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arXiv:2310.18997 · Physical review. E

Qubit reset with a shortcut-to-isothermal scheme

Hongbo Huang, Geng Li, Hui Dong

Published Jun 13, 2024• 2 citations
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Abstract

Landauer's principle shows that the minimum energy cost to reset a classical bit in a bath with temperature T is k_{B}Tln2 in the infinite time. However, the task to reset the bit in finite time has posted a new challenge, especially for quantum bit (qubit) where both the operation time and controllability are limited. We design a shortcut-to-isothermal scheme to reset a qubit in finite time τ with limited controllability. The energy cost is minimized with the optimal control scheme with and without bound. This optimal control scheme can provide a reference to realize qubit reset with minimum energy cost for the limited time.

DOI
10.1103/physreve.109.064132

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Landauer's principle shows that the minimum energy cost to reset a classical bit in a bath with temperature T is k_{B}Tln2 in the infinite time. However, the task to reset the bit in finite time has posted a new challenge, especially for quantum bit (qubit) where both the operation time and controllability are limited. We design a shortcut-to-isothermal scheme to reset a qubit in finite time τ with limited controllability. The energy cost is minimized with the optimal control scheme with and without bound. This optimal control scheme can provide a reference to realize qubit reset with minimum energy cost for the limited time.
Landauer's principle states that it costs at least kBTln2 of work to reset one bit in the presence of a heat bath at temperature T. The bound of kBTln2 is achieved in the unphysical infinite-time limit. Here we ask what is possible if one is restricted to finite-time protocols. We prove analytically that it is possible to reset a bit with a work cost close to kBTln2 in a finite time. We construct an explicit protocol that achieves this, which involves thermalizing and changing the system's Hamiltonian so as to avoid quantum coherences. Using concepts and techniques pertaining to single-shot statistical mechanics, we furthermore prove that the heat dissipated is exponentially close to the minimal amount possible not just on average, but guaranteed with high confidence in every run. Moreover, we exploit the protocol to design a quantum heat engine that works near the Carnot efficiency in finite time.
In practice, qubit reset must be operated in an extremely short time, which incurs a thermodynamic cost within multiple orders of magnitude above the Landauer bound. We present a general framework to determine the minimal thermodynamic cost and the corresponding optimal protocol for memory erasure under arbitrary erasure speeds. Our study reveals the divergent behavior of minimal entropy production in the short-time limit depends on the convergence and divergence of the jump operator. There is an inherent trade-off between the minimal required time and the set error probability for the convergent class. Moreover, we find the optimal protocol exhibits general features in the fast-driving regime. To illustrate these findings, we employ fermionic and bosonic baths as examples. Our results suggest that the super-Ohmic bosonic heat bath is suitable for qubit reset.
Qubit reset is a key task in the operation of quantum devices which, for many quantum hardware platforms, presently limits device clock speed. While it is known that coupling the qubit to an ancilla on demand allows for the fastest qubit reset, the limits on reset accuracy and speed due to the choice of ancilla have not yet been identified-despite the great flexibility in device design for most quantum hardware platforms. Here, we derive bounds on qubit reset in terms of maximum fidelity and minimum time, assuming control over the qubit and no control over the ancilla. For two-level ancillas, we find a provably time-optimal protocol which consists of purity exchange between qubit and ancilla brought into resonance. The globally minimal time can only be realized for specific choices of coupling and control which we identify. When increasing the size of the ancilla Hilbert space, the maximally achievable fidelity increases, whereas the reset time remains constant. Our results translate into device design principles for realizing, in a given quantum architecture, the fastest and most accurate protocol for qubit reset.
Irreversibility has a fundamental thermodynamic cost, erasing information inevitably generates heat. This connection is quantified by the Landauer bound, which gives the minimum dissipation needed to erase a single bit of information. While this bound applies in both classical and quantum settings, it is saturated only in idealised limits of infinite resources. Here, we provide a unified first principles description of finite-resource erasure in both classical and quantum systems. We begin by proving the communal folklore that in the idealised regime the erasure cost of a bit encoded in a quantum or classical system is the same. Despite this, we show that their practical implementation differs substantially: achieving comparable erasure quality in quantum systems requires more control, larger accessible energy gaps and longer operation times. Classical protocols can achieve the erasure of a comparable quantum protocol under far weaker constraints which we expose in trade-off relations. Our results explain why practical erasure schemes fall short of Landauer's bound and show that classical systems enjoy several fundamental thermodynamic advantages.
Landauer's principle gives a fundamental limit to the thermodynamic cost of erasing information. Its saturation requires a reversible isothermal process, and hence infinite time. We develop a finite-time version of Landauer's principle for a bit encoded in the occupation of a single fermionic mode, which can be strongly coupled to a reservoir. By solving the exact non-equilibrium dynamics, we optimize erasure processes (taking both the fermion's energy and system-bath coupling as control parameters) in the slow driving regime through a geometric approach to thermodynamics. We find analytic expressions for the thermodynamic metric and geodesic equations, which can be solved numerically. Their solution yields optimal processes that allow us to characterize a finite-time correction to Landauer's bound, fully taking into account non-markovian and strong coupling effects.
The Landauer principle sets a lower bound on the thermodynamic cost of qubit reset, which is only attainable for the quasistatic process. In this Letter, we explore the collective advantage of qubit reset of coherent qubits in three aspects. First, for the quasistatic process, the thermodynamic cost of collective reset is remarkably lower than parallel reset because of the reduced Hilbert space dimension due to entanglement effects. Second, for the finite-time qubit reset, we prove that the error probability fades away and per-qubit heat production tends the Landauer bound for initially continuous protocols in the thermodynamic limit. Third, we show that qubit reset performance enhances with the increase in the number of qubits. Our results, illustrated by different protocols, provide a blueprint for future quantum device fabrication.