit state with two partially entangled qutrit states

Teleportation of a qutrit state with two different non-maximally entangled qutrit states as quantum channels linking three nodes of an intending quantum network is studied via an ancilla method. With this method a global accumulation approach (GAA) different from the usual node progression approach (NPA) is proposed. Comparisons between two approaches from the four aspects of quantum resource consumption, operation complexity, success probability and efficiency indicate that the GAA is much better than the NPA overall. The average fidelities in both methods are calculated and compared, it is shown that the average fidelity in the GAA is higher than that in the NPA. The error self-correction in the GAA is confirmed and its efficiency relative to the channel-state coefficients is explicitly given.     

Fast qubit initialization in a superconducting circuit

We demonstrate an active reset protocol in a superconducting quantum circuit. The thermal population on the excited state of a transmon qubit is reduced through driving the transitions between the qubit and an ancillary qubit. Furthermore,we investigate the efficiency of this approach at different temperatures. The result shows that population in the first excited state can be dropped from 7% to 2.55% in 27 ns at 30 m K. The efficiency improves as the temperature increases. Compared to other schemes, our proposal alleviates the requirements for measurement procedure and equipment. With the increase of qubit integration, the fast reset technique holds the promise of improving the fidelity of quantum control.     

Determining the parity of a permutation using an experimental NMR qutrit

We present the NMR implementation of a recently proposed quantum algorithm to find the parity of a permutation. In the usual qubit model of quantum computation, it is widely believed that computational speedup requires the presence of entanglement and thus cannot be achieved by a single qubit. On the other hand, a qutrit is qualitatively more quantum than a qubit because of the existence of quantum contextuality and a single qutrit can be used for computing. We use the deuterium nucleus oriented in a liquid crystal as the experimental qutrit. This is the first experimental exploitation of a single qutrit to carry out a computational task.     

Nonadiabatic geometric quantum computation with optimal control on superconducting circuits

Quantum gates, which are the essential building blocks of quantum computers, are very fragile. Thus, to realize robust quantum gates with high fidelity is the ultimate goal of quantum manipulation. Here, we propose a nonadiabatic geometric quantum computation scheme on superconducting circuits to engineer arbitrary quantum gates, which share both the robust merit of geometric phases and the capacity to combine with optimal control technique to further enhance the gate robustness. Specifically, in our proposal, arbitrary geometric single-qubit gates can be realized on a transmon qubit, by a resonant microwave field driving, with both the amplitude and phase of the driving being timedependent. Meanwhile, nontrivial two-qubit geometric gates can be implemented by two capacitively coupled transmon qubits, with one of the transmon qubits’ frequency being modulated to obtain effective resonant coupling between them. Therefore, our scheme provides a promising step towards fault-tolerant solid-state quantum computation.     

The Power of Qutrit Logic for Quantum Computation

The critical merits acquired from quantum computation require running in parallel, which cannot be benefited from previous multi-level extensions and are exact our purposes. In this paper, with qutrit subsystems the general quantum computation further reduces into qutrit gates or its controlled operations. This extension plays parallizable and integrable with same construction independent of the qutrit numbers. The qutrit swapping as its basic operations for controlling can be integrated into quantum computers with present physical techniques. Our generalizations are free of elevating the system spaces, and feasible for the universal computation.     

Transferring entangled states of photonic cat-state qubits in circuit QED

We propose a method for transferring quantum entangled states of two photonic cat-state qubits(cqubits)from two microwave cavities to the other two microwave cavities.This proposal is realized by using four microwave cavities coupled to a superconducting flux qutrit.Because of using four cavities with different frequencies,the inter-cavity crosstalk is significantly reduced.Since only one coupler qutrit is used,the circuit resource is minimized.The entanglement transfer is completed with a singlestep operation only,thus this proposal is quite simple.The third energy level of the coupler qutrit is not populated during the state transfer,therefore decoherence from the higher energy level is greatly suppressed.Our numerical simulations show that high-fidelity transfer of two-cqubit entangled states from two transmission line resonators to the other two transmission line resonators is feasible with current circuit QED technology.This proposal is universal and can be applied to accomplish the same task in a wide range of physical systems,such as four microwave or optical cavities,which are coupled to a natural or artificial three-level atom.     

二项式光场与级联三能级原子的量子纠缠

利用量子熵理论，研究了二项式光场与级联三能级原子的量子纠缠，讨论了光场与原子的初始参量对其量子纠缠性质的影响.结果表明，利用二项式光场的特性，可以揭示从相干态到数态之间的所有态光场与三能级原子相互作用时的量子纠缠性质.选择适当的系统参数可以制备稳定的光场-原子qutrit纠缠态. 关键词： 二项式光场 级联三能级原子 光场熵 量子纠缠     

Transferring quantum entangled states between multiple single-photon-state qubits and coherent-state qubits in circuit QED

We present a way to transfer maximally- or partially-entangled states of n single-photon-state (SPS) qubits onto ncoherent-state (CS) qubits, by employing 2nmicrowave cavities coupled to a superconducting flux qutrit. The two logic states of a SPS qubit here are represented by the vacuum state and the single-photon state of a cavity, while the two logic states of a CS qubit are encoded with two coherent states of a cavity. Because of using only one superconducting qutrit as the coupler, the circuit architecture is significantly simplified. The operation time for the state transfer does not increase with the increasing of the number of qubits. When the dissipation of the system is negligible, the quantum state can be transferred in a deterministic way since no measurement is required. Furthermore, the higher-energy intermediate level of the coupler qutrit is not excited during the entire operation and thus decoherence from the qutrit is greatly suppressed. As a specific example, we numerically demonstrate that the high-fidelity transfer of a Bell state of two SPS qubits onto two CS qubits is achievable within the present-day circuit QED technology. Finally, it is worthy to note that when the dissipation is negligible, entangled states of n CS qubits can be transferred back onto n SPS qubits by performing reverse operations. This proposal is quite general and can be extended to accomplish the same task, by employing a natural or artificial atom to couple 2nmicrowave or optical cavities.     

Frequency-tunable transmon in a three-dimensional copper cavity

We have realized a frequency-tunable transmon in a three-dimensional cooper cavity using a direct current superconducting quantum interference device. Both the transition frequency of the transmon and the frequency of the dressed cavity can be varied with the applied external flux bias, which are well consistent with the theoretical model. The range of the variable transition frequency is from 5.188 GHz to 7.756 GHz. The energy relaxation time of the transmon is hundreds of nanoseconds.     

One-step implementation of a multi-target-qubit controlled phase gate with cat-state qubits in circuit QED

We propose a single-step implementation of a muti-target-qubit controlled phase gate with one catstate qubit (cqubit) simultaneously controlling n–1 target cqubits. The two logic states of a cqubit are represented by two orthogonal cat states of a single cavity mode. In this proposal, the gate is implemented with n microwave cavities coupled to a superconducting transmon qutrit. Because the qutrit remains in the ground state during the gate operation, decoherence caused due to the qutrit’s energy relaxation and dephasing is greatly suppressed. The gate implementation is quite simple because only a single-step operation is needed and neither classical pulse nor measurement is required. Numerical simulations demonstrate that high-fidelity realization of a controlled phase gate with one cqubit simultaneously controlling two target cqubits is feasible with present circuit QED technology. This proposal can be extended to a wide range of physical systems to realize the proposed gate, such as multiple microwave or optical cavities coupled to a natural or artificial three-level atom.     

Transfer of quantum entangled states between superconducting qubits and microwave field qubits

Transferring entangled states between matter qubits and microwave-field (or optical-field) qubits is of fundamental interest in quantum mechanics and necessary in hybrid quantum information processing and quantum communication. We here propose a way for transferring entangled states between superconducting qubits (matter qubits) and microwave-field qubits. This proposal is realized by a system consisting of multiple superconducting qutrits and microwave cavities. Here, „qutrit” refers to a three-level quantum system with the two lowest levels encoding a qubit while the third level acting as an auxiliary state. In contrast, the microwave-field qubits are encoded with coherent states of microwave cavities. Because the third energy level of each qutrit is not populated during the operation, decoherence from the higher energy levels is greatly suppressed. The entangled states can be deterministically transferred because measurement on the states is not needed. The operation time is independent of the number of superconducting qubits or microwave-field qubits. In addition, the architecture of the circuit system is quite simple because only a coupler qutrit and an auxiliary cavity are required. As an example, our numerical simulations show that high-fidelity transfer of entangled states from two superconducting qubits to two microwave-field qubits is feasible with present circuit QED technology. This proposal is quite general and can be extended to transfer entangled states between other matter qubits (e.g., atoms, quantum dots, and NV centers) and microwave- or optical-field qubits encoded with coherent states.     

A Method to Compute the Schrieffer–Wolff Generator for Analysis of Quantum Memory

Quantum illumination uses entangled light that consists of signal and idler modes to achieve higher detection rate of a low-reflective object in noisy environments. The best performance of quantum illumination can be achieved by measuring the returned signal mode together with the idler mode. Thus, it is necessary to prepare a quantum memory that can keep the idler mode ideal. To send a signal towards a long-distance target, entangled light in the microwave regime is used. There was a recent demonstration of a microwave quantum memory using microwave cavities coupled with a transmon qubit. We propose an ordering of bosonic operators to efficiently compute the Schrieffer–Wolff transformation generator to analyze the quantum memory. Our proposed method is applicable to a wide class of systems described by bosonic operators whose interaction part represents a definite number of transfer in quanta.     

Hybrid quantum circuit with a superconducting qubit coupled to a spin ensemble

We report the experimental realization of a hybrid quantum circuit combining a superconducting qubit and an ensemble of electronic spins. The qubit, of the transmon type, is coherently coupled to the spin ensemble consisting of nitrogen-vacancy centers in a diamond crystal via a frequency-tunable superconducting resonator acting as a quantum bus. Using this circuit, we prepare a superposition of the qubit states that we store into collective excitations of the spin ensemble and retrieve back into the qubit later on. These results constitute a proof of concept of spin-ensemble based quantum memory for superconducting qubits.     

Readout of superconducting flux qubit state with a Cooper pair box

We study a readout scheme of a superconducting flux qubit state with a Cooper pair box as a transmon. The qubit states consist of the superpositions of two degenerate states where the charge and phase degrees of freedom are entangled. Owing to the robustness of the transmon against external fluctuations, our readout scheme enables the quantum non-demolition and single-shot measurement of flux qubit states. The qubit state readout can be performed by using the nonlinear Josephson amplifiers after a π/2 rotation driven by an ac electric field.     

Simulation of a quantum NOT gate for a single qutrit system

A three-level system based an a three-level atom interacting with a detuned cavity is considered. Because of the fact that the three-level atom defines a total normalized state composed of superposition of three different single-level states, it is assumed that such a system implements a qutrit. In order to achieve a quantum NOT gate for a single qutrit, the respective Schrödinger equation is solved numerically within a two-photon rotating wave approximation. For small values of one-photon detuning, there appear decoherence effects. Meanwhile, for large values of one-photon detuning, an ideal quantum NOT gate for a single qutrit is achieved. An expression for the execution time of the quantum NOT gate for a single qutrit as a function of the one-photon detuning is found.