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arXiv:2108.12466 · npj Quantum Information

Photonic resource state generation from a minimal number of quantum emitters

Bikun Li, Sophia E. Economou, Edwin Barnes

Published Feb 3, 2022• 40 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Abstract Multi-photon entangled graph states are a fundamental resource in quantum communication networks, distributed quantum computing, and sensing. These states can in principle be created deterministically from quantum emitters such as optically active quantum dots or defects, atomic systems, or superconducting qubits. However, finding efficient schemes to produce such states has been a long-standing challenge. Here, we present an algorithm that, given a desired multi-photon graph state, determines the minimum number of quantum emitters and precise operation sequences that can produce it. The algorithm itself and the resulting operation sequence both scale polynomially in the size of the photonic graph state, allowing one to obtain efficient schemes to generate graph states containing hundreds or thousands of photons.

DOI
10.1038/s41534-022-00522-6

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Abstract Multi-photon entangled graph states are a fundamental resource in quantum communication networks, distributed quantum computing, and sensing. These states can in principle be created deterministically from quantum emitters such as optically active quantum dots or defects, atomic systems, or superconducting qubits. However, finding efficient schemes to produce such states has been a long-standing challenge. Here, we present an algorithm that, given a desired multi-photon graph state, determines the minimum number of quantum emitters and precise operation sequences that can produce it. The algorithm itself and the resulting operation sequence both scale polynomially in the size of the photonic graph state, allowing one to obtain efficient schemes to generate graph states containing hundreds or thousands of photons.
Graph states are a fundamental resource for measurement and fusion-based quantum computing, quantum networks, and sensing. Preparing them in a photonic system deterministically is, in principle, possible, but finding efficient schemes to prepare them was a long-standing problem addressed recently. Additionally, heuristic optimization schemes for reducing the required number of two-qubit gates were developed. However, the problem of reducing the number of emitters by optimizing the emission ordering was not addressed, due to its computational complexity, as it is connected to a well-known NP-hard problem from graph theory, the linear rank width computation. In this work, we focus on developing heuristic polynomial algorithms to reduce the number of emitters required. In total, we propose four distinct algorithms, which demonstrate up to 30%30\%30% emitter reduction on random graphs. Furthermore, we provide numerical and statistical evidence that the combination of our optimization schemes with the preexisting algorithms for optimizing the two-qubit gates of the preparation protocol can further reduce them by around 20%20\%20%. Finally, we examine the developed algorithms for various useful graph state families, such as graphs useful for measurement-based quantum algorithms, and cluster states and graph codes used for quantum error correction, to determine the performance of each algorithm.
Photonic graph states constitute important resources in quantum information processing. They are used in measurement-based and fusion-based quantum computing and in all-photonic repeaters for quantum networks. However, generating such highly entangled states is challenging due to the fact that photons do not interact with each other. We propose a protocol for generating arbitrary graph states using matter qubits as quantum emitters. Our approach guarantees the minimal number of emitters and provides in polynomial time the quantum circuit for the graph state generation (which includes the non-unitary process of photon emission). We find that the quantum circuit depth for general graphs also scale polynomially with system size.
Multiqubit entangled photonic graph states are an important ingredient for all-photonic quantum computing, repeaters, and networking. Preparing them using probabilistic stitching of single photons using linear optics presents a formidable resource challenge due to multiplexing needs. Quantum emitters provide a viable solution to prepare photonic graph states, as they enable deterministic production of photons entangled with emitter qubits and deterministic two-qubit interactions among emitters. A handful of emitters often suffice to generate useful-size graph states that would otherwise require millions of emitters used as single photon sources, using the linear-optics method. Photon loss, however, impedes the emitter method due to a large circuit depth and hence loss accrual on the photons of the graph state produced, given the typically large number of slow two-qubit controlled-not (cnot) gates between emitters. We propose an algorithm that can trade the number of emitters with the graph-state depth, while minimizing the number of emitter cnot gates. We apply our algorithm to generate a repeater graph state (RGS) for an alternative all-photonic repeater protocol, which achieves a far superior rate-distance trade-off compared to using the least number of emitters needed to generate the RGS. Yet it needs five orders of magnitude fewer emitters than the multiplexed linear-optics method---with each emitter used as a photon source---to achieve a desired rate-distance performance.
Abstract Quantum emitter-based schemes for the generation of photonic graph states offer a promising, resource-efficient methodology for realizing distributed quantum computation and communication protocols on near-term hardware. We present a heralded scheme for making photonic graph states that is compatible with the typically poor photon collection from state-of-the-art coherent quantum emitters. We demonstrate that the construction time for large graph states can be polynomial in the photon collection efficiency, as compared to the exponential scaling of current emitter-based schemes, which assume deterministic photon collection. The additional overhead here consists of an extra spin qubit plus one additional spin-spin entangling gate per photon added to the graph. While the proposed scheme requires both non-demolition measurement and efficient storage of photons in order to generate graph states for arbitrary applications, we show that many useful tasks, including measurement-based quantum computation, can be implemented without these requirements. As a use case of our scheme, we construct a protocol for secure two-party computation that can be implemented efficiently on current hardware. Estimates of the fidelity to produce graph states used in the computation are given assuming current and near-term fidelities for highly coherent quantum emitters.
Abstract We present protocols to generate arbitrary photonic graph states from quantum emitters that are in principle deterministic. We focus primarily on two-dimensional cluster states of arbitrary size due to their importance for measurement-based quantum computing. Our protocols for these and many other types of two-dimensional graph states require a linear array of emitters in which each emitter can be controllably pumped, rotated about certain axes, and entangled with its nearest neighbors. We show that an error on one emitter produces a localized region of errors in the resulting graph state, where the size of the region is determined by the coordination number of the graph. We describe how these protocols can be implemented for different types of emitters, including trapped ions, quantum dots, and nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond.