Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:1406.7707 · Physical Review A

Optimal control for fast and high-fidelity quantum gates in coupled superconducting flux qubits

Shang‐Yu Huang, Hsi‐Sheng Goan

Published Jul 14, 2014• 30 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We apply the quantum optimal control theory based on the Krotov method to implement single-qubit $X$ and $Z$ gates and two-qubit cnot gates for inductively coupled superconducting flux qubits with fixed qubit transition frequencies and fixed off-diagonal qubit-qubit coupling. Our scheme shares an advantage with other direct-coupling schemes in that it requires no additional coupler subcircuit and control lines. The control lines needed are only for the manipulation of individual qubits (e.g., a time-dependent magnetic flux or field applied on each qubit). The qubits are operated at the optimal coherence points and the gate operation times (less than 1 ns for single-qubit gates and $\ensuremath{\sim}2$ ns for cnotgates) are much shorter than the corresponding qubit decoherence time. A cnot gate or other general quantum gates can be implemented in a single run of the pulse sequence rather than being decomposed into several single-qubit and several entangled two-qubit operations in series by composite pulse sequences. Quantum gates constructed via our scheme are all with very high fidelity (very low error) as our optimal control scheme takes into account the fixed qubit detuning and fixed two-qubit interaction as well as all other time-dependent magnetic-field-induced single-qubit interactions and two-qubit couplings. The effect of leakage to higher-energy-level states and the effect of qubit decoherence on the quantum-gate operations are also discussed.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.90.012318

Related papers

Efficient one- and two-qubit pulsed gates for an oscillator-stabilized Josephson qubit

Frederico Brito, David Peter Divincenzo, R. H. Koch +1 more

We present theoretical schemes for performing high-fidelity one- and two-qubit pulsed gates for a superconducting flux qubit. The 'IBM qubit' consists of three Josephson junctions, three loops and a superconducting transmission line. Assuming a fixed inductive qubit–qubit coupling, we show that the effective qubit–qubit interaction is tunable by changing the applied fluxes, and can be made negligible, allowing one to perform high-fidelity single qubit gates. Our schemes are tailored to alleviate errors due to 1/ f noise; we find gates with only 1% loss of fidelity due to this source, for pulse times in the range of 20–30 ns for one-qubit gates ( Z rotations, Hadamard) and 60 ns for a two-qubit gate (controlled- Z ). Our relaxation and dephasing time estimates indicate a comparable loss of fidelity from this source. The control of leakage plays an important role in the design of our shaped pulses, preventing shorter pulse times. However, we have found that imprecision in the control of the quantum phase plays a major role in the limitation of the fidelity of our gates.

arXiv:0709.1478•New Journal of Physics•Mar 18, 2008•24 citations

Optimal control of coupled Josephson qubits

Andreas K. Spörl, Thomas Schulte‐Herbrüggen, Steffen J. Glaser +4 more

In two and three coupled Josephson charge qubits, we exemplify how to take pulses for realizing quantum gates from fidelity-limited pioneering stages to the decoherence limit of near time optimal high-fidelity controls. Thus, a CNOT gate can be obtained with a fidelity $>1$--${10}^{\ensuremath{-}9}$ for the two qubits. Even when including higher charge states, the leakage is below $1%$, although the pulses are nonadiabatic. The controls are five times faster than the pioneering experiment [Nature (London) 425, 941 (2003)] for otherwise identical parameters---i.e., a progress towards the error-correction threshold by a factor of 100. We outline schemes to generate these shaped pulses by Cauer synthesis, or more generally by few LCR circuits. The approach generalizes to larger systems: e.g., directly realizing a TOFFOLI gate in three linearly coupled charge qubits is shown to be 13 times faster than decomposing it into a circuit of nine CNOT gates of the above experimental work. In view of the next generation of fast pulse shapers, the combination of methods is designed to find wide application in quantum control of pseudospin and macroscopic quantum systems.

arXiv:quant-ph/0504202•Physical Review A•Jan 2, 2007•119 citations

Optimization of High-Fidelity Single-Qubit Gates for Fluxoniums Using Single-Flux Quantum Control

Maxime Lapointe-Major, Boyan Torosov, Bohdan Kulchytskyy +1 more

We present a gradient-based method to construct memory-efficient, high-fidelity, single-qubit gates for fluxonium qubits. These gates are constructed using a sequence of single-flux quantum (SFQ) pulses that are sent to the qubit through either capacitive or inductive coupling. The schedule of SFQ pulses is constructed with an on-ramp and an off-ramp applied prior to and after a pulse train, where the pulses are spaced at intervals equal to the qubit period. We reduce the optimization problem to the scheduling of a fixed number of SFQ pulses in the on-ramp and solve it by relaxing the discretization constraint of the SFQ clock as an intermediate step, allowing the use of the Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno optimizer. Using this approach, gate fidelities of 99.99 % can be achieved for inductive coupling and 99.9 % for capacitive coupling, with leakage being the main source of coherent errors for both approaches.

quant-pharXiv:2511.14746•Nov 19, 2025•0 citations

Closed-loop optimization for high-fidelity controlled- Z gates in superconducting qubits

N.J. Glaser, Federico Roy, Ivan Tsitsilin +13 more

Achieving fast and high-fidelity qubit operations is crucial for unlocking the potential of quantum computers. In particular, reaching low gate errors in two-qubit gates has been a long-standing challenge in the field of superconducting qubits due to their typically long duration relative to coherence times. To realize fast gates, we use the hybridization between fixed-frequency superconducting qubits with a strongly interacting coupler mode that is tunable in frequency. To reduce population leakage during required adiabatic passages through avoided level crossings, we employ a sensitivity-adaptive closed-loop optimization method to design complex pulse shapes. We compare the performance of Gaussian-square, Fourier-series, and piecewise-constant-slope pulse parametrizations and are able to reach 99.9% controlled- Z -gate fidelity using a 64-ns-long Fourier-series pulse defined by only seven parameters. These high-fidelity values are achieved by analyzing the optimized pulse shapes to identify and systematically mitigate signal-line distortions in the experiment. To improve the convergence speed of the optimization, we implement an adaptive cost function, which continuously maximizes the sensitivity. The demonstrated method can be used for tune-up and recalibration of superconducting quantum processors.

arXiv:2412.17454•Physical Review Applied•Jul 15, 2025•5 citations

Optimization of two-qubit gates in tunable-coupler architectures using single-flux-quantum control

Boyan T. Torosov, Bohdan Kulchytskyy, Florian Hopfmueller +3 more

We present a gradient-based method to construct high-fidelity, two-qubit quantum gates in a system consisting of two transmon qubits coupled via a tunable coupler. In particular, we focus on single-flux-quantum pulses as a promising and scalable alternative to traditional control schemes that use microwave electronics. We develop a continuous embedding scheme to optimize these discrete pulses, taking advantage of autodifferentiation of our model. This approach allows us to achieve fSim-type gates with average gate fidelities on the order of 99.99% and controlled-$Z$ and controlled-not gates with fidelities above 99.9%. Furthermore, we provide an alternative semianalytical construction of these gates via an exact decomposition using a pair of fSim gates, which leads to the reduction in memory required to store the associated pulse sequences.

arXiv:2412.15816•Physical Review A•Jul 18, 2025•1 citation

Fast CZ gate in hybrid fluxonium-transmon systems with tunable couplers

Peng Xu, Yunlong Wang, Yuechen Mu +4 more

Hybrid superconducting architectures combining different types of qubits offer a promising platform for exploiting their complementary advantages, yet high-fidelity entangling gates remain challenging because of strong nonlinearities and residual qubit-qubit interactions. Here, we propose a high-fidelity controlled-Z (CZ) gate for a hybrid circuit comprising a fluxonium qubit, a fixed-frequency transmon qubit, and a flux-tunable transmon coupler. By modulating only the external magnetic flux applied to the coupler, the qubit-qubit interaction is dynamically engineered for conditional-phase accumulation while the residual interaction is suppressed at idle, mitigating spectator-induced errors. We employ a low-dimensional Fourier-cosine pulse parameterization and a physically motivated cost function to independently suppress conditional-phase errors and leakage from the computational subspace. Numerical simulations demonstrate that a microwave-free CZ gate can be realized within $25 \mathrm{ns}$, with an average gate fidelity exceeding $99.99\%$ and leakage below $10^{-5}$. Using experimentally relevant superconducting-qubit parameters and accounting for decoherence, the proposed scheme maintains a CZ-gate fidelity of approximately $99.9\%$. We further extend the analysis to larger coupled architectures and find that the CZ-gate infidelity remains below $10^{-4}$ in the presence of spectator qubits. These results establish single-parameter flux control as a simple and robust approach for realizing high-fidelity entangling gates in heterogeneous superconducting quantum architectures.

quant-pharXiv:2609.14197•Sep 15, 2026•0 citations
We apply the quantum optimal control theory based on the Krotov method to implement single-qubit XXX and ZZZ gates and two-qubit cnot gates for inductively coupled superconducting flux qubits with fixed qubit transition frequencies and fixed off-diagonal qubit-qubit coupling. Our scheme shares an advantage with other direct-coupling schemes in that it requires no additional coupler subcircuit and control lines. The control lines needed are only for the manipulation of individual qubits (e.g., a time-dependent magnetic flux or field applied on each qubit). The qubits are operated at the optimal coherence points and the gate operation times (less than 1 ns for single-qubit gates and \ensuremath∼2\ensuremath{\sim}2\ensuremath∼2 ns for cnotgates) are much shorter than the corresponding qubit decoherence time. A cnot gate or other general quantum gates can be implemented in a single run of the pulse sequence rather than being decomposed into several single-qubit and several entangled two-qubit operations in series by composite pulse sequences. Quantum gates constructed via our scheme are all with very high fidelity (very low error) as our optimal control scheme takes into account the fixed qubit detuning and fixed two-qubit interaction as well as all other time-dependent magnetic-field-induced single-qubit interactions and two-qubit couplings. The effect of leakage to higher-energy-level states and the effect of qubit decoherence on the quantum-gate operations are also discussed.
We present theoretical schemes for performing high-fidelity one- and two-qubit pulsed gates for a superconducting flux qubit. The 'IBM qubit' consists of three Josephson junctions, three loops and a superconducting transmission line. Assuming a fixed inductive qubit–qubit coupling, we show that the effective qubit–qubit interaction is tunable by changing the applied fluxes, and can be made negligible, allowing one to perform high-fidelity single qubit gates. Our schemes are tailored to alleviate errors due to 1/ f noise; we find gates with only 1% loss of fidelity due to this source, for pulse times in the range of 20–30 ns for one-qubit gates ( Z rotations, Hadamard) and 60 ns for a two-qubit gate (controlled- Z ). Our relaxation and dephasing time estimates indicate a comparable loss of fidelity from this source. The control of leakage plays an important role in the design of our shaped pulses, preventing shorter pulse times. However, we have found that imprecision in the control of the quantum phase plays a major role in the limitation of the fidelity of our gates.
In two and three coupled Josephson charge qubits, we exemplify how to take pulses for realizing quantum gates from fidelity-limited pioneering stages to the decoherence limit of near time optimal high-fidelity controls. Thus, a CNOT gate can be obtained with a fidelity >1>1>1--${10}^{\ensuremath{-}9}$ for the two qubits. Even when including higher charge states, the leakage is below 11%1, although the pulses are nonadiabatic. The controls are five times faster than the pioneering experiment [Nature (London) 425, 941 (2003)] for otherwise identical parameters---i.e., a progress towards the error-correction threshold by a factor of 100. We outline schemes to generate these shaped pulses by Cauer synthesis, or more generally by few LCR circuits. The approach generalizes to larger systems: e.g., directly realizing a TOFFOLI gate in three linearly coupled charge qubits is shown to be 13 times faster than decomposing it into a circuit of nine CNOT gates of the above experimental work. In view of the next generation of fast pulse shapers, the combination of methods is designed to find wide application in quantum control of pseudospin and macroscopic quantum systems.
We present a gradient-based method to construct memory-efficient, high-fidelity, single-qubit gates for fluxonium qubits. These gates are constructed using a sequence of single-flux quantum (SFQ) pulses that are sent to the qubit through either capacitive or inductive coupling. The schedule of SFQ pulses is constructed with an on-ramp and an off-ramp applied prior to and after a pulse train, where the pulses are spaced at intervals equal to the qubit period. We reduce the optimization problem to the scheduling of a fixed number of SFQ pulses in the on-ramp and solve it by relaxing the discretization constraint of the SFQ clock as an intermediate step, allowing the use of the Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno optimizer. Using this approach, gate fidelities of 99.99 % can be achieved for inductive coupling and 99.9 % for capacitive coupling, with leakage being the main source of coherent errors for both approaches.
Achieving fast and high-fidelity qubit operations is crucial for unlocking the potential of quantum computers. In particular, reaching low gate errors in two-qubit gates has been a long-standing challenge in the field of superconducting qubits due to their typically long duration relative to coherence times. To realize fast gates, we use the hybridization between fixed-frequency superconducting qubits with a strongly interacting coupler mode that is tunable in frequency. To reduce population leakage during required adiabatic passages through avoided level crossings, we employ a sensitivity-adaptive closed-loop optimization method to design complex pulse shapes. We compare the performance of Gaussian-square, Fourier-series, and piecewise-constant-slope pulse parametrizations and are able to reach 99.9% controlled- Z -gate fidelity using a 64-ns-long Fourier-series pulse defined by only seven parameters. These high-fidelity values are achieved by analyzing the optimized pulse shapes to identify and systematically mitigate signal-line distortions in the experiment. To improve the convergence speed of the optimization, we implement an adaptive cost function, which continuously maximizes the sensitivity. The demonstrated method can be used for tune-up and recalibration of superconducting quantum processors.
We present a gradient-based method to construct high-fidelity, two-qubit quantum gates in a system consisting of two transmon qubits coupled via a tunable coupler. In particular, we focus on single-flux-quantum pulses as a promising and scalable alternative to traditional control schemes that use microwave electronics. We develop a continuous embedding scheme to optimize these discrete pulses, taking advantage of autodifferentiation of our model. This approach allows us to achieve fSim-type gates with average gate fidelities on the order of 99.99% and controlled-ZZZ and controlled-not gates with fidelities above 99.9%. Furthermore, we provide an alternative semianalytical construction of these gates via an exact decomposition using a pair of fSim gates, which leads to the reduction in memory required to store the associated pulse sequences.
Hybrid superconducting architectures combining different types of qubits offer a promising platform for exploiting their complementary advantages, yet high-fidelity entangling gates remain challenging because of strong nonlinearities and residual qubit-qubit interactions. Here, we propose a high-fidelity controlled-Z (CZ) gate for a hybrid circuit comprising a fluxonium qubit, a fixed-frequency transmon qubit, and a flux-tunable transmon coupler. By modulating only the external magnetic flux applied to the coupler, the qubit-qubit interaction is dynamically engineered for conditional-phase accumulation while the residual interaction is suppressed at idle, mitigating spectator-induced errors. We employ a low-dimensional Fourier-cosine pulse parameterization and a physically motivated cost function to independently suppress conditional-phase errors and leakage from the computational subspace. Numerical simulations demonstrate that a microwave-free CZ gate can be realized within 25ns25 \mathrm{ns}25ns, with an average gate fidelity exceeding 99.99%99.99\%99.99% and leakage below 10−510^{-5}10−5. Using experimentally relevant superconducting-qubit parameters and accounting for decoherence, the proposed scheme maintains a CZ-gate fidelity of approximately 99.9%99.9\%99.9%. We further extend the analysis to larger coupled architectures and find that the CZ-gate infidelity remains below 10−410^{-4}10−4 in the presence of spectator qubits. These results establish single-parameter flux control as a simple and robust approach for realizing high-fidelity entangling gates in heterogeneous superconducting quantum architectures.