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arXiv:1808.01303

Observation of Multiphoton Frequency Conversion in Superconducting Circuits

Hossein Zolfghari Jooya, Guozhu Sun, Jiang Pan, Peiheng Wu, Siyuan Han, H. R. Sadeghpour

Published Aug 3, 2018• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Multiphoton up/down conversion in a transmon circuit, driven by a pair of microwaves tuned near and far off the qubit resonance, has been observed. The experimental realization of these high order non-linear processes is accomplished in the three-photon regime, when the transmon is coupled to weak bichromatic microwave fields with the same Rabi frequencies. A many-mode Floquet formalism, with longitudinal coupling, is used to simulate the quantum interferences in the absorption spectrum that manifest the multiphoton pumping processes in the transmon qubit. An intuitive graph theoretic approach is used to introduce effective Hamiltonians that elucidate main features of the Floquet results. The analytical solutions also illustrate how controllability is achievable for desired single- or multiphoton pumping processes in a wide frequency range.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1808.01303

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Multiphoton up/down conversion in a transmon circuit, driven by a pair of microwaves tuned near and far off the qubit resonance, has been observed. The experimental realization of these high order non-linear processes is accomplished in the three-photon regime, when the transmon is coupled to weak bichromatic microwave fields with the same Rabi frequencies. A many-mode Floquet formalism, with longitudinal coupling, is used to simulate the quantum interferences in the absorption spectrum that manifest the multiphoton pumping processes in the transmon qubit. An intuitive graph theoretic approach is used to introduce effective Hamiltonians that elucidate main features of the Floquet results. The analytical solutions also illustrate how controllability is achievable for desired single- or multiphoton pumping processes in a wide frequency range.
Abstract We propose a versatile scheme for multiphoton frequency up/down conversion in flux superconducting qubit circuits, driven by a pair of microwaves tuned near and far off the qubit resonance. Flux qubits can be engineered with strong anharmonicity such that the two lowest eigenstates are energetically well separated from the higher ones. We demonstrate the high order non-linear transitions between the two lowest levels in the three-photon regime, by coupling the qubit to bichromatic microwave fields with the same Rabi frequencies. Both up and down conversions are presented and accurately interpreted with many-mode Floquet formalism. An intuitive graph theoretic approach elucidates the physics of multiphoton pumping and population trapping. The analytical solutions also illustrate how controllability is achievable for desired single- or multiphoton pumping processes in a wide range of frequencies. The proposed design and theoretical approach are applicable in maintaining the inter-connectivity of future superconducting quantum machines.
We report experimental observation of two distinct quantum interference patterns in the absorption spectra when a transmon superconducting qubit is subjected to a bichromatic microwave field with the same Rabi frequencies. Within the two-mode Floquet formalism with no dissipation processes, we propose a graph-theoretical representation to model the interaction Hamiltonian for each of these observations. This theoretical framework provides a clear visual representation of various underlying physical processes in a systematic way beyond rotating-wave approximation. The presented approach is valuable to gain insights into the behavior of multichromatic field driven quantum two-level systems, such as two-level atoms and superconducting qubits. Each of the observed interference patterns is represented by appropriate graph products on the proposed color-weighted graphs. The underlying mechanisms and the characteristic features of the observed fine structures are identified by the transitions between the graph vertices, which represent the doubly dressed states of the system. The good agreement between the numerical simulation and experimental data confirms the validity of the theoretical method. Such multiphoton interference may be used in manipulating the quantum states and/or generate nonclassical microwave photons.
In the circuit quantum electrodynamics architecture, both the resonance frequency and the coupling of superconducting qubits to microwave field modes can be controlled via external electric and magnetic fields to explore qubit-photon dynamics in a wide parameter range. Here, we experimentally demonstrate and analyze a scheme for tuning the coupling between a transmon qubit and a microwave resonator using a single coherent drive tone. We treat the transmon as a three-level system, with the qubit subspace defined by the ground and the second excited states. If the drive frequency matches the difference between the resonator and the qubit frequencies, a Jaynes-Cummings-type interaction is induced, which is tunable in both amplitude and phase. We show that coupling strengths of about 10 MHz can be achieved in our setup, limited only by the anharmonicity of the transmon qubit. This scheme has been successfully used to generate microwave photons with a controlled temporal shape [M. Pechal et al., Phys. Rev. X 4, 041010 (2014)] and can be directly implemented with superconducting quantum devices featuring larger anharmonicity for higher coupling strengths.
Synopsis High-order nonlinear multiphoton dynamics of closed and open periodically driven quantum systems are studied within the semiclassical Floquet formalism. Multiphoton up/down frequency conversion in a super-conducting circuit is realized and faithfully reproduced with calculations. The absorption spectra are suppressed at sharp avoided crossings of the Floquet states. We include the effect of coupling to cavity by time evolving the master equation. The characteristics of the time-averaged absorption spectra are investigated by probing details near and around the exceptional points where suppression occurs.
Achieving fast gates and high-fidelity readout in superconducting quantum circuits often benefits from the use of large amplitude microwave drives. As the strength increases, unwanted effects such as excitation out of the logical states also become more prevalent. In transmon qubits, coherent controls relying on sub-resonant drives are fundamentally limited by the eventual appearance of strong hybridization in the spectrum. Understanding how this threshold depends on intrinsic device parameters is vital for the design and operation of circuits utilizing the transmon as a source of nonlinearity. In this work, we present an experimental study of 14 transmons with a wide range of anharmonicities, and use comparison with Floquet branch analysis and semiclassical simulations to establish a straightforward relationship between the critical value of the effective drive amplitude ηmax⁡η_{\max}ηmax​ and the ratio γ=ωq/αγ=ω_q/αγ=ωq​/α, where ωqω_qωq​ is the transmon frequency and −α-α−α is the anharmonicity. For the case where the transmon is used as a parametrically driven coupler, these results further allow us to estimate maximum parametric interaction rates, which informs the circuit design process for optimizing gate rates and fidelities.
We propose a graph-theoretical formalism to study generic circuit quantum electrodynamics systems consisting of a two level qubit coupled with a single-mode resonator in arbitrary coupling strength regimes beyond rotating-wave approximation. We define colored-weighted graphs, and introduce different products between them to investigate the dynamics of superconducting qubits in transverse, longitudinal, and bidirectional coupling schemes. The intuitive and predictive picture provided by this method, and the simplicity of the mathematical construction, are demonstrated with some numerical studies of the multiphoton resonance processes and quantum interference phenomena for the superconducting qubit systems driven by intense ac fields.