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arXiv:1403.4632 · Physical Review A

Experimental bath engineering for quantitative studies of quantum control

Alexander Soare, Harrison Ball, David Hayes, Xinkai Zhen, Marie Claire Jarratt, Jarrah Sastrawan, Hermann Uys, Michael J. Biercuk

Published Apr 28, 2014• 41 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We develop and demonstrate a technique to engineer universal unitary baths in quantum systems. Using the correspondence between unitary decoherence due to ambient environmental noise and errors in a control system for quantum bits, we show how a wide variety of relevant classical error models may be realized through in-phase or in-quadrature modulation on a vector signal generator producing a resonant carrier signal. We demonstrate our approach through high-bandwidth modulation of the 12.6-GHz carrier appropriate for trapped ${^{171}\mathrm{Yb}}^{+}$ ions. Experiments demonstrate the reduction of coherent lifetime in the system in the presence of both engineered dephasing noise during free evolution and engineered amplitude noise during driven operations. In both cases, the observed reduction of coherent lifetimes matches well with quantitative models described herein. These techniques form the basis of a toolkit for quantitative tests of quantum control protocols, helping experimentalists characterize the performance of their quantum coherent systems.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.89.042329

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Abstract. We address the problem of deriving analytic expressions for calculating universal decoherence-induced errors in qubits undergoing arbitrary, unitary, time-dependent quantum-control protocols. We show that the fidelity of a control operation may be expressed in terms of experimentally relevant spectral characteristics of the noise and of the control, over all Cartesian directions. We formulate control matrices in the time domain to capture the effects of piecewise-constant control, and convert them to generalized Fourier-domain filter functions. These generalized filter functions may be derived for complex temporally modulated control protocols, accounting for susceptibility to rotations of the qubit state vector in three dimensions. Taken together, we show that this framework provides a computationally efficient means to calculate the effects of universal noise on arbitrary quantum control protocols, producing results comparable to those obtained via time-consuming simulations of Bloch vector evolution. As a concrete example, we apply our method to treating the problem of dynamical decoupling incorporating realistic control pulses of arbitrary duration or form, including the replacement of simple pi-pulses with complex dynamically corrected gates. ar

•Aug 17, 2016•105 citations
We develop and demonstrate a technique to engineer universal unitary baths in quantum systems. Using the correspondence between unitary decoherence due to ambient environmental noise and errors in a control system for quantum bits, we show how a wide variety of relevant classical error models may be realized through in-phase or in-quadrature modulation on a vector signal generator producing a resonant carrier signal. We demonstrate our approach through high-bandwidth modulation of the 12.6-GHz carrier appropriate for trapped 171Yb+{^{171}\mathrm{Yb}}^{+}171Yb+ ions. Experiments demonstrate the reduction of coherent lifetime in the system in the presence of both engineered dephasing noise during free evolution and engineered amplitude noise during driven operations. In both cases, the observed reduction of coherent lifetimes matches well with quantitative models described herein. These techniques form the basis of a toolkit for quantitative tests of quantum control protocols, helping experimentalists characterize the performance of their quantum coherent systems.
Quantum computation is a promising technology owing to the unique physical nature of quantum systems. Quantum computers have the potential to be as much as exponentially more efficient than today’s most powerful classical computer at certain tasks. One of the major challenges the scientific community must overcome, arises due to the intrinsic tendency of quantum information to be highly susceptible to environmental noise. This thesis presents work in developing and characterizing methods for precision quantum control in the presence of decoherence inducing noise, using trapped 171Yb+ ions as a model experimental platform. A flexible , robust microwave system is used to access the 12.6 GHz hyperfine qubit manifold in the outer S-shell orbital. The low phase noise characteristics of a microwave oscillator allow free-evolution coherence times in excess of three seconds, and operational fidelities F > 99.99%, characterized by randomized benchmarking. Starting from this relatively clean baseline, control techniques may be implemented in order to simulate a variety of realistic, time-dependent noise models, via arbitrary IQ modulation of the microwave source. A formalism for calculating the spectral noise filter functions of piece-wise constant control sequences is developed. The efficacy of this formalism is demonstrated by experimentally characterizing a variety of control protocols in the presence of engineered noise.
A controlled noise environment provides a unique platform for the investigation of various quantum technologies. Here, we demonstrate a technique to engineer arbitrary unitary baths in quantum systems with solid-state spin systems. A wide variety of classical noise models, including the generation of dephasing noise and amplitude-damping noise was realized through precise modulation of microwave signals. By measuring the power spectral density of the noise with the aid of single nitrogen-vacancy (N-VVV) color centers in diamond, we confirm that the generated noise closely matches the theoretical expectations. This technique serves as a powerful toolkit for validating quantum control protocols, simulating decoherence processes in other quantum systems, and generating baths essential for studying quantum thermodynamics.
This PhD thesis reports on the development of a wide variety of theoretical and experimental capabilities in the field of quantum information processing using trapped ions. The presentation is organized in two distinct parts. The first part presents a series of published articles containing theoretical results, and their experimental validation, advancing a range of tools and techniques in error-resilient quantum control and robust verification procedures. One of the fundamental challenges in realizing a general purpose quantum computer is the management of error in fragile quantum systems. A familiar aspect of this challenge is decoherence, a process by which the system looses its stored quantum information, rendering it useless for subsequent computation. This collection of works focuses on reducing sources of quantum decoherence and precisely quantifying residual errors in real quantum systems dominated by realistic temporally-correlated noise processes, of central importance in any future architecture for quantum computing. The second part focuses on the design, construction and characterization of a complex experimental system capable of supporting a broad calls of quantum simulation experiments with hundreds of spin qubits using 9Be+ ions in a Penning trap. The trap design is optimized to suppress non-harmonic trapping potentials while providing wide optical access for engineering enhanced spin-motion coupling across large ion crystals. A superconducting magnet, equipped with a fully closed-cycle dual LN2/LHe recondensor, provides the magnetic field for trapping and produces the 55-GHz Zeeman-split qubit states suitable for microwave control. A custom UV laser system for driving the relevant transitions in neutral and ionized beryllium, as well as UV-compatible fibers and in-bore optomechanics for delivering microwave and laser beams to the trap, is presented. The thesis concludes with a brief outlook towards future theoretical and experimental studies, and extensions of the experimental setup
Experimentalists seeking to improve the coherent lifetimes of quantum bits have generally focused on improvements to qubit designs, materials, and system isolation from environmental perturbations. In the case of the phase degree of freedom in a quantum superposition, however, the coherence that must be preserved is ultimately that of the qubit relative to the system clock, rather than that of the qubit in isolation. In this manuscript we clarify the impact of clock instability on qubit dephasing and provide quantitative estimates of fidelity upper-bounds set by noisy phase fluctuations in the clock. We first indicate analytically that such phase fluctuations in the clock - typically referred to as the local oscillator (LO) - are indistinguishable from a pure dephasing field arising from other environmental mechanisms. Using these results, we apply commonly quoted LO phase-noise specifications to calculate the resultant performance bounds on qubit operational fidelities. We find that laboratory grade LOs contribute error probabilities beyond 10−410^{-4}10−4 for operation times <1  μ<1\;\mu<1μs, while the use of precision LOs can suppress error rates by 10410^{4}104. We find that in either case phase fluctuations at frequencies far from the carrier dominate operational error rates, and due to their high-frequency spectral content, are difficult to mitigate using dynamic error suppression strategies. Further, we consider the importance of LO noise bandwidth and its impact on the degree to which thermal phase fluctuations in the LO contribute an effective error floor. These observations and analysis of the flow-down effects of such errors on the implementation of benchmarking and quantum error correction protocols highlight challenges and advantages that particular qubit technologies possess in the context of phase-noise-induced errors and motivate enhanced research in precision frequency metrology.
We present novel techniques for modelling and mitigating the effects of time-dependent noise created by interactions between a quantum system and its environment, and by errors in applied controls. Our scope encompasses quantum storage and nontrivial QIP tasks in both single- and multi-qubit systems, with a particular focus on control operations applied to trapped-ion qubits. The work begins with the introduction of a computationally efficient approach to characterizing the impact of time-dependent noise in single-qubit systems, in terms of the spectral characteristics of the noise and a set of generalized control filter functions. In conjunction with brute-force numerical simulation, we show that this novel analytical technique can used to model the evolution of a noisy single-qubit system subject to an arbitrary piecewise-constant control sequence, and to accurately predict the effects of experimentally engineered noise in single-qubit trapped ion systems. We also obtain a number of new and important results that extend the range of utility of state-preserving dynamical decoupling control sequences. These device-independent results provide a means to create a practically useful high-fidelity, long-time quantum memory in both single- and multi-qubit systems. We go on to explain how, given the freedom to arbitrarily and quasi-instantaneously change the phase of the interaction between a system of qubits and a finite collection of oscillators, frequency-specific phase modulation protocols can be implemented that decouple the qubits from targeted oscillator modes at pre-determined times. This technique can be used to generate fast, high-fidelity multi-qubit entangling operations in, for example, ion trap QIP devices.
Abstract. We address the problem of deriving analytic expressions for calculating universal decoherence-induced errors in qubits undergoing arbitrary, unitary, time-dependent quantum-control protocols. We show that the fidelity of a control operation may be expressed in terms of experimentally relevant spectral characteristics of the noise and of the control, over all Cartesian directions. We formulate control matrices in the time domain to capture the effects of piecewise-constant control, and convert them to generalized Fourier-domain filter functions. These generalized filter functions may be derived for complex temporally modulated control protocols, accounting for susceptibility to rotations of the qubit state vector in three dimensions. Taken together, we show that this framework provides a computationally efficient means to calculate the effects of universal noise on arbitrary quantum control protocols, producing results comparable to those obtained via time-consuming simulations of Bloch vector evolution. As a concrete example, we apply our method to treating the problem of dynamical decoupling incorporating realistic control pulses of arbitrary duration or form, including the replacement of simple pi-pulses with complex dynamically corrected gates. ar