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arXiv:2010.06576 · PRX Quantum

High-Speed Calibration and Characterization of Superconducting Quantum Processors without Qubit Reset

M. Werninghaus, D.J. Egger, Stefan Filipp

Published May 21, 2021• 19 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

In order to characterize and calibrate quantum processing devices, a large amount of measurement data has to be collected.Active qubit reset increases the speed at which data can be gathered but requires additional hardware and/or calibration.The experimental apparatus can, however, be operated at elevated repetition rates without reset.In this case, the outcome of a first measurement serves as the initial state for the next experiment.Rol et al. have used this restless operation mode to accelerate the calibration of a single-qubit gate by measuring fixed-length sequences of Clifford gates that compose to X gates [Phys.Rev. Appl.7, 041001 (2017)].However, we find that when measuring pulse sequences that compose to arbitrary operations, distortion appears in the measured data.Here, we extend the restless methodology by showing how to efficiently analyze restless measurements and correct distortions to achieve an identical outcome and accuracy as compared to measurements in which the superconducting qubits are reset.This allows us to rapidly characterize and calibrate qubits.We illustrate this bias-corrected restless measurements method by measuring a Rabi oscillation at a 250 kHz repetition rate without any reset, for a qubit with a decay rate of 1/2π T 1 = 3 kHz.We also show that we can measure a single-and a two-qubit average gate fidelity using randomized benchmarking 20 and 8 times faster, respectively, than measurements that reset the qubits through T 1 decay.

DOI
10.1103/prxquantum.2.020324

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In order to characterize and calibrate quantum processing devices, a large amount of measurement data has to be collected.Active qubit reset increases the speed at which data can be gathered but requires additional hardware and/or calibration.The experimental apparatus can, however, be operated at elevated repetition rates without reset.In this case, the outcome of a first measurement serves as the initial state for the next experiment.Rol et al. have used this restless operation mode to accelerate the calibration of a single-qubit gate by measuring fixed-length sequences of Clifford gates that compose to X gates [Phys.Rev. Appl.7, 041001 (2017)].However, we find that when measuring pulse sequences that compose to arbitrary operations, distortion appears in the measured data.Here, we extend the restless methodology by showing how to efficiently analyze restless measurements and correct distortions to achieve an identical outcome and accuracy as compared to measurements in which the superconducting qubits are reset.This allows us to rapidly characterize and calibrate qubits.We illustrate this bias-corrected restless measurements method by measuring a Rabi oscillation at a 250 kHz repetition rate without any reset, for a qubit with a decay rate of 1/2π T 1 = 3 kHz.We also show that we can measure a single-and a two-qubit average gate fidelity using randomized benchmarking 20 and 8 times faster, respectively, than measurements that reset the qubits through T 1 decay.
Quantum computers require high fidelity quantum gates. These gates are obtained by routine calibration tasks that eat into the availability of cloud-based devices. Restless circuit execution speeds-up characterization and calibration by foregoing qubit reset in between circuits. Post-processing the measured data recovers the desired signal. However, since the qubits are not reset, leakage -- typically present at the beginning of the calibration -- may cause issues. Here, we develop a simulator of restless circuit execution based on a Markov Chain to study the effect of leakage. In the context of error amplifying single-qubit gates sequences, we show that restless calibration tolerates up to 0.5% of leakage which is large compared to the 10−410^{-4}10−4 gate fidelity of modern single-qubit gates. Furthermore, we show that restless circuit execution with leaky gates reduces by 33% the sensitivity of the ORBIT cost function developed by J. Kelly et al. which is typically used in closed-loop optimal control~[Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 240504 (2014)]. Our results are obtained with standard qubit state discrimination showing that restless circuit execution is resilient against misclassified non-computational states. In summary, the restless method is sufficiently robust against leakage in both standard and closed-loop optimal control gate calibration to provided accurate results.
Qubit calibration and characterization are important for attaining high-fidelity gates in quantum computing, but require a significant amount of time, which limits a device's ability to run useful quantum circuits. This study uses restless measurement, in which the qubits are never reset, to speed up characterization and calibration tasks. The authors also show how quantum process tomography may be performed in a restless setting. This approach reduces the footprint of characterization and calibration on quantum processors by quickly and faithfully executing the corresponding circuits.
Quantum computers require high-fidelity quantum gates. These gates are obtained by routine calibration tasks that eat into the availability of cloud-based devices. Restless circuit execution speeds up characterization and calibration by foregoing qubit reset between circuits. Postprocessing the measured data recovers the desired signal. However, since the qubits are not reset, leakage---typically present at the beginning of the calibration---may cause issues. Here we develop a simulator of restless circuit execution based on a Markov chain to study the effect of leakage. In the context of error-amplifying single-qubit gates sequences, we show that restless calibration tolerates up to 0.5% of leakage, which is large compared to the ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}$ gate fidelity of modern single-qubit gates. Furthermore, we show that restless circuit execution with leaky gates reduces by 33% the sensitivity of the ORBIT cost function developed by J. Kelly et al. which is typically used in closed-loop optimal control [Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 240504 (2014)]. Our results are obtained with standard qubit state discrimination showing that restless circuit execution is resilient against misclassified noncomputational states. In summary, the restless method is sufficiently robust against leakage in both standard and closed-loop optimal control gate calibration to provided accurate results.
As the size and complexity of a quantum computer increases, quantum bit (qubit) characterization and gate optimization become complex and time-consuming tasks. Current calibration techniques require complicated and verbose measurements to tune up qubits and gates, which cannot easily expand to the large-scale quantum systems. We develop a concise and automatic calibration protocol to characterize qubits and optimize gates using QubiC, which is an open source FPGA (field-programmable gate array) based control and measurement system for superconducting quantum information processors. We propose mutli-dimensional loss-based optimization of single-qubit gates and full XY-plane measurement method for the two-qubit CNOT gate calibration. We demonstrate the QubiC automatic calibration protocols are capable of delivering high-fidelity gates on the state-of-the-art transmon-type processor operating at the Advanced Quantum Testbed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The single-qubit and two-qubit Clifford gate infidelities measured by randomized benchmarking are of 4.9(1.1)×10−44.9(1.1) \times 10^{-4}4.9(1.1)×10−4 and 1.4(3)×10−21.4(3) \times 10^{-2}1.4(3)×10−2, respectively.
Passive qubit reset is a key primitive for quantum information processing, whereby qubits are initialized by allowing them to relax to their ground state through natural dissipation, without the need for active control or feedback. However, passive reset occurs on timescales that are much longer than those of gate operations and measurements, making it a significant bottleneck for algorithmic execution. Here, we show that this limitation can be overcome by exploiting the Mpemba effect, originally indicating the faster cooling of hot systems compared to cooler ones. Focusing on the regime where coherence times exceed energy relaxation times (T2>T1T_2 > T_1T2​>T1​), we propose a simple protocol based on a single entangling two-qubit gate that converts local single-qubit coherences into fast-decaying global two-qubit coherences. This removes their overlap with the slowest decaying Liouvillian mode and enables a substantially faster relaxation to the ground state. For realistic parameters, we find that our protocol can reduce reset times by up to 50%50\%50% compared to standard passive reset. We analyze the robustness of the protocol under non-Markovian noise, imperfect coherent control and finite temperature, finding that the accelerated reset persists across a broad range of realistic error sources. Finally, we present an experimental implementation of our protocol on an IQM superconducting quantum processor. Our results demonstrate how Mpemba-like accelerated relaxation can be harnessed as a practical tool for fast and accurate qubit initialization.
The unconditional and fast reset of fixed-frequency superconducting qubits is crucial for the operation of near-term quantum computers at elevated trigger rates. Many reset schemes are either conditional (depend on the qubit's state) or require flux tunability. This study presents an all-microwave pulsed reset sequence that uses the readout resonator to unconditionally empty a fixed-frequency transmon qubit, and that also reduces the qubit thermal population. This method could be used to increase the repetition rate of a superconducting quantum computer running, for example, variational eigensolvers requiring many measurements.