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:1601.03110 · Physical Review A

Stability thresholds and calculation techniques for fast entangling gates on trapped ions

C. D. Bentley, R. L. Taylor, Andre R. R. Carvalho, J. J. Hope

Published Apr 28, 2016• 12 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Fast entangling gates have been proposed for trapped ions that are orders of magnitude faster than current implementations. We present here a detailed analysis of the challenges involved in performing a successful fast gate. We show that the rotating wave approximation is stable with respect to pulse numbers: the time scale on which we can neglect terms rotating at the atomic frequency is negligibly affected by the number of pulses in the fast gate. In contrast, we show that the laser pulse instability does give rise to a pulse-number-dependent effect; the fast gate infidelity is compounded with the number of applied imperfect pulses. Using the dimensional reduction method presented here, we find bounds on the pulse stability required to achieve two-qubit gate fidelity thresholds.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.93.042342

Related papers

Trapped ion scaling with pulsed fast gates

C D B Bentley, A R R Carvalho, J. J. Hope

Fast entangling gates for trapped ion pairs offer vastly improved gate operation times relative to implemented gates, as well as approaches to trap scaling. Gates on a neighbouring ion pair only involve local ions when performed sufficiently fast, and we find that even a fast gate between a pair of distant ions with few degrees of freedom restores all the motional modes given more stringent gate speed conditions. We compare pulsed fast gate schemes, defined by a timescale faster than the trap period, and find that our proposed scheme has less stringent requirements on laser repetition rate for achieving arbitrary gate time targets and infidelities well below 10 −4 . By extending gate schemes to ion crystals, we explore the effect of ion number on gate fidelity for coupling two neighbouring ions in large crystals. Inter-ion distance determines the gate time, and a factor of five increase in repetition rate, or correspondingly the laser power, reduces the infidelity by almost two orders of magnitude. We also apply our fast gate scheme to entangle the first and last ions in a crystal. As the number of ions in the crystal increases, significant increases in the laser power are required to provide the short gate times corresponding to fidelity above 0.99.

arXiv:1507.02783•New Journal of Physics•Oct 14, 2015•23 citations

Fast gates and steady states: entangling trapped ions

C. D. Bentley

This thesis describes schemes for both a fast two-qubit gate operation and the steady-state preparation of a Bell state with trapped ions. A critical figure of merit for quantum computing with trapped ions is the gate duration relative to the decoherence timescale. We propose a fast gate scheme that off ers improvements in time, fidelity and simplicity of implementation over existing fast gate proposals. Our scheme can operate on both neighbouring and non-neighbouring ions in a long ion crystal. This provides a simpler and faster mechanism than traditional gates for complex quantum computing operations on large numbers of ions. The scheme achieves fidelities well above quantum error correction thresholds around 0.0001, and operates arbitrarily fast given arbitrary laser repetition rates. The production of these ultra-fast pulses is an experimental challenge, and fast gates have not yet been implemented; we present an implementation scheme using pulse splitting to provide a higher repetition rate and the pulse timing freedoms required for the gate scheme. We also analyse the effects of errors in the pulses on the gate operation. We analyse another strategy to generate entanglement using a driven dissipative process. Typically, environmental couplings cause decoherence. However, by combining dissipative dynamics with suitably chosen Hamiltonian evolution, the system can be steered to the desired steady states. Our steady-state scheme prepares a maximally-entangled Bell state with fidelity above 0.99, much higher than for schemes implemented with trapped ions. The driven dissipation continuously pumps the system towards the antisymmetric Bell steady-state, which is dark to the system dynamics and robust to parameter variations. The dominant loss mechanism is anomalous heating of the motional modes, reducing our fidelity by less than 0.01 for current experimental rates. Our scheme jointly addresses the ions and does not use sympathetic cooling. We enhance our scheme by combining the dissipative state preparation with the detection of photons, and obtain a significant fidelity enhancement.

•Jan 1, 2015•0 citations

Fast entangling gates in long ion chains

Zain Mehdi, Alexander K. Ratcliffe, J. J. Hope

We present a model for implementing fast entangling gates (∼1 μs) with ultrafast pulses in arbitrarily long ion chains, that requires low numbers of pulses and can be implemented with laser repetition rates well within experimental capability.We demonstrate that we are able to optimize pulse sequences that have theoretical fidelities above 99.99% in arbitrarily long ion chains, for laser repetition rates on the order of 100-300 MHz.Notably, we find higher repetition rates are not required for gates in longer ion chains, which is in contrast to scaling analyses with other gate schemes.When pulse imperfections are considered in our calculations, we find that achievable gate fidelity is independent of the number of ions in the chain.We also show that pulse control requirements do not scale up with the number of ions.We find that population transfer efficiencies of above 99.9% from individual ultrafast pulses is the threshold for realizing high-fidelity gates, which may be achievable in near-future experiments.

arXiv:2004.04372•Physical Review Research•Jan 11, 2021•12 citations

Error-resilient fast entangling gates for scalable ion-trap quantum processors

Isabelle Savill-Brown, Zain Mehdi, Alexander K. Ratcliffe +5 more

Non-adiabatic two-qubit gate proposals for trapped-ion systems offer superior performance and flexibility over adiabatic schemes at the cost of increased laser control requirements. Existing fast gate schemes are limited by single-qubit transition errors, which constrain the total number of pulses in high-fidelity solutions. We introduce an improved gate search scheme that enables both local and non-local two-qubit gates in chains containing tens of ions. These protocols use a multi-objective machine design approach that incorporates dominant sources of error in the design to ensure the solutions are compatible with existing fast laser controls. We also generalize previous schemes by allowing for unpaired pulses during the gate evolution. By imposing symmetries on the pulse sequences, we eliminate susceptibility to laser phase noise and further simplify the multi-mode control over the state-dependent motion of the ion crystal. We perform a comprehensive analysis of expected gate performance in the presence of random and systematic experimental errors to demonstrate the feasibility of performing microsecond two-qubit gates between arbitrary ion pairs in current linear ion-trap processors of up to $50$ ions with fidelities approaching $99.9\%$.

arXiv:2508.07593•Physical Review A•Apr 22, 2026•2 citations

A Study on Fast Gates for Large-Scale Quantum Simulation with Trapped Ions

Richard L. Taylor, C. D. Bentley, Julen Simon Pedernales +4 more

Abstract Large-scale digital quantum simulations require thousands of fundamental entangling gates to construct the simulated dynamics. Despite success in a variety of small-scale simulations, quantum information processing platforms have hitherto failed to demonstrate the combination of precise control and scalability required to systematically outmatch classical simulators. We analyse how fast gates could enable trapped-ion quantum processors to achieve the requisite scalability to outperform classical computers without error correction. We analyze the performance of a large-scale digital simulator, and find that fidelity of around 70% is realizable for π -pulse infidelities below 10 −5 in traps subject to realistic rates of heating and dephasing. This scalability relies on fast gates: entangling gates faster than the trap period.

arXiv:1601.00359•Scientific Reports•Apr 12, 2017•19 citations

Fidelity bounds for spin-dependent kicks with pulsed lasers

C. Sagaseta, H. Liu, V. D. Vaidya +3 more

Excitation of trapped-ion hyperfine qubits with fast optical Raman pulses enables faster-than-trap-period entangling gates with qubits of long coherence time for practical quantum computation. Achieving high-fidelity fast two-qubit gates requires high-quality spin-dependent kicks (SDKs), which form their fundamental building blocks. Here, we characterize the control parameters (including Raman frequency difference, pulse arrival times, Lamb--Dicke parameter, temperature, pulse width, and SDK time) that maximize the performance of single-ion SDKs for protocols compatible with performed experiments involving a small number of fast pulses. We demonstrate through analytical methods and numerical simulations that, within the model commonly used for infidelity optimization, finite pulse duration is the dominant source of error, exceeding the contribution of secular motion by orders of magnitude for nanosecond-scale SDKs. Low infidelities -- below $10^{-3}$ for schemes with $\gtrsim10$ fixed-amplitude, equispaced, picosecond pulses -- are achievable in SDK times on the order of nanoseconds. These results provide quantitative design rules for achieving competitive SDK fidelities with current pulsed-laser technology, laying the foundation for sub-microsecond trapped-ion quantum entangling operations.

quant-pharXiv:2605.31409•Jun 1, 2026•0 citations
Fast entangling gates have been proposed for trapped ions that are orders of magnitude faster than current implementations. We present here a detailed analysis of the challenges involved in performing a successful fast gate. We show that the rotating wave approximation is stable with respect to pulse numbers: the time scale on which we can neglect terms rotating at the atomic frequency is negligibly affected by the number of pulses in the fast gate. In contrast, we show that the laser pulse instability does give rise to a pulse-number-dependent effect; the fast gate infidelity is compounded with the number of applied imperfect pulses. Using the dimensional reduction method presented here, we find bounds on the pulse stability required to achieve two-qubit gate fidelity thresholds.
Fast entangling gates for trapped ion pairs offer vastly improved gate operation times relative to implemented gates, as well as approaches to trap scaling. Gates on a neighbouring ion pair only involve local ions when performed sufficiently fast, and we find that even a fast gate between a pair of distant ions with few degrees of freedom restores all the motional modes given more stringent gate speed conditions. We compare pulsed fast gate schemes, defined by a timescale faster than the trap period, and find that our proposed scheme has less stringent requirements on laser repetition rate for achieving arbitrary gate time targets and infidelities well below 10 −4 . By extending gate schemes to ion crystals, we explore the effect of ion number on gate fidelity for coupling two neighbouring ions in large crystals. Inter-ion distance determines the gate time, and a factor of five increase in repetition rate, or correspondingly the laser power, reduces the infidelity by almost two orders of magnitude. We also apply our fast gate scheme to entangle the first and last ions in a crystal. As the number of ions in the crystal increases, significant increases in the laser power are required to provide the short gate times corresponding to fidelity above 0.99.
This thesis describes schemes for both a fast two-qubit gate operation and the steady-state preparation of a Bell state with trapped ions. A critical figure of merit for quantum computing with trapped ions is the gate duration relative to the decoherence timescale. We propose a fast gate scheme that off ers improvements in time, fidelity and simplicity of implementation over existing fast gate proposals. Our scheme can operate on both neighbouring and non-neighbouring ions in a long ion crystal. This provides a simpler and faster mechanism than traditional gates for complex quantum computing operations on large numbers of ions. The scheme achieves fidelities well above quantum error correction thresholds around 0.0001, and operates arbitrarily fast given arbitrary laser repetition rates. The production of these ultra-fast pulses is an experimental challenge, and fast gates have not yet been implemented; we present an implementation scheme using pulse splitting to provide a higher repetition rate and the pulse timing freedoms required for the gate scheme. We also analyse the effects of errors in the pulses on the gate operation. We analyse another strategy to generate entanglement using a driven dissipative process. Typically, environmental couplings cause decoherence. However, by combining dissipative dynamics with suitably chosen Hamiltonian evolution, the system can be steered to the desired steady states. Our steady-state scheme prepares a maximally-entangled Bell state with fidelity above 0.99, much higher than for schemes implemented with trapped ions. The driven dissipation continuously pumps the system towards the antisymmetric Bell steady-state, which is dark to the system dynamics and robust to parameter variations. The dominant loss mechanism is anomalous heating of the motional modes, reducing our fidelity by less than 0.01 for current experimental rates. Our scheme jointly addresses the ions and does not use sympathetic cooling. We enhance our scheme by combining the dissipative state preparation with the detection of photons, and obtain a significant fidelity enhancement.
We present a model for implementing fast entangling gates (∼1 μs) with ultrafast pulses in arbitrarily long ion chains, that requires low numbers of pulses and can be implemented with laser repetition rates well within experimental capability.We demonstrate that we are able to optimize pulse sequences that have theoretical fidelities above 99.99% in arbitrarily long ion chains, for laser repetition rates on the order of 100-300 MHz.Notably, we find higher repetition rates are not required for gates in longer ion chains, which is in contrast to scaling analyses with other gate schemes.When pulse imperfections are considered in our calculations, we find that achievable gate fidelity is independent of the number of ions in the chain.We also show that pulse control requirements do not scale up with the number of ions.We find that population transfer efficiencies of above 99.9% from individual ultrafast pulses is the threshold for realizing high-fidelity gates, which may be achievable in near-future experiments.
Non-adiabatic two-qubit gate proposals for trapped-ion systems offer superior performance and flexibility over adiabatic schemes at the cost of increased laser control requirements. Existing fast gate schemes are limited by single-qubit transition errors, which constrain the total number of pulses in high-fidelity solutions. We introduce an improved gate search scheme that enables both local and non-local two-qubit gates in chains containing tens of ions. These protocols use a multi-objective machine design approach that incorporates dominant sources of error in the design to ensure the solutions are compatible with existing fast laser controls. We also generalize previous schemes by allowing for unpaired pulses during the gate evolution. By imposing symmetries on the pulse sequences, we eliminate susceptibility to laser phase noise and further simplify the multi-mode control over the state-dependent motion of the ion crystal. We perform a comprehensive analysis of expected gate performance in the presence of random and systematic experimental errors to demonstrate the feasibility of performing microsecond two-qubit gates between arbitrary ion pairs in current linear ion-trap processors of up to 505050 ions with fidelities approaching 99.9%99.9\%99.9%.
Abstract Large-scale digital quantum simulations require thousands of fundamental entangling gates to construct the simulated dynamics. Despite success in a variety of small-scale simulations, quantum information processing platforms have hitherto failed to demonstrate the combination of precise control and scalability required to systematically outmatch classical simulators. We analyse how fast gates could enable trapped-ion quantum processors to achieve the requisite scalability to outperform classical computers without error correction. We analyze the performance of a large-scale digital simulator, and find that fidelity of around 70% is realizable for π -pulse infidelities below 10 −5 in traps subject to realistic rates of heating and dephasing. This scalability relies on fast gates: entangling gates faster than the trap period.
Excitation of trapped-ion hyperfine qubits with fast optical Raman pulses enables faster-than-trap-period entangling gates with qubits of long coherence time for practical quantum computation. Achieving high-fidelity fast two-qubit gates requires high-quality spin-dependent kicks (SDKs), which form their fundamental building blocks. Here, we characterize the control parameters (including Raman frequency difference, pulse arrival times, Lamb--Dicke parameter, temperature, pulse width, and SDK time) that maximize the performance of single-ion SDKs for protocols compatible with performed experiments involving a small number of fast pulses. We demonstrate through analytical methods and numerical simulations that, within the model commonly used for infidelity optimization, finite pulse duration is the dominant source of error, exceeding the contribution of secular motion by orders of magnitude for nanosecond-scale SDKs. Low infidelities -- below 10−310^{-3}10−3 for schemes with ≳10\gtrsim10≳10 fixed-amplitude, equispaced, picosecond pulses -- are achievable in SDK times on the order of nanoseconds. These results provide quantitative design rules for achieving competitive SDK fidelities with current pulsed-laser technology, laying the foundation for sub-microsecond trapped-ion quantum entangling operations.