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arXiv:2010.11122 · Physical Review X

Ultrasensitive Calorimetric Detection of Single Photons from Qubit Decay

Jukka P Pekola, Bayan Karimi

Published Feb 8, 2022• 13 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We describe a qubit linearly coupled to a heat bath, either directly or via a cavity.The main focus of the paper is on calorimetric detection in a realistic circuit, specifically a solid-state qubit coupled to a resistor as an absorber.The bath in the model is formed of oscillators initially in the ground state with a distribution of energies and coupling strengths.A direct numerical solution of the Schrödinger equation for the full system including up to 10 6 oscillators in the bath verifies the expected decay process.We address quantitatively the question of separation of the qubit and bath by adding a cavity in between which by detuning allows one to adjust the decay rate into a convenient regime for detection purposes.Most importantly, we propose splitting a quantum to two uncoupled baths and performing a cross-correlation measurement of their temperatures.This technique enhances significantly the signal-to-noise ratio of the calorimeter.

DOI
10.1103/physrevx.12.011026

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We describe a qubit linearly coupled to a heat bath, either directly or via a cavity.The main focus of the paper is on calorimetric detection in a realistic circuit, specifically a solid-state qubit coupled to a resistor as an absorber.The bath in the model is formed of oscillators initially in the ground state with a distribution of energies and coupling strengths.A direct numerical solution of the Schrödinger equation for the full system including up to 10 6 oscillators in the bath verifies the expected decay process.We address quantitatively the question of separation of the qubit and bath by adding a cavity in between which by detuning allows one to adjust the decay rate into a convenient regime for detection purposes.Most importantly, we propose splitting a quantum to two uncoupled baths and performing a cross-correlation measurement of their temperatures.This technique enhances significantly the signal-to-noise ratio of the calorimeter.
We describe a qubit linearly coupled to a heat bath, either directly or via a cavity. The bath is formed of oscillators with a distribution of energies and coupling strengths, both for qubit-oscillator and oscillator-oscillator interaction. A direct numerical solution of the Schrodinger equation for the full system including up to 10610^6106 oscillators in the bath and analytic solutions are given, verifying quantum decay in short time quadratic (Zeno), long time exponential and eventually power law relaxation regimes. The main new results of the paper deal with applications and implications in quantum thermodynamics setups. We start by providing a correspondence of the oscillator bath to a resistor in a circuit. With the presented techniques we can then shed light on two topical questions of open quantum systems. First, splitting a quantum to uncoupled baths is presented as an opportunity for detection of low energy photons. Second, we address quantitatively the question of separation between a quantum system and its classical environment.
Recent developments in experimental methods allow for the study of thermodynamic properties of quantum systems. In quantum integrated circuits, quantum systems are elements in an electric circuit that can straightforwardly be coupled to other elements. This manipulability allows one to construct quantum heat engines, Maxwell demons etc. Quantum integrated circuits also are one of the main potential settings to realise a working quantum computer. Calorimetric measurements in integrated circuits serve as a promising technique to probe thermodynamic laws of the quantum regime and to study the inner workings of quantum devices. Due to this experimental accessibility, the theoretical study of open quantum systems in the context of quantum integrated circuits is highly relevant. Open quantum systems are typically small systems, e.g. qubits or oscillators, in contact with one or more reservoirs. The research on which this thesis is based can roughly be divided into two parts. The first part is concerned with the thermodynamics of a driven qubit in contact with a thermal bath. This system is the archetype of a quantum out-ofequilibrium system. In one case the qubit is strongly driven by a semiclassical driving field. Building on earlier works, the thermodynamic relations of the system are found by proving the equivalence with an easier to study qubit-oscillator system. In the other, case the qubit is driven by being in contact with two baths with a temperature gradient. The full generating function is derived in a proper approximative scheme and a fluctuation-dissipation relation is found. The second part focusses on a specific experimental scheme to perform calorimetric measurements. The scheme relies on coupling a quantum system to a finite reservoir and performing fast temperature measurements on the reservoir. Doing so allows one to infer energy changes in the reservoir and therefore to obtain the heat exchanged with the system. The dynamics of this system are modelled for weak system-reservoir coupling and concrete experimental predictions are made. In new work, the dynamics for a toy model of a system interacting with a finite reservoir are derived from first principles for a specific model. The first principle derivation matches with the earlier modelled dynamics in the weak coupling and allows to consider strong system-reservoir coupling as well.
We apply quantum trajectory techniques to analyze a realistic setup of a superconducting qubit coupled to a heat bath formed by a resistor, a system that yields explicit expressions of the relevant transition rates to be used in the analysis. We discuss the main characteristics of the jump trajectories and relate them to the expected outcomes ("clicks") of a fluorescence measurement using the resistor as a nanocalorimeter. As the main practical outcome, we present a model that predicts the time-domain response of a realistic calorimeter subject to single microwave photons, incorporating the intrinsic noise due to the fundamental thermal fluctuations of the absorber and finite bandwidth of a thermometer.
We investigate the experimental setup proposed in New J. Phys. 15, 115006 (2013) for calorimetric measurements of thermodynamic indicators in an open quantum system. As a theoretical model we consider a periodically driven qubit coupled with a large yet finite electron reservoir, the calorimeter. The calorimeter is initially at equilibrium with an infinite phonon bath. As time elapses, the temperature of the calorimeter varies in consequence of energy exchanges with the qubit and the phonon bath. We show how under weak-coupling assumptions, the evolution of the qubit-calorimeter system can be described by a generalized quantum jump process including as dynamical variable the temperature of the calorimeter. We study the jump process by numeric and analytic methods. Asymptotically with the duration of the drive, the qubit-calorimeter attains a steady state. In this same limit, we use multiscale perturbation theory to derive a Fokker-Planck equation governing the calorimeter temperature distribution. We inquire the properties of the temperature probability distribution close and at the steady state. In particular, we predict the behavior of measurable statistical indicators versus the qubit-calorimeter coupling constant.
Abstract Performing imperfect or noisy measurements on a quantum mechanical system both impacts the measurement outcome and the state of the system after the measurement. In this paper we are concerned with imperfect calorimetric measurements. In calorimetric measurements one typically measures the energy of a thermal environment to extract information about the system. In our setting the measurement is imperfect due to noise directly acting on the detector. Concretely, we consider an additional noise bath such that its energy is measured simultaneously with the calorimeter energy. Under weak coupling assumptions, we derive a hybrid master equation for the state of the system and the detected energy and find that the presence of the noise bath manifests itself by modifying the jump rates of the reduced system dynamics. We study an example of a driven qubit interacting with a resonant boson calorimeter and demonstrate that increasing the additional noise leads to an apparent reduction in the power flowing from qubit to calorimeter and thus to a seemingly detected heating up of the calorimeter.
We propose a calorimetric measurement of work in a quantum system. As a physical realization, we consider a superconducting two-level system, a Cooper-pair box, driven by a gate voltage past an avoided level crossing at charge degeneracy. We demonstrate that, with realistic experimental parameters, the temperature measurement of a resistor (environment) can detect single microwave photons emitted or absorbed by the two-level system. This method would thus be a way to measure the full distribution of work in repeated measurements, and to assess the quantum fluctuation relations.