Ultracold polar molecules are promising candidate qubits for quantum computing and quantum simulations. Their long-lived molecular rotational states form robust qubits, and the long-range dipolar interaction between molecules provides quantum entanglement. In this work, we demonstrate dipolar spin-exchange interactions between single calcium monofluoride (CaF) molecules trapped in an optical tweezer array. We realized the spin-[Formula: see text] quantum XY model by encoding an effective spin-[Formula: see text] system into the rotational states of the molecules and used it to generate a Bell state through an iSWAP operation. Conditioned on the verified existence of molecules in both tweezers at the end of the measurement, we obtained a Bell state fidelity of 0.89(6). Using interleaved tweezer arrays, we demonstrate single-site molecular addressability.
We study the occurrence of long-lived metastable states in the 4f$^{13}
5d6selectronconfigurationofYb^+$. By optical pumping of a single trapped ion on the
2F7/2o→(7/2,0)7/2 transition at 377.5 nm, we prepare a wide range of metastable electronic states. We use a co-trapped control ion to sympathetically cool the spectroscopy ion, allowing us to accurately time its subsequent decay. We record a strong decay signal corresponding to a lifetime of 0.92(8) s, a weaker decay signal with lifetime 9.8(+2.9, -2.0) s, and find evidence for a much longer lifetime,
> 30 s. We identify the metastable states with these lifetimes qualitatively, and corroborate our results with atomic structure calculations that support the observed lifetimes and decay paths. These long-lived states provide new opportunities in qubit and qudit state detection and optical clocks.
We study collective "free-space" radiation properties of two distant single-layer arrays of quantum emitters as two-level atoms. We show that this system can support a long-lived Bell superposition state of atomic excitations exhibiting strong subradiance, which corresponds to a nonlocal excitation of the two arrays. We describe the preparation of these states and their application in quantum information as a resource of nonlocal entanglement, including deterministic quantum state transfer with high fidelity between the arrays representing quantum memories. We discuss experimental realizations using cold atoms in optical trap arrays with subwavelength spacing, and analyze the role of imperfections.