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arXiv:1703.08951 · Physical Review A

Long-lasting quantum memories: Extending the coherence time of superconducting artificial atoms in the ultrastrong-coupling regime

Roberto Stassi, Franco Nori

Published Mar 15, 2018• 52 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Quantum systems are affected by interactions with their environments, causing decoherence through two processes: pure dephasing and energy relaxation. For quantum information processing it is important to increase the coherence time of Josephson qubits and other artificial two-level atoms. We show theoretically that if the coupling between these qubits and a cavity field is longitudinal and in the ultrastrong-coupling regime, the system is strongly protected against relaxation. Vice versa, if the coupling is transverse and in the ultrastrong-coupling regime, the system is protected against pure dephasing. Taking advantage of the relaxation suppression, we show that it is possible to enhance their coherence time and use these qubits as quantum memories. Indeed, to preserve the coherence from pure dephasing, we prove that it is possible to apply dynamical decoupling. We also use an auxiliary atomic level to store and retrieve quantum information.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.97.033823

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Quantum systems are affected by interactions with their environments, causing decoherence through two processes: pure dephasing and energy relaxation. For quantum information processing it is important to increase the coherence time of Josephson qubits and other artificial two-level atoms. We show theoretically that if the coupling between these qubits and a cavity field is longitudinal and in the ultrastrong-coupling regime, the system is strongly protected against relaxation. Vice versa, if the coupling is transverse and in the ultrastrong-coupling regime, the system is protected against pure dephasing. Taking advantage of the relaxation suppression, we show that it is possible to enhance their coherence time and use these qubits as quantum memories. Indeed, to preserve the coherence from pure dephasing, we prove that it is possible to apply dynamical decoupling. We also use an auxiliary atomic level to store and retrieve quantum information.
To achieve a fault-tolerant quantum computer, it is crucial to increase the coherence time of quantum bits. In this work, we theoretically investigate a system consisting of a series of superconducting qubits that alternate between XX and YY ultrastrong interactions. By considering the two-lowest energy eigenstates of this system as a logical qubit, we demonstrate that its coherence is significantly enhanced: both its pure dephasing and relaxation times are extended beyond those of individual physical qubits. Specifically, we show that by increasing either the interaction strength or the number of physical qubits in the chain, the logical qubit’s pure dephasing rate is suppressed to zero, and its relaxation rate is reduced to half the relaxation rate of a single physical qubit. Single qubit and two-qubit gates can be performed with high intrinsic fidelity.
For quantum information processing, each physical system has a different advantage as regards implementation, so hybrid systems that benefit from the advantage of several systems would provide a promising approach. One common hybrid approach involves combining a superconducting qubit as a controllable qubit and another quantum system with a long coherence time as a memory qubit. The use of a superconducting qubit gives us excellent controllability of the quantum states, and the memory qubit is capable of storing information for a long time. It has been believed that selective coupling can be realized between a superconducting qubit and a memory qubit by tuning the energy splitting between them. However, we have shown that this detuning approach has a fundamental drawback as regards energy leakage from the memory qubit. Even if the superconducting qubit is effectively separated by reasonable detuning, a non-negligible incoherent energy relaxation in the memory qubit occurs via residual weak coupling when the superconducting qubit is affected by severe dephasing. This energy transport from the memory qubit to the control qubit can be interpreted as the appearance of the anti--quantum Zeno effect induced by the fluctuation in the superconducting qubit. We also discuss possible ways to avoid this energy relaxation process, which is feasible with existing technology.
Circuit quantum electrodynamics, consisting of superconducting artificial atoms coupled to on-chip resonators, represents a prime candidate to implement the scalable quantum computing architecture because of the presence of good tunability and controllability. Furthermore, recent advances have pushed the technology towards the ultrastrong coupling regime of light-matter interaction, where the qubit-resonator coupling strength reaches a considerable fraction of the resonator frequency. Here, we propose a qubit-resonator system operating in that regime, as a quantum memory device and study the storage and retrieval of quantum information in and from the Z(2) parity-protected quantum memory, within experimentally feasible schemes. We are also convinced that our proposal might pave a way to realize a scalable quantum random-access memory due to its fast storage and readout performances.
Circuit quantum electrodynamics, consisting of superconducting artificial atoms coupled to on-chip resonators, represents a prime candidate to implement the scalable quantum computing architecture because of the presence of good tunability and controllability. Furthermore, recent advances have pushed the technology towards the ultrastrong coupling regime of light-matter interaction, where the qubit-resonator coupling strength reaches a considerable fraction of the resonator frequency. Here, we propose a qubit-resonator system operating in that regime, as a quantum memory device and study the storage and retrieval of quantum information in and from the Z2 parity-protected quantum memory, within experimentally feasible schemes. We are also convinced that our proposal might pave a way to realize a scalable quantum random-access memory due to its fast storage and readout performances.
A central task towards building a practical quantum computer is to protect individual qubits from decoherence while retaining the ability to perform high-fidelity entangling gates involving arbitrary two qubits. Here we propose and demonstrate a dephasing-insensitive procedure for storing and processing quantum information in an all-to-all connected superconducting circuit involving multiple frequency-tunable qubits, each of which can be controllably coupled to any other through a central bus resonator. Although it is generally believed that the extra frequency tunability enhances the control freedom but induces more dephasing impact for superconducting qubits, our results show that any individual qubit can be dynamically decoupled from dephasing noise by applying a weak continuous and resonant driving field whose phase is reversed in the middle of the pulse. More importantly, we demonstrate a new method for realizing a two-qubit phase gate with inherent dynamical decoupling via the combination of continuous driving and qubit-qubit swapping coupling. We find that the weak continuous driving fields not only enable the conditional dynamics essential for quantum information processing, but also protect both qubits from dephasing during the gate operation.
Methods that preserve coherence broadly impact all quantum information processing and metrology applications. Dynamical decoupling methods accomplish this by protecting qubits in noisy environments but are typically constrained to the limit where the qubits themselves are non-interacting. Here we consider the alternate regime wherein the inter-qubit couplings are of the same order as dephasing interactions with the environment. We propose and demonstrate a multi-pulse protocol that protects transverse spin states by suitably Hamiltonian engineering the inter-spin coupling while simultaneously suppressing dephasing noise on the qubits. We benchmark the method on 13C nuclear spin qubits in diamond, dipolar coupled to each other and embedded in a noisy electronic spin bath, and hyperpolarized via optically pumped NV centers. We observe effective state lifetimes of 13C nuclei $T_2^{\prime}\approx$2.5s at room temperature, an extension of over 4700-fold over the conventional T2∗T_2^{\ast}T2∗​ free induction decay. The spins are continuously interrogated during the applied quantum control, resulting in 13C NMR line narrowing and an $>$500-fold boost in SNR due to the lifetime extension. Together with hyperpolarization spin interrogation is accelerated by >1011>10^{11}>1011 over conventional 7T NMR. This work suggests strategies for the dynamical decoupling of coupled qubit systems with applications in a variety of experimental platforms.