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arXiv:1707.06498 · Physical Review A

Blueprint for fault-tolerant quantum computation with Rydberg atoms

James M. Auger, S. Bergamini, Dan E. Browne

Published Nov 14, 2017• 44 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We present a blueprint for building a fault-tolerant universal quantum computer with Rydberg atoms. Our scheme, which is based on the surface code, uses individually addressable, optically trapped atoms as qubits and exploits electromagnetically induced transparency to perform the multiqubit gates required for error correction and computation. We discuss the advantages and challenges of using Rydberg atoms to build such a quantum computer, and we perform error correction simulations to obtain an error threshold for our scheme. Our findings suggest that Rydberg atoms are a promising candidate for quantum computation, but gate fidelities need to improve before fault-tolerant universal quantum computation can be achieved.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.96.052320

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We present a blueprint for building a fault-tolerant universal quantum computer with Rydberg atoms. Our scheme, which is based on the surface code, uses individually addressable, optically trapped atoms as qubits and exploits electromagnetically induced transparency to perform the multiqubit gates required for error correction and computation. We discuss the advantages and challenges of using Rydberg atoms to build such a quantum computer, and we perform error correction simulations to obtain an error threshold for our scheme. Our findings suggest that Rydberg atoms are a promising candidate for quantum computation, but gate fidelities need to improve before fault-tolerant universal quantum computation can be achieved.
In this thesis, we consider steps towards building a useful quantum computer in the presence of realistic errors. We start by presenting a novel scheme for fault-tolerant quantum computation with Rydberg atoms. The scheme uses topological error correction codes to provide fault-tolerance and utilises electromagnetically induced transparency to perform entangling gates between qubits. We examine the benefits of this scheme compared to alternative approaches, and we investigate the errors that are likely to occur and how these can be managed. We then consider how to perform quantum computation with a surface code based quantum computer that has permanently faulty components. We study both faulty links between qubits, which prevent qubits from interacting, and faulty qubits themselves; such faults could affect a wide variety of physical implementations, including schemes that use superconducting qubits and those that use trapped ions. The approach we propose for dealing with these faulty components requires minimal modification to the quantum operations required by the surface code and should therefore be implementable by almost all current and future proposals for surface code based quantum devices. Finally, we consider how to perform fault-tolerant quantum computation with components that fail probabilistically. This section is largely motivated by quantum computation with linear optics and therefore focuses on quantum computation with cluster states. We show that these probabilistic failures can be tolerated providing the failure rate is suitably low, and we present methods for increasing error thresholds in the presence of such errors.
Multiqubit gates that involve three or more qubits are usually thought to be of little significance for fault-tolerant quantum error correction because single gate faults can lead to errors of high Pauli weight. However, recent works have shown that multiqubit gates can be beneficial for measurement-free fault-tolerant quantum error correction and for fault-tolerant stabilizer readout in unrotated surface codes. In this work, we investigate multiqubit Rydberg gates that are useful for fault-tolerant quantum error correction in single-species neutral-atom platforms and can be implemented with global laser pulses that do not individually address atomic sites. We develop an open-source Python package to generate analytical, few-parameter pulses that implement the desired gates while minimizing gate errors due to Rydberg-state decay. The tool also allows us to identify parameter-optimal pulses, characterized by a minimal parameter count for the pulse ansatz. Measurement-free quantum error correction protocols require CCZ gates, which we analyze for atoms arranged in symmetric and asymmetric configurations. We investigate the performance of these schemes for various single-, two-, and three-qubit gate error rates, showing that break-even performance of measurement-free QEC is within reach of current hardware. Moreover, we study Floquet quantum error correction protocols that comprise two-body stabilizer measurements. Those can be realized using global three-qubit gates, and we show that this can lead to a significant reduction in shuttling operations. Simulations with realistic circuit-level noise indicate that applying three-qubit gates for stabilizer measurements in Floquet codes can yield competitive logical qubit performance in experimentally relevant error regimes.
Quantum error correction (QEC) requires the execution of deep quantum circuits with large numbers of physical qubits to protect information against errors. Designing protocols that can reduce gate and space-time overheads of QEC is therefore crucial to enable more efficient QEC in near-term experiments. Multiqubit gates offer a natural path toward fast and low-depth stabilizer measurement circuits. However, they typically introduce high-weight correlated errors that can degrade the circuit-level distance, leading to slower scalings of the logical error probabilities. In this Letter, we show how to realize fast and efficient surface code stabilizer readout using only two singly controlled z gates acting simultaneously on two target qubits, i.e., two CZ_{2} gates-instead of four cz. We show that this scheme is fault tolerant and provide a blueprint for implementation in Rydberg atom arrays. We derive the time-optimal pulses implementing the gates and perform extensive QEC numerical simulations with Rydberg decay errors. Compared to the standard protocol using four cz gates, our scheme is faster, uses fewer gates, and crucially maintains fault tolerance with comparable logical error probabilities. Fault-tolerant generalizations of this scheme to biased and erasure-dominant noise models, as well as to other QEC codes such as quantum Low-Density Parity-Check codes, are also discussed.
Trapped ions as one of the most promising quantum-information-processing platforms, yet conventional entangling gates mediated by collective motion remain slow and difficult to scale. Exciting trapped ions to high-lying electronic Rydberg states provides a promising route to overcome these limitations by enabling strong, long-range dipole-dipole interactions that support much faster multi-qubit operations. Here, we introduce the first scheme for implementing a native controlled-controlled-Z gate with microwave-dressed Rydberg ions by optimizing a single-pulse protocol that accounts for the finite Rydberg-state lifetime. The resulting gate outperforms standard decompositions into one- and two-qubit gates by achieving fidelities above 97% under realistic conditions, with execution times of about 2 microseconds at cryogenic temperatures. To explore the potential of trapped Rydberg ions for fault-tolerant quantum error correction, and to illustrate the utility of three-qubit Rydberg-ion gates in this context, we develop and analyze a proposal for fault-tolerant, measurement-free quantum error correction using the nine-qubit Bacon-Shor code. Our simulations confirm that quantum error correction can be performed in a fully fault-tolerant manner on a linear Rydberg-ion chain despite its limited qubit connectivity. These results establish native multiqubit Rydberg-ion gates as a valuable resource for fast, high-fidelity quantum computing and highlight their potential for fault-tolerant quantum error correction.
Individually trapped Rydberg atoms show significant promise as a platform for scalable quantum simulation and for the development of programmable quantum computers. In particular, the Rydberg-blockade effect can be used to facilitate both fast qubit-qubit interactions and long coherence times via low-lying electronic states encoding the physical qubits. To bring existing Rydberg-atom-based platforms a step closer to fault-tolerant quantum computation, we demonstrate high-fidelity state and circuit preparation in a system of five atoms. We specifically show that quantum control can be used to reliably generate fully connected cluster states and to simulate the error-correction encoding circuit based on the ``Perfect Quantum Error Correcting Code'' by Laflamme et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 198 (1996)]. Our results make these ideas and their implementation directly accessible to experiments and demonstrate a promising level of noise tolerance with respect to experimental errors. With this approach, we motivate the application of quantum control in small subsystems in combination with the standard gate-based quantum circuits for direct and high-fidelity implementation of few-qubit modules.
Quantum computation holds the promise of solving certain complex problems exponentially faster than classical computers. However, the high prevalent noise in current quantum devices impedes the accurate execution of even basic algorithms. This can be remedied by protecting quantum information with a quantum error-correcting code, where the logical information of an algorithmic qubit is spread across multiple physical qubits. Individual quantum errors are then located and corrected by the fault-tolerant measurement of multi-qubit stabilizer operators (parity checks). Unfortunately, error correction and fault tolerance both impose large demands on the qubit overhead: hundreds to thousands of physical qubits per logical qubit. We reduce the spacetime cost of fault tolerance by redesigning key building blocks of an error-corrected quantum computer. First, we develop a combinatorial proof with flag fault tolerance that exponentially reduces the extra qubits needed to measure a stabilizer of any size, while tolerating one fault. We leverage these proofs to then design state preparation circuits for the Steane and Golay codes with 100% yield. Next, we improve error correction on a planar layout by showing that a distance-four code encoding six logical qubits protects information as well as the distance-five surface code, using one-tenth as many physical qubits. Finally, we optimize the time overhead of logical gates in surface code quantum computers by protecting measurement results with a classical code, cutting computation time by a factor of two to six. Our hardware-agnostic optimizations of fault tolerance overheads thus suggest new routes to advance the timeline of error-free quantum computing.