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arXiv:1007.2572 · Physical Review A

Local quantum control of Heisenberg spin chains

Rahel Heule, Christoph Bruder, Daniel Klaus Burgarth, Vladimir M. Stojanović

Published Nov 29, 2010• 58 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Motivated by some recent results of quantum control theory, we discuss the feasibility of local operator control in arrays of interacting qubits modeled as isotropic Heisenberg spin chains. Acting on one of the end spins, we aim at finding piecewise-constant control pulses that lead to optimal fidelities for a chosen set of quantum gates. We analyze the robustness of the obtained results for the gate fidelities to random errors in the control fields, finding that with faster switching between piecewise-constant controls the system is less susceptible to these errors. The observed behavior falls into a generic class of physical phenomena that are related to a competition between resonance- and relaxation-type behavior, exemplified by motional narrowing in NMR experiments. Finally, we discuss how the obtained optimal gate fidelities are altered when the corresponding rapidly varying piecewise-constant control fields are smoothened through spectral filtering.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.82.052333

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Motivated by some recent results of quantum control theory, we discuss the feasibility of local operator control in arrays of interacting qubits modeled as isotropic Heisenberg spin chains. Acting on one of the end spins, we aim at finding piecewise-constant control pulses that lead to optimal fidelities for a chosen set of quantum gates. We analyze the robustness of the obtained results for the gate fidelities to random errors in the control fields, finding that with faster switching between piecewise-constant controls the system is less susceptible to these errors. The observed behavior falls into a generic class of physical phenomena that are related to a competition between resonance- and relaxation-type behavior, exemplified by motional narrowing in NMR experiments. Finally, we discuss how the obtained optimal gate fidelities are altered when the corresponding rapidly varying piecewise-constant control fields are smoothened through spectral filtering.
Various constraints concerning control fields can be imposed in the realistic implementations of quantum control systems. One of the most important is the restriction on the frequency spectrum of acceptable control parameters. It is important to consider the limitations of experimental equipment when trying to find appropriate control parameters. Therefore, in this paper, we present a general method of obtaining a piecewise-constant controls, which are robust with respect to spectral constraints. We consider here a Heisenberg spin chain; however, the method can be applied to a system with more general interactions. To model experimental restrictions, we apply an ideal low-pass filter to numerically obtained control pulses. The usage of the proposed method has negligible impact on the control quality as opposed to the standard approach, which does not take into account spectral limitations.
Various constraints concerning control fields can be imposed in the real- istic implementations of quantum control systems. One of the most important is the restriction on the frequency spectrum of acceptable control parameters. It is important to consider the limitations of experimental equipment when trying to find appropriate control parameters. Therefore, in this paper, we present a general method of obtaining a piecewise-constant controls, which are robust with respect to spectral constraints. We consider here a Heisenberg spin chain; however, the method can be applied to a system with more general interactions. To model experimental restrictions, we apply an ideal low-pass filter to numerically obtained control pulses. The usage of the pro- posed method has negligible impact on the control quality as opposed to the standard approach, which does not take into account spectral limitations.
We demonstrate how near-perfect entanglement (in fact arbitrarily close to maximal entanglement) can be generated between the end spins of an antiferromagnetic isotropic Heisenberg chain of length NNN, starting from the ground state in the N/2N/2N/2 excitation subspace, by applying a magnetic field along a given direction, acting on a single spin only. Temporally optimal magnetic fields to generate a singlet pair between the two end spins of the chain are calculated for chains up to length 202020 using optimal control theory. The optimal fields are shown to remain effective in various nonideal situations including thermal fluctuations, magnetic field leakage, random system couplings, and decoherence. Furthermore, the quality of the entanglement generated can be substantially improved by taking these imperfections into account in the optimization. In particular, the optimal pulse of a given thermal initial state is also optimal for any other initial thermal state with lower temperature.
With the development of quantum information science, the active manipulation of quantum systems is becoming an important research frontier. To build realistic quantum information processors, one of the challenges is to implement arbitrary desired operations with high precision on quantum systems. A large number of quantum control methods and relevant numerical techniques have been put forward in recent years, such as quantum optimal control and quantum feedback control. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spin systems offer an excellent testbed to develop benchmark tools and techniques for controlling quantum systems. In this review paper, we briefly introduce some of the basic control ideas developed for NMR systems in recent years. We first explain, for the liquid spin systems, the physics of various couplings and the causes of relaxation effects. These mechanisms govern the system dynamics, and thus are crucial for constructing rigorous and efficient control models. We also identify three types of available control means: 1) raido-frequency fields as coherent controls; 2) phase cycling, gradient fields and relaxation effects as non-unitary controls; 3) radiation damping effect as feedback control mechanism. Then, we elucidate some important control tasks, which may arise from the conventional NMR spectroscopy (e.g., pulse design and polarization transfer) or from quantum information science (e.g., algorithmic cooling and pseudo-pure state preparation). In the last part, we review some of the most important control methods that are applicable to NMR control tasks. For systems with a relatively small number of spins, it is possible to use analytic optimal control theory to realize the target unitary operations. However, for larger systems, numerical methods are necessary. The gradient ascent pulse engineering algorithm and pulse compiler techniques are the most successful techniques for implementing complicated quantum networks currently. There are some interesting topics of utilizing radiation damping and relaxation effects to achieve more powerful controls. Finally, we give an outline of the possible future work.
Heisenberg spin chains can act as quantum wires transferring quantum states either perfectly or with high fidelity. Gaussian packets of excitations passing through dual rails can encode the two states of a logical qubit, depending on which rail is empty and which rail is carrying the packet. With extra interactions in one or between different chains, one can introduce interaction zones in arrays of such chains, where specific one- or two-qubit gates act on any qubit which passes through these interaction zones. Therefore, universal quantum computation is made possible in a static way where no external control is needed. This scheme will then pave the way for a scalable way of quantum computation where specific hardware can be connected to make large quantum circuits. Our scheme is an improvement of a recent scheme where we borrowed an idea from quantum electrodynamics to replace nonlocal interactions between spin chains with local interactions mediated by an ancillary chain.
We investigate the feasibility of single-shot Toffoli- and Fredkin-gate realizations in qubit arrays with Heisenberg-type exchange interactions between adjacent qubits. As follows from the Lie-algebraic criteria of controllability, such an array is rendered completely controllable---equivalent to allowing universal quantum computation---by a Zeeman-like control field with two orthogonal components acting on a single ``actuator'' qubit. Adopting this local-control setting, we start our analysis with piecewise-constant control fields and determine the global maxima of the relevant figure of merit (target-gate fidelity) by combining the multistart-based clustering algorithm and quasi-Newton type local optimization. We subsequently introduce important practical considerations, such as finite frequency bandwidth of realistic fields and their leakage away from the actuator. We find the shortest times required for high-fidelity Toffoli- and Fredkin-gate realizations and provide comparisons to their respective two-qubit counterparts---controlled-not and exponential-swap. In particular, the Toffoli-gate time compares much more favorably to that of controlled-not than in the standard decomposition-based approach. This study indicates that the use of the single-shot approach can alleviate the burden on control-generating hardware in future experimental realizations of multiqubit gates.