We use one photon to simulate an n-qubit quantum system for the first time. We propose a new scheme to realize universal quantum computation in polynomial time O(n^5). A generating set of gates can be realized with high accuracy in the lab. We conclude that photonic quantum computation is one of the promising approaches to universal quantum computation.
We use one photon to simulate an n-qubit quantum system for the first time. We propose a new scheme to realize universal quantum computation in polynomial time O(n^5). A generating set of gates can be realized with high accuracy in the lab. We conclude that photonic quantum computation is one of the promising approaches to universal quantum computation.
Quantum computing aims at exploiting quantum phenomena to efficiently perform computations that are unfeasible even for the most powerful classical supercomputers. Among the promising technological approaches, photonic quantum computing offers the advantages of low decoherence, information processing with modest cryogenic requirements, and native integration with classical and quantum networks. To date, quantum computing demonstrations with light have implemented specific tasks with specialized hardware, notably Gaussian Boson Sampling which permitted quantum computational advantage to be reached. Here we report a first user-ready general-purpose quantum computing prototype based on single photons. The device comprises a high-efficiency quantum-dot single-photon source feeding a universal linear optical network on a reconfigurable chip for which hardware errors are compensated by a machine-learned transpilation process. Our full software stack allows remote control of the device to perform computations via logic gates or direct photonic operations. For gate-based computation we benchmark one-, two- and three-qubit gates with state-of-the art fidelities of 99.6±0.1%, 93.8±0.6% and 86±1.2% respectively. We also implement a variational quantum eigensolver, which we use to calculate the energy levels of the hydrogen molecule with high accuracy. For photon native computation, we implement a classifier algorithm using a 3-photon-based quantum neural network and report a first 6-photon Boson Sampling demonstration on a universal reconfigurable integrated circuit. Finally, we report on a first heralded 3-photon entanglement generation, a key milestone toward measurement-based quantum computing.
Quantum simulators, which exploit quantum effects to reveal unknown or difficult-to-compute properties of a model of interest, play a significant role in quantum information science. Quantum simulation of the dynamics of many-body system has been widely studied for various quantum computing systems, including cold atoms, trapped ions and photons. However, simulation of quantum channels, which describes one of the most general quantum processes in realistic systems, has not yet been fully explored, even for single-qubit channels. Here we report the first experimental digital quantum simulator of arbitrary single-qubit channels. We built this simulator with a set of single-qubit gates together with a single two-qubit entangling gate. We show that any single-qubit channel can be efficiently and accurately programmed and compiled by our simulator. Our scheme generalizes Hamiltonian-based simulators to channel-based digital quantum simulators, which could have important applications in quantum computation and quantum simulation.
The use of photons as qubits is a promising implementation for quantum computation. The inability of photons to interact, especially with the environment, makes them an ideal physical candidate. However, this also makes them a difficult system to perform two qubit gates on. Recent breakthroughs in photonic quantum computing have shown methods around the requirement of direct photon-photon interaction. In this thesis we study three recently discovered schemes for optical quantum computation. \n \n We first investigate the so called linear optical quantum computing (LOQC) scheme, exploring a method to improve the original proposal by constructing a photon-number QND detector that succeeds with a high probability. In doing this we present a new type of LOQC teleporter, one that can detect the presence of a single photon in an arbitrary polarisation state when the input state is a sum of vacuum and multi-photon terms. This new type of teleporter is an improvement on the original scheme in that the entangled states required can be made offline with fewer entangling operations. \n \n We next investigate the so called quantum bus (qubus) scheme for photonic quantum computing. We show a scheme to measure the party of n qubit states by using a single qubus mode, controlled rotations and displacements. This allows for the syndrome measurements of any stabilizer quantum error correcting code. We extend these results to a fault tolerant scheme to measure an arbitrary Pauli operator of weight n, incorporating so called single bit teleportations. We investigate the construction of a Toffoli gate by using a single qubus mode, controlled rotations and displacements that works with a success probability of at least 25%. We also investigate the use of single bit teleportations to construct a universal set of gates on coherent state type logic and in the construction of cluster states. \n \nWe finally investigate the optical Zeno gate, a gate that uses the Zeno effect in the form of two photon absorbers to induce a CSIGN. We model realistic two photon absorption and include realistic single photon loss for this gate, examining the use of encoding to overcome the single photon loss, showing that our results are competitive with the leading equivalent LOQC scheme.
Abstract Quantum computing aims at exploiting quantum phenomena to efficiently perform computations that are unfeasible even for the most powerful classical supercomputers. Among the promising technological approaches, photonic quantum computing offers the advantages of low decoherence, information processing with modest cryogenic requirements, and native integration with classical and quantum networks. So far, quantum computing demonstrations with light have implemented specific tasks with specialized hardware, notably Gaussian boson sampling, which permits the quantum computational advantage to be realized. Here we report a cloud-accessible versatile quantum computing prototype based on single photons. The device comprises a high-efficiency quantum-dot single-photon source feeding a universal linear optical network on a reconfigurable chip for which hardware errors are compensated by a machine-learned transpilation process. Our full software stack allows remote control of the device to perform computations via logic gates or direct photonic operations. For gate-based computation, we benchmark one-, two- and three-qubit gates with state-of-the art fidelities of 99.6 ± 0.1%, 93.8 ± 0.6% and 86 ± 1.2%, respectively. We also implement a variational quantum eigensolver, which we use to calculate the energy levels of the hydrogen molecule with chemical accuracy. For photon native computation, we implement a classifier algorithm using a three-photon-based quantum neural network and report a six-photon boson sampling demonstration on a universal reconfigurable integrated circuit. Finally, we report on a heralded three-photon entanglement generation, a key milestone toward measurement-based quantum computing.
We propose a new scheme for quantum computation using flying qubits--propagating photons in a one-dimensional waveguide interacting with matter qubits. Photon-photon interactions are mediated by the coupling to a four-level system, based on which photon-photon π-phase gates (CONTROLLED-NOT) can be implemented for universal quantum computation. We show that high gate fidelity is possible, given recent dramatic experimental progress in superconducting circuits and photonic-crystal waveguides. The proposed system can be an important building block for future on-chip quantum networks.
For quantum computation using photons, performing deterministic quantum gate operations is a challenge due to the probabilistic nature of the photon-photon interaction. Encoding qubits in multiple degrees-of-freedom of photons and controlling operations between them is one of the promising ways to navigate the probabilistic behavior. Using single-photon discrete-time quantum walk in combination with polarization and path degrees-of-freedom, we experimentally demonstrate the realization of a universal set of quantum gates with high fidelity at room temperature. The deterministic realization of quantum gates through photonic quantum walk are characterized via quantum state tomography. For a three-qubit system using a single photon, the first qubit is encoded using polarization information, and the other two qubits are encoded using path information, closely resembling a Galton-board setup. To generate a six-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state, entangled photon pairs are used to entangle the two three-qubit modules on which gate operations are performed. We also provide insights into the mapping of photonic quantum walk operations to quantum circuits and propose methods to resourcefully scale. This demonstration marks a significant progress towards using quantum walks for quantum computing and provides a framework for using fewer photons in combination with different degrees-of-freedom of photon to scale the number of qubits.