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arXiv:1111.1622 · Physical Review Letters

Reversal of Photon-Scattering Errors in Atomic Qubits

N. Akerman, Shlomi Kotler, Yinnon Glickman, Roee Ozeri

Published Sep 4, 2012• 11 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Spontaneous photon scattering by an atomic qubit is a notable example of environment-induced error and is a fundamental limit to the fidelity of quantum operations. In the scattering process, the qubit loses its distinctive and coherent character owing to its entanglement with the photon. Using a single trapped ion, we show that by utilizing the information carried by the photon, we are able to coherently reverse this process and correct for the scattering error. We further used quantum process tomography to characterize the photon-scattering error and its correction scheme and demonstrate a correction fidelity greater than 85% whenever a photon was measured.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.109.103601

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Spontaneous photon scattering by an atomic qubit is a notable example of environment-induced error and is a fundamental limit to the fidelity of quantum operations. In the scattering process, the qubit loses its distinctive and coherent character owing to its entanglement with the photon. Using a single trapped ion, we show that by utilizing the information carried by the photon, we are able to coherently reverse this process and correct for the scattering error. We further used quantum process tomography to characterize the photon-scattering error and its correction scheme and demonstrate a correction fidelity greater than 85% whenever a photon was measured.
Metastable qubits in atomic systems can enable large-scale quantum computing by simplifying hardware requirements and adding efficient erasure conversion to the preexisting toolbox of high-fidelity laser-based control. For trapped atomic ions, the fundamental error floor of this control is given by spontaneous Raman and Rayleigh scattering from short-lived excited states. We measure spontaneous Raman scattering rates out of a metastable D5/2{D}_{5/2}D5/2​ qubit manifold of a single trapped 40Ca+^{40}\mathrm{Ca}^{+}40Ca+ ion illuminated by 976 nm light that is $\ensuremath{-}44$ THz detuned from the dipole-allowed transition to the P3/2{P}_{3/2}P3/2​ manifold. This supports the calculation of error rates from both types of scattering during one- and two-qubit gates on this platform, thus demonstrating that infidelities less than ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}$ are possible.
After measurement, a wave-function is postulated to collapse on a predetermined set of states--the measurement basis. Using quantum process tomography, we show how a measurement basis emerges in the evolution of the electronic spin of a single trapped atomic ion after spontaneous photon scattering and detection. This basis is determined by the excitation laser polarization and the direction along which the photon was detected. Quantum tomography of the combined spin-photon state reveals that although photon scattering entangles all superpositions of the measurement-basis states with the scattered photon polarization, the measurement-basis states themselves remain classically correlated with it. Our findings shed light on the process of quantum measurement in atom-photon interactions.
Photonically interconnected matter qubit systems have wide-ranging applications across quantum science and technology, with entanglement between distant qubits serving as a universal resource. While state-of-the-art performance in heralded entanglement generation has thus far been achieved in trapped atomic systems modeled as stationary emitters, the improvements to fidelities and generation rates demanded by large-scale applications require consideration of their motional degrees of freedom. Here, we derive the effects of atomic motion on spontaneous emission coupled into arbitrary optical modes and study the implications for commonly used atom-atom entanglement protocols. We arrive at a coherent physical picture in the form of “kick operators” associated with each instant in the photonic wavepackets, which also suggests a method to mitigate motional errors by disentangling qubit and motion postherald. This proposed correction technique removes overheads associated with the thermal motion of atoms and may greatly increase entanglement rates in long-distance quantum network links by allowing single-photon-based protocols to be used in the high-fidelity regime.
Quantum-enhanced measurements hold the promise to improve high-precision sensing ranging from the definition of time standards to the determination of fundamental constants of nature. However, quantum sensors lose their sensitivity in the presence of noise. To protect them, the use of quantum error-correcting codes has been proposed. Trapped ions are an excellent technological platform for both quantum sensing and quantum error correction. Here we present a quantum error correction scheme that harnesses dissipation to stabilize a trapped-ion qubit. In our approach, always-on couplings to an engineered environment protect the qubit against spin-flips or phase-flips. Our dissipative error correction scheme operates in a continuous manner without the need to perform measurements or feedback operations. We show that the resulting enhanced coherence time translates into a significantly enhanced precision for quantum measurements. Our work constitutes a stepping stone towards the paradigm of self-correcting quantum information processing.
Mid-circuit measurement and reset of subsets of qubits is a crucial ingredient of quantum error correction and many quantum information applications. Measurement of atomic qubits is accomplished through resonant fluorescence, which typically disturbs neighboring atoms due to photon scattering. We propose and prototype a new scheme for measurement that provides both spatial and spectral isolation by using tightly-focused individual laser beams and narrow atomic transitions. The unique advantage of this scheme is that all operations are applied exclusively to the read-out qubit, with negligible disturbance to the other qubits of the same species and little overhead. In this letter, we pave the way for non-invasive and high fidelity mid-circuit measurement and demonstrate all key building blocks on a single trapped barium ion.