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arXiv:1411.5699 · Physical Review B

Fermion parity measurement and control in Majorana circuit quantum electrodynamics

Konstantin Yavilberg, Eran Ginossar, Eytan Grosfeld

Published Aug 31, 2015• 43 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We investigate the quantum electrodynamics of a device based on a topological superconducting circuit embedded in a microwave resonator. The device stores its quantum information in coherent superpositions of fermion parity states originating from Majorana fermion hybridization. This generates a highly isolated qubit whose coherence time could be greatly enhanced. We extend the conventional semiclassical method and obtain analytical derivations for strong transmon-photon coupling. Using this formalism, we develop protocols to initialize, control, and measure the parity states. We show that, remarkably, the parity eigenvalue can be detected via dispersive shifts of the optical cavity in the strong-coupling regime and its state can be coherently manipulated via a second-order sideband transition.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.92.075143

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We investigate the quantum electrodynamics of a device based on a topological superconducting circuit embedded in a microwave resonator. The device stores its quantum information in coherent superpositions of fermion parity states originating from Majorana fermion hybridization. This generates a highly isolated qubit whose coherence time could be greatly enhanced. We extend the conventional semiclassical method and obtain analytical derivations for strong transmon-photon coupling. Using this formalism, we develop protocols to initialize, control, and measure the parity states. We show that, remarkably, the parity eigenvalue can be detected via dispersive shifts of the optical cavity in the strong-coupling regime and its state can be coherently manipulated via a second-order sideband transition.
Motivated by recent experimental progress towards the measurement and manipulation of Majorana fermions with superconducting circuits, we propose a device interfacing Majorana fermions with circuit quantum electrodynamics. The proposed circuit acts as a charge parity detector changing the resonance frequency of a superconducting $\ensuremath{\lambda}/4$ resonator conditioned on the parity of charges on nearby gates. Operating at both charge and flux sweet spots, this device is highly insensitive to environmental noise. It enables high-fidelity single-shot quantum nondemolition readout of the state of a pair of Majorana fermions encoding a topologically protected qubit. Additionally, the interaction permits the realization of an arbitrary phase gate on the topological qubit, closing the loop for computational completeness. Away from the charge sweet spot, this device can be used as a highly sensitive charge detector with a sensitivity better than ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}\text{e}/\sqrt{\text{Hz}}$ and bandwidth larger than 1 MHz.
Quantum computation is a multifaceted field of research aiming for the physical realization of quantum systems and their manipulation. This thesis discusses the combination of two notable approaches in the pursuit of a fully operational quantum computer---circuit quantum electrodynamics and topological quantum computation based on Majorana quasiparticles. In circuit quantum electrodynamics quantum information is stored into small superconducting circuit elements whose interaction with electromagnetic radiation in the range of microwaves allows to process quantum information very efficiently. This approach has proven extremely useful for control and readout of superconducting qubits, i.e., small circuit elements that carry quantum information. Because of remarkably strong light-matter couplings that can be achieved for superconducting qubits in microwave resonators, the circuit quantum electrodynamics architecture is particularly useful to perform highly sensitive quantum measurements.Superconductivity by itself is an intriguing state of matter that shows a great variety of different phenomena. In particular, the discovery of topological phases in superconductors opened new horizons for quantum computation. One notable system that admits topological superconductivity is a semiconductor-superconductor nanowire with special zero modes occurring at its ends. These so-called Majorana zero modes are remarkably robust against decoherence and therefore well-suited for fault-tolerant quantum computation.The first part of this thesis examines the coupling of Majorana zero modes to electromagnetic radiation with microwave frequencies. The light-matter coupling mechanism that is considered here arises for Majorana zero modes located at a voltage-biased superconducting tunneling junction. The emission of microwave radiation in presence of Majorana zero modes gives rise to coherent radiation which is emitted at half of the usual Josephson frequency. On the basis of this fractional Josephson radiation, we propose a microwave readout scheme for Majorana qubits. As usual for typical measurements in circuit quantum electrodynamics, the proposed readout implements a quantum non-demolition measurement for Majorana qubit.In the last part of the thesis we propose a novel scheme for the implementation of measurement-induced entanglement between remote superconducting qubits as required for quantum communication. By detecting a single photon, that passes a Mach-Zehnder interferometric setup, deterministic entanglement with single-shot efficiency is achieved. This scheme essentially relies on the strong coupling between the qubits and the photon.
is coupled to the zero energy parity states that arise from Majorana quasi-particles. We investigate the level structure and properties of the transmon qubit in this regime where even a small coupling causes hybridization of dierent transmon-parity states without compromising the suppression of charge dispersion. We show that the microwave photon-qubit coupling is sensitive to the gate bias and all the energy scales of the Hamiltonian. As well as a probe for topologicalsuperconductor excitations, we propose that this type of device could be used to realise a high coherence tunable four-level system in the superconducting circuits architecture.
Majorana fermions hold promise for quantum computation, because their non-Abelian braiding statistics allows for topologically protected operations on quantum information. Topological qubits can be constructed from pairs of well-separated Majoranas in networks of nanowires. The coupling to a superconducting charge qubit in a transmission line resonator (transmon) permits braiding of Majoranas by external variation of magnetic fluxes. We show that readout operations can also be fully flux controlled, without requiring microscopic control over tunnel couplings. We identify the minimal circuit that can perform the initialization-braiding-measurement steps required to demonstrate non-Abelian statistics. We introduce the Random Access Majorana Memory (RAMM), a scalable circuit that can perform a joint parity measurement on Majoranas belonging to a selection of topological qubits. Such multiqubit measurements allow for the efficient creation of highly entangled states and simplify quantum error correction protocols by avoiding the need for ancilla qubits.
Circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED), exemplified by a coupled system of a superconducting qubit and a microwave cavity, is a powerful framework for the quantum control and measurement of macroscopic quantum states in solid-state circuits. Quantum circuits based on superconducting qubits have emerged as one of the leading platforms in the pursuit of fault-tolerant quantum computing. Despite significant progress in extending qubit lifetimes, refining experimental protocols, and scaling up quantum processors, errors arising from the control and measurement of superconducting qubits continue to hinder the realization of a universal quantum computer. To investigate the error mechanisms for state-of-the-art qubits, we realize long-lived superconducting transmon qubits that exhibit fluctuating lifetimes, with an average of 0.2 ms and a maximum exceeding 0.4 ms. We then investigate their dominant error mechanism. By introducing novel time-resolved error measurements that are synchronized with the operation of the pulse tube cooler in a dilution refrigerator, we find that mechanical vibrations from the pulse tube induce nonequilibrium dynamics in highly coherent qubits, leading to their correlated bit-flip errors. Our findings not only deepen our understanding of qubit error mechanisms but also provide valuable insights into potential error-mitigation strategies for achieving fault tolerance by decoupling superconducting qubits from their mechanical environments. We also present a novel scheme for operating a cQED system in a regime where the cavity is largely displaced. We find that a qubit drive at the bare cavity frequency can effectively displace the cavity field while minimizing the cavity-drive-induced dephasing and the ac Stark shift. Furthermore, we demonstrate that standard cQED protocols, such as qubit control, readout, and cavity single-photon generation, remain compatible with largely displaced cavity fields, even beyond the critical photon number. These findings open new pathways for exploring cQED dynamics in large-photon-number regimes, including the study of nonlinear phenomena in microwave cavities, the saturation of two-level system baths for extending the coherence of microwave quantum states, and the acceleration of the dispersive readout. Finally, mechanical resonators have emerged as integral components in quantum computing for storing and transducing quantum information. Low-frequency mechanical resonators, with extremely low energy dissipation rates, are particularly interesting for extending the lifetimes of stored quantum information. However, integrating low-frequency mechanical resonators with qubits is challenging because their small energy gaps make coherent energy exchange and ground-state preparation difficult. In this thesis, we report the first steps towards the characterization of a hybrid quantum device, consisting of a Transmon qubit and a circuit optomechanical system, both coupled to a 3D microwave cavity.
The modern understanding of the Josephson effect in mesosopic devices derives from the physics of Andreev bound states, fermionic modes that are localized in a superconducting weak link. Recently, Josephson junctions constructed using semiconducting nanowires have led to the realization of superconducting qubits with gate-tunable Josephson energies. We have used a microwave circuit QED architecture to detect Andreev bound states in such a gate-tunable junction based on an aluminum-proximitized indium arsenide nanowire. We demonstrate coherent manipulation of these bound states, and track the bound-state fermion parity in real time. Individual parity-switching events due to nonequilibrium quasiparticles are observed with a characteristic timescale T_{parity}=160±10 μs. The T_{parity} of a topological nanowire junction sets a lower bound on the bandwidth required for control of Majorana bound states.