Motivated by recent progress in the experimental manipulation of cold atoms in optical lattices, we study three different protocols for non-adiabatic quantum state preparation and state transport in chains of Rydberg atoms. The protocols we discuss are based on the blockade mechanism between atoms which, when excited to a Rydberg state, interact through a van der Waals potential, and rely on single-site addressing. Specifically, we discuss protocols for efficient creation of an antiferromagnetic GHZ state, a class of matrix product states including a so-called Rydberg crystal and for the state transport of a single-qubit quantum state between two ends of a chain of atoms. We identify system parameters allowing for the operation of the protocols on timescales shorter than the lifetime of the Rydberg states while yielding high fidelity output states. We discuss the effect of positional disorder on the resulting states and comment on limitations due to other sources of noise such as radiative decay of the Rydberg states. The proposed protocols provide a testbed for benchmarking the performance of quantum information processing platforms based on Rydberg atoms.
Motivated by recent progress in the experimental manipulation of cold atoms in optical lattices, we study three different protocols for non-adiabatic quantum state preparation and state transport in chains of Rydberg atoms. The protocols we discuss are based on the blockade mechanism between atoms which, when excited to a Rydberg state, interact through a van der Waals potential, and rely on single-site addressing. Specifically, we discuss protocols for efficient creation of an antiferromagnetic GHZ state, a class of matrix product states including a so-called Rydberg crystal and for the state transport of a single-qubit quantum state between two ends of a chain of atoms. We identify system parameters allowing for the operation of the protocols on timescales shorter than the lifetime of the Rydberg states while yielding high fidelity output states. We discuss the effect of positional disorder on the resulting states and comment on limitations due to other sources of noise such as radiative decay of the Rydberg states. The proposed protocols provide a testbed for benchmarking the performance of quantum information processing platforms based on Rydberg atoms.
The multipartite GHZ states are useful resources for quantum information processing. Here we put forward a scalable way to adiabatically prepare the multipartite GHZ states in a chain of Rydberg atoms. Building on the ground-state blockade effect of Rydberg atoms and the stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP), we suppress the adverse effect of the atomic spontaneous emission, and obtain a high fidelity of the multipartite GHZ states without requirements on the operational time. After investigating the feasibility of the proposal, we show a 3-qubit GHZ state can be generated in a wide range of relevant parameters and a fidelity above $98\%$98% is achievable with the current experimental technologies.
Generating entanglement between two Rydberg atoms is at the core of neutral-atom quantum computers. Current two-qubit gates operate in the Rydberg-blockade regime, in which the full strength of the van der Waals interaction between the two Rydberg atoms is not directly exploited, to avoid sensitivity to the position noise of the tweezer-trapped atoms, at the cost of a longer time spent in the Rydberg state. Here, we propose a set of techniques based on coherent control of the atomic motion obtained by combining optical tweezers and a two-dimensional optical lattice, and a sequence of multiple on/off pulses. The protocols keep the two-qubit gate error contribution from position noise below 10−4, heat the atom by less than~Δn=0.01, while being robust to alignment errors of the potential up to 50~nm and thermal excitation up to nˉ=3. This toolbox opens the path for new two-qubit Rydberg gates directly, or partially, driven by the interaction, in which the atoms spend only ∼10~ns in the Rydberg state, minimizing the increasingly dominant error source originating from its finite lifetime.
The field of quantum computation and communication has prospered over the last few decades because of multiple advances in our understanding of trapping and controlling physical quantum systems like neutral atoms, superconducting qubits, trapped ions, quantum dots etc. using light. A lot of research has gone into development of techniques which facilitate trapping and manipulation of ensembles of neutral atoms by studying how the atomic properties of the system respond to properties of light used to control them. In this dissertation we shall explore some applications of light-matter interactions in ensembles of lambda three level neutral atoms for the purpose of entanglement generation and distribution. The first part of this dissertation focuses on the study of a protocol that can be used to generate multi-particle entangled quantum states called the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states in an ensemble of N neutral atoms. Schemes for creation of N particle entangled Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states are important for understanding multi-particle non-classical correlations. A theoretical protocol for creation of a multi-particle GHZ state implemented on a target ensemble of N, three-level Rydberg atoms and a single Rydberg atom as a control using Stimulated Raman Adiabatic Passage (STIRAP) is presented. We work in the Rydberg blockade regime for the ensemble atoms induced due to excitation of the control atom to a high lying Rydberg level. It is shown that using STIRAP, atoms from one ground state of the ensemble can be adiabatically transferred with high fidelity to the other multi-particle ground state, depending on the state of the control atom. Measurement of the control atom in a specific basis after this conditional transfer facilitates one-step creation of a N particle GHZ state. A thorough analysis of adiabatic conditions associated with STIRAP for this scheme and the influence of radiative decay from the excited Rydberg levels is presented. The most important and novel feature of this scheme is that it is immune to the decay rate of the excited level in ensemble atoms and provides a robust way of creating GHZ states. In the second part of this dissertation, we study atomic ensemble based quantum interfaces used in quantum repeater protocols for entanglement distribution. Quantum interfaces provide a platform where in the flying photonic qubits used for information and entanglement transfer can interact with a physical system which stores, processes and releases this information back as photons. The Duan-Lukin-Cirac-Zoller (DLCZ) quantum repeater protocol, which was proposed to realize long distance quantum communication, requires usage of quantum memories or quantum interfaces. Atomic ensembles interacting with optical beams based on off-resonant Raman scattering serve as convenient on-demand quantum memories. Here a complete, free space, three-dimensional theory of the associated read and write process for this quantum memory is worked out with the aim of understanding intrinsic retrieval efficiency. We develop a formalism to calculate the transverse mode structure for the signal and the idler photons and use the formalism to study the intrinsic retrieval efficiency under various configurations. The effects of atomic density fluctuations and atomic motion are incorporated by numerically simulating this system for a range of realistic experimental parameters. Results describe the variation in the intrinsic retrieval efficiency as a function of the memory storage time for skewed beam configuration at a finite temperature, which provides valuable information for optimization of the retrieval efficiency in experiments.
Neutral atoms excited to Rydberg states can interact with each other via dipole-dipole interaction, which results in a physical phenomenon named Rydberg blockade mechanism. The effect attracts much attention due to its potential applications in quantum computation and quantum simulation. Quantum teleportation has been the core protocol in quantum information science playing a key role in efficient long-distance quantum communication. Here, we first propose the implementation of teleportation scheme with neutral atoms via Rydberg blockade, in which the entangled states of qubits can readily be prepared and the Bell states measurements just require single qubit operations without precise control of Rydberg interaction. The rapid experimental progress of coherent control of Rydberg excitation, optical trapping techniques and state-selective atomic detection promise the application of the teleportation scheme for scalable quantum computation and many-body quantum simulation using the protocol proposed by D. Gottesman and I. L. Chuang [Nature (London) 402, 390 (1999)] with Rydberg atoms in optical lattice.
This thesis reports progress towards using hyperfine-encoded neutral atomic ensembles for quantum information applications. Ensemble qubits are alternative building blocks to process quantum information, while circumventing the challenges preparing a low-entropy single-atom qubit register. While ensemble approach inherits the single-atom quantum gate protocols, cooperative atom-light interaction makes it favorable platform to implement atom-photon interface, such as quantum memory. We have demonstrated semi-deterministic preparation of W-state, which we use as an ensemble qubit. Observed 50–60% preparation fidelity shows discrepancy to expected > 80% fidelity including known imperfections. We suspect Ground-Rydberg and Rydberg-Rydberg molecular interactions within the ensemble modify the dynamics. State tomography and Ramsey experiment clearly identified that majority of constituents in an ensemble are indeed entangled. We report the first measurement of W-state coherence time as 2.6ms for 7.6 atoms, which is long enough to perform 2600 Rydberg-mediated quantum gate operations. The first demonstration of Rydberg blockade between two ensembles happened in the same apparatus. We observe blockade fidelity of 0.89 (uncorrected) and near unity when post-selected on successful N = 1 Fock state preparation of Control ensemble. For weakly blockaded cases, Target ensemble remained as a perturber inhibiting Control ensemble from de-excitation. We discuss the efficacy of optical lattice insertion to suppress molecular interactions that might have been affecting the Rydberg dynamics. High fidelity, parallel, low loss fluorescence detection of hyperfine ground state of rubidium atoms is presented. Enforced cycling transition scattering minimally alters the internal states. We achieve mean state detection fidelity of 97% (uncorrected) and 98.7% (SPAM error corrected), with atom loss rate < 2% and hyperfine-changing rate < 2%. This scalable technique is also compatible with ensemble qubits and error correcting schemes. Technical developments on apparatus, lasers, supporting hardware and software are discussed. Automatic beam alignment system is implemented to correct long term drift of tightly focused addressing beams. Achieved pointing stability of 60 nm. Two home-made, high performing, cavity-enhanced frequency doubling systems were constructed to meet experimental demand. We observe 960/480 system output as high as 180 mW with 600 mW fundamental, and 1540/770 system output as high as 13.97 W from 19 W fundamental.
Abstract. Neutral atoms excited to Rydberg states can interact with each other via dipole-dipole interaction, which results in a physical phenomenon named Rydberg blockade mechanism. The effect attracts much attention due to its potential applications in quantum computation and quantum simulation. Quantum teleportation has been the core protocol in quantum information science playing a key role in efficient long-distance quantum communication. Here, we first propose the implementation of teleportation scheme with neutral atoms via Rydberg blockade, in which the entangled states of qubits can readily be prepared and the Bell states measurements just require single qubit operations without precise control of Rydberg interaction. The rapid experimental progress of coherent control of Rydberg excitation, optical trapping techniques and state-selective atomic detection promise the application of the teleportation scheme for scalable quantum computation and many-body quantum simulation using the protocol proposed by D. Gottesman and I. L. Chuang [Nature (London) 402, 390 (1999) ] with Rydberg atoms in optical lattice.