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arXiv:2305.00445 · The Journal of Physical Chemistry A

General Classification of Qubit Encodings in Ultracold Diatomic Molecules

Kasra Asnaashari, Roman V. Krems, Timur V. Tscherbul

Published Jul 26, 2023• 11 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Owing to their rich internal structure and significant long-range interactions, ultracold molecules have been widely explored as carriers of quantum information. Several different schemes for encoding qubits into molecular states, both bare and field-dressed, have been proposed. At the same time, the rich internal structure of molecules leaves many unexplored possibilities for qubit encodings. We show that all molecular qubit encodings can be classified into four classes by the type of the effective interaction between the qubits. In the case of polar molecules, the four classes are determined by the relative magnitudes of matrix elements of the dipole moment operator in the single-molecule basis. We exemplify our classification scheme by considering the encoding of the effective spin-1/2 system into nonadjacent rotational states (e.g., N = 0 and 2) of polar and nonpolar molecules with the same nuclear spin projection. Our classification scheme is designed to inform the optimal choice of molecular qubit encoding for quantum information storage and processing applications, as well as for dynamical generation of many-body entangled states and for quantum annealing.

DOI
10.1021/acs.jpca.3c02835

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Owing to their rich internal structure and significant long-range interactions, ultracold molecules have been widely explored as carriers of quantum information. Several different schemes for encoding qubits into molecular states, both bare and field-dressed, have been proposed. At the same time, the rich internal structure of molecules leaves many unexplored possibilities for qubit encodings. We show that all molecular qubit encodings can be classified into four classes by the type of the effective interaction between the qubits. In the case of polar molecules, the four classes are determined by the relative magnitudes of matrix elements of the dipole moment operator in the single-molecule basis. We exemplify our classification scheme by considering the encoding of the effective spin-1/2 system into nonadjacent rotational states (e.g., N = 0 and 2) of polar and nonpolar molecules with the same nuclear spin projection. Our classification scheme is designed to inform the optimal choice of molecular qubit encoding for quantum information storage and processing applications, as well as for dynamical generation of many-body entangled states and for quantum annealing.
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Author: Wei, Qi et al.; Genre: Journal Article; Issued: 2011-10-17; Open Access; Keywords: Proposals for quantum computing using rotational states of polar molecules as qubits have previously considered only diatomic molecules. For these the Stark effect is second-order, so a sizable external electric field is required to produce the requisite dipole moments in the laboratory frame. Here we consider use of polar symmetric top molecules. These offer advantages resulting from a first-order Stark effect, which renders the effective dipole moments nearly independent of the field strength. That permits use ofmuch lower external field strengths for addressing sites. Moreover, for a particular choice of qubits, the electric dipole interactions become isomorphous with NMR systems for which many techniques enhancing logic gate operations have been developed. Also inviting is the wider chemical scope, since many symmetric top organic molecules provide options for auxiliary storage qubits in spin and hyperfine structure or in internal rotation states.; Title: Entanglement of polar symmetric top molecules as candidate qubits
Ultracold quantum gases are versatile model systems for exploring quantum physics or for the simulation of solid state materials. Meanwhile, they have been created from various atomic species - from alkali metals over alkaline earths to rare earth elements. The latest addition are quantum gases of different kinds of polar molecules. Expectations for quantum gases of heteronuclear molecules are high: Due to their large electric dipole moments, these molecules can interact with each other via long-range interactions - not just via contact interactions as is the case for most atoms. Additionally, they have vibrational and rotational degrees of freedom, with open up new possibilities for quantum simulation. But the same degrees of freedom also pose some challenges. For example, they make the preparation of the quantum gas more difficult, which is typically produced with a combination of laser cooling and evaporative cooling in the atomic case. Molecules mostly lack closed transitions in their spectra, which are required for laser cooling. Therefore, we create our molecular quantum gas from a mixture of two atomic quantum gases. In this work, such an experimental method was developed for fermionic NaK molecules, which is based on the two-photon process Stimulated Raman Adiabatic Passage (STIRAP). Within STIRAP, the hyperfine structure of the chosen intermediate state plays an important role. Experimentally, and with the help of a theoretical model describing the whole process, we find that we produce the most molecules when we use a large one-photon detuning, if the hyperfine structure of the intermediate state is unresolved. In another project, we explored the rotational level structure of the molecular ground state populated by STIRAP. Rotation is closely linked to the electric dipole moment. The superposition of the ground state with the first excited rotational state, for example, has a transition dipole moment of almost 60% of the permanent electric dipole moment. Unfortunately, coherence times of such superpositions are typically short, as the different polarizabilities of the rotational states lead to dephasing in optical traps. However, using a special polarization angle and a small, dc electric field, we can compensate these differences and realize a spin-decoupled magic trap. With this new technique we obtain record coherence times, at least for small molecular densities. For larger densities we observe first indications for dipolar interactions in a bulk gas of polar molecules, which we also model using the moving-average cluster expansion (MACE).
The realization of rovibrationally stable dense samples of ultracold diatomic molecules remains one of the main stepping stones to achieve the next slate of major goals in the field of atomic and molecular physics. Though obtaining diatomic alkali molecules was seen as a logical next step following the optical cooling of atoms, many of the possible applications currently under investigation extend beyond atomic and molecular physics. For example, spectroscopy of ultracold molecules can help in testing extensions of the Standard Model via the search for a permanent electric dipole moment of the electron (1; 2), or the energy difference between enantiomers of chiral molecules (3). Various molecular transitions can be utilized to track the time dependence of fundamental constants, including the fine structure constant and the proton to electron mass ratio (4). They also open the way for cold and ultracold chemistry, where the interacting species and products are in a coherent quantum superposition state (5) and reactions can happen via quantum tunneling. Dipolar ultracold quantum gases promise to show a plethora of new phenomena due to anisotropic long-range dipole-dipole interactions (6). Dipolar molecules in optical lattices can be employed as a quantum simulator of condensed matter systems, and they are predicted to demonstrate new quantum phases such as a dipolar crystal, supersolid, checkerboard and collapse phases (7; 8). Ultracold polar molecules also represent an attractive platform for quantum computation (9). They offer a variety of long-lived states for qubit encoding, including rotational, spin and hyperfine (if electronic and nuclear spins are non-zero), Λ and Ω-doublet states (10) and scalability to a large number of qubits. Polar molecules can be easily controlled by DC electric and magnetic fields, as well as bymicrowave and optical fields, allowing the design of various traps (11; 12). The main appeal of polar molecules for quantum information processing, however, comes from their permanent electric dipole moment, permitting them to interact via a long-range dipole-dipole interaction. The dipole-dipole interaction offers a tool to construct two-qubit gates, required for universal quantum computation (9; 13). Ultracold molecules in their ground vibrational state v = 0 (and even in specific rotational, hyperfine or Zeeman states) are required formany of these applications since they have a large permanent electric dipole moment and are stable with respect to collisions and spontaneous emission. Currently translationally ultracold (100 nK 1 mK) molecules are produced by magneto(14) and photo-association (15) techniques. In a typical photoassociation scheme, 3
We propose a scalable qudit-based quantum processor using rotational states of polar molecules. Previously, molecular internal states were used to enlarge Hilbert space, whereas our approach uses optical tweezer arrays to achieve scalable architectures with exponential state-space growth without increasing qudit dimensionality d . Entangling gates are implemented by adiabatically bringing traps together to activate dipole-dipole interactions. We develop encoding schemes mapping single qubits into qudits with 2 ≤ d ≤ 5 and pairs of qubits into d = 4 , 5 qudits, enabling universal set of quantum gates. Additional levels in d = 3 and d = 5 qudits simplify multiqubit gate decompositions. We analyze experimental parameters for SrF and NaCs molecules. This approach provides a promising route to scalable quantum information processing with multilevel systems using existing experimental platforms.
The ultracold polar molecules with the tunable dipole-dipole interaction, not only would enable explorations of a large class of exotic many-body physics phenomena, but also could be used for quantum information processing. In the present paper we demonstrate that this dipole-dipole interaction can generate the degenerate chiral quantum states acting as a qubit robust against noise when the ultracold polar molecules are confined by a triangular lattice. Moreover, we also find two first-order quantum phase transitions by controlling an external driving field. One is the transition with the change of the different degenerate chiral quantum states. The other is the transition with the breaking of the degenerate quantum chiral states to the nondegenerate state. In experiment, these first-order quantum phase transitions can be detected by measuring the collective molecular population.