Parametric control of a superconducting flux qubit

Parametric control of a superconducting flux qubit has been achieved by using two-frequency microwave pulses. We have observed Rabi oscillations stemming from parametric transitions between the qubit states when the sum of the two microwave frequencies or the difference between them matches the qubit Larmor frequency. We have also observed multiphoton Rabi oscillations corresponding to one- to four-photon resonances by applying single-frequency microwave pulses. The parametric control demonstrated in this work widens the frequency range of microwaves for controlling the qubit and offers a high quality testing ground for exploring nonlinear quantum phenomena of macroscopically distinct states.     

电荷量子比特与量子化光场之间的纠缠

研究了初态为混合态的电荷量子比特与量子化光场之间的纠缠.通过求解系统的concurrence下限, 研究初态的混合度λ和失谐量Δ对系统纠缠随时间演化的影响. 在弱场中, 电荷量子比特初始是激发态的系统, 其纠缠度远远大于电荷量子比特初始是基态的系统, 并且Δ对系统的纠缠有明显的抑制作用. 在强场中, 电荷量子比特初始分别为激发态和基态时系统的纠缠演化接近一致, 初态混合度最高时系统的纠缠度最小, 并且Δ对系统纠缠的影响变弱. 关键词： 约瑟夫森结 纠缠 混合态 concurrence下限     

Entanglement of atoms by a resonance classical electromagnetic field

It is shown that the interaction of a system of two two-level atoms with a resonance classical electromagnetic field under conditions of collective relaxation gives rise to quantum correlations and controlled entanglement. Various models of the bath are examined, such as the unidirectional, one-dimensional, and three-dimensional models, as well as a squeezed bath. As a measure of the entanglement, the minimum negative eigenvalue of the Peres-Horodecki matrix is used.     

Vacuum Rabi oscillations in a macroscopic superconducting qubit oscillator system

We have observed the coherent exchange of a single energy quantum between a flux qubit and a superconducting LC circuit acting as a quantum harmonic oscillator. The exchange of an energy quantum is known as the vacuum Rabi oscillation: the qubit is oscillating between the excited state and the ground state and the oscillator between the vacuum state and the first excited state. We also show that we can detect the state of the oscillator with the qubit and thereby obtained evidence of level quantization of the LC circuit. Our results support the idea of using oscillators as couplers of solid-state qubits.     

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.     

Dephasing of a superconducting flux qubit

In order to gain a better understanding of the origin of decoherence in superconducting flux qubits, we have measured the magnetic field dependence of the characteristic energy relaxation time (T(1)) and echo phase relaxation time (T(2)(echo)) near the optimal operating point of a flux qubit. We have measured T(2)(echo) by means of the phase cycling method. At the optimal point, we found the relation T(2)(echo) approximately 2T(1). This means that the echo decay time is limited by the energy relaxation (T(1) process). Moving away from the optimal point, we observe a linear increase of the phase relaxation rate (1/T(2)(echo)) with the applied external magnetic flux. This behavior can be well explained by the influence of magnetic flux noise with a 1/f spectrum on the qubit.     

Dephasing of a superconducting qubit induced by photon noise

We have studied the dephasing of a superconducting flux qubit coupled to a dc-SQUID based oscillator. By varying the bias conditions of both circuits we were able to tune their effective coupling strength. This allowed us to measure the effect of such a controllable and well-characterized environment on the qubit coherence. We can quantitatively account for our data with a simple model in which thermal fluctuations of the photon number in the oscillator are the limiting factor. In particular, we observe a strong reduction of the dephasing rate whenever the coupling is tuned to zero. At the optimal point we find a large spin-echo decay time of .     

Approaching unit visibility for control of a superconducting qubit with dispersive readout

In a Rabi oscillation experiment with a superconducting qubit we show that a visibility in the qubit excited state population of more than 95% can be attained. We perform a dispersive measurement of the qubit state by coupling the qubit non-resonantly to a transmission line resonator and probing the resonator transmission spectrum. The measurement process is well characterized and quantitatively understood. In a measurement of Ramsey fringes, the qubit coherence time is larger than 500 ns.     

Nondestructive readout for a superconducting flux qubit

We present a new readout method for a superconducting flux qubit, based on the measurement of the Josephson inductance of a superconducting quantum interference device that is inductively coupled to the qubit. The intrinsic flux detection efficiency and backaction are suitable for a fast and nondestructive determination of the quantum state of the qubit, as needed for readout of multiple qubits in a quantum computer. We performed spectroscopy of a flux qubit and we measured relaxation times of the order of 80 micros.     

Nonadiabatic geometric gates with a superconducting qubit

正Fault-tolerant quantum computing requires high-fidelity gates so that errors can be corrected. So far, various schemes have been proposed to increase gate fidelities, including nonadiabatic holonomic gates [1-4] and topological dynamical decoupling [5].     

Perspectives for a superconducting charge qubit system interacting with bimodal cavity fields

We report on the observation of new features in a superconducting charge qubit system. The system we analyze comprises of a single Cooper-pair box sequentially coupled to two microwave cavity fields. Simulations of the full qubit–field dynamics show significant total correlation and coherence loss. By suitably choosing the system’s parameters and precisely controlling the dynamics, we demonstrate the generation of two-mode field states. We explore the nonclassical behavior of the system by studding the quasi-probability distribution function. Our scheme can be realized within the current experimental technology and may well be of use in quantum information processing applications.     

ac Stark shift and dephasing of a superconducting qubit strongly coupled to a cavity field

We have performed spectroscopy of a superconducting charge qubit coupled nonresonantly to a single mode of an on-chip resonator. The strong coupling induces a large ac Stark shift in the energy levels of both the qubit and the resonator. The dispersive shift of the resonator frequency is used to nondestructively determine the qubit state. Photon shot noise in the measurement field induces qubit level fluctuations leading to dephasing which is characteristic for the measurement backaction. A crossover in line shape with measurement power is observed and theoretically explained. For weak measurement a long intrinsic dephasing time of T2>200 ns of the qubit is found.     

Selective measurements of superconducting qubit states by a nonlinear Josephson oscillator

Selective measurements of the states are studied for a single quantum system, viz, a Josephson qubit, by a nonlinear oscillator operating in the mesoscopic regime in which the number of quanta during measurements is varied from a few dozen to several hundreds. The quantum Monte Carlo method is used to simulate the dissipative dynamics of the qubit–oscillator system and the process of measurements of the qubit states from the change in the number of oscillator quanta. It is shown that for π-pulses in the recording of qubit states, discrimination of states is possible in single realizations (measurements), while statistical projective measurements can be made for the prepared superposition state.     

Simulating a topological transition in a superconducting phase qubit by fast adiabatic trajectories

The significance of topological phases has been widely recognized in the community of condensed matter physics. The well controllable quantum systems provide an artificial platform to probe and engineer various topological phases. The adiabatic trajectory of a quantum state describes the change of the bulk Bloch eigenstates with the momentum, and this adiabatic simulation method is however practically limited due to quantum dissipation. Here we apply the “shortcut to adiabaticity” (STA) protocol to realize fast adiabatic evolutions in the system of a superconducting phase qubit. The resulting fast adiabatic trajectories illustrate the change of the bulk Bloch eigenstates in the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model. A sharp transition is experimentally determined for the topological invariant of a winding number. Our experiment helps identify the topological Chern number of a two-dimensional toy model, suggesting the applicability of the fast adiabatic simulation method for topological systems.     

Cavity-induced ATS effect on a superconducting Xmon qubit

We couple a ladder-type three-level superconducting artificial atom to a cavity. Adjusting the artificial atom to make the cavity be resonant with the two upper levels, we then probe the lower two levels of the artificial atom. When driving the cavity to a coherent state, the probe spectrum shows energy level splitting induced by the quantized electromagnetic field in the cavity. This splitting size is related to the coupling strength between the cavity and the artificial atom and, thus, is fixed after the sample is fabricated. This is in contrast to the classical Autler–Townes splitting of a three-level system in which the splitting is proportional to the driving amplitude, which can be continuously changed. Our experiment results show the difference between the classical microwave driving field and the quantum field of the cavity.     

Entanglement swapping between electromagnetic field modes and matter qubits

Scalable quantum networks require the capability to create, store and distribute entanglement among distant nodes (atoms, trapped ions, charge and spin qubits built on quantum dots, etc.) by means of photonic channels. We show how the entanglement between qubits and electromagnetic field modes allows generation of entangled states of remotely located qubits. We present analytical calculations of linear entropy and the density matrix for the entangled qubits for the system described by the Jaynes-Cummings model. We also discuss the influence of decoherence. The presented scheme is able to drive an initially separable state of two qubits into an highly entangled state suitable for quantum information processing.     

Experimental progress in nonadiabatic geometric gates with a superconducting qubit

正Quantum computation can be performed via a universal set of quantum gates, such as two non-commuting one-qubit gates and a nontrivial two-qubit gate, which are actually unitary evolutions governed by the Hamiltonian of a quantum system. Different from dynamic phases, geometric phases depend only on some global geometric features of the evolution path and are largely insensitive to local inaccuracies and fluctuations, making geometric quantum computation robust against some control errors.     

Determination of molecular energies via variational-based quantum imaginary time evolution in a superconducting qubit system

As a valid tool for solving ground state problems, imaginary time evolution(ITE) is widely used in physical and chemical simulations. Different ITE-based algorithms in their quantum counterpart have recently been proposed and applied to some real systems. We experimentally realize the variational-based quantum imaginary time evolution(QITE) algorithm to simulate the ground state energy of hydrogen(H₂) and lithium hydride(Li H) molecules in a superconducting qubit system. The H₂     

Information entropy and entanglement of a superconducting qubit coupled to a cavity field with its spontaneous decay

The quantum entanglement between superconducting qubit and cavity field is described quantitatively in the presence of spontaneous decay. Depending on how how a system is quantum correlated with its environment, the entanglement dynamics between the qubit and cavity is evaluated and investigated during the dissipative process. The motivation based on recent experiments wherein the Cooper box can be used to probe the decay of the resonator superposition state due to environmental decoherence, we theoretically investigate the dynamics of entanglement measured by the negativity. Wehrl entropy and Wehrl phase distribution of a superconducting qubit coupled to a cavity field induced by a superconducting qubit-damping reservoir governed by a master equation.     

Demonstration of quantum zeno effect in a superconducting phase qubit

Quantum Zeno effect is a significant tool in quantum manipulating and computing. We propose its observation in superconducting phase qubit with two experimentally feasible measurement schemes. The conventional measurement method is used to achieve the proposed pulse and continuous readout of the qubit state, which are analyzed by projection assumption and Monte Carlo wavefunction simulation, respectively. Our scheme gives a direct implementation of quantum Zeno effect in a superconducting phase qubit.