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arXiv:2503.09292 · Physical Review Research

Eigen-SNAP gate for photonic qubits in a cavity-transmon system

Marcus J. Meschede, Ludwig Mathey

Published Feb 4, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

In the pursuit of robust quantum computing, we put forth a platform based on photonic qubits in a circuit-QED environment. Specifically, we propose a versatile two-qubit gate based on two cavities coupled via a transmon, constituting a selective number-dependent phase gate operating on the in-phase eigenmodes of the two cavities, the Eigen-SNAP gate. This gate natively operates in the dispersive coupling regime of the cavities and the transmon, and operates by driving the transmon externally, to imprint desired phases on the number states. As an example for the utility of the Eigen-SNAP gate, we implement a SWAP gate on a system of two logical bosonic qubits encoded in the cavities. Further, we use numerical optimization to determine the optimal implementation of the SWAP . We find that the fidelities of these optimal protocols are only limited by the coherence times of the system's components. These findings pave the way to continuous-variable quantum computing in cavity-transmon systems.

DOI
10.1103/2ks4-p82h

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In the pursuit of robust quantum computing, we put forth a platform based on photonic qubits in a circuit-QED environment. Specifically, we propose a versatile two-qubit gate based on two cavities coupled via a transmon, constituting a selective number-dependent phase gate operating on the in-phase eigenmodes of the two cavities, the Eigen-SNAP gate. This gate natively operates in the dispersive coupling regime of the cavities and the transmon, and operates by driving the transmon externally, to imprint desired phases on the number states. As an example for the utility of the Eigen-SNAP gate, we implement a SWAP gate on a system of two logical bosonic qubits encoded in the cavities. Further, we use numerical optimization to determine the optimal implementation of the SWAP . We find that the fidelities of these optimal protocols are only limited by the coherence times of the system's components. These findings pave the way to continuous-variable quantum computing in cavity-transmon systems.
The large available Hilbert space and high coherence of cavity resonators make these systems an interesting resource for storing encoded quantum bits. To perform a quantum gate on this encoded information, however, complex nonlinear operations must be applied to the many levels of the oscillator simultaneously. In this work, we introduce the selective number-dependent arbitrary phase (snap) gate, which imparts a different phase to each Fock-state component using an off-resonantly coupled qubit. We show that the snap gate allows control over the quantum phases by correcting the unwanted phase evolution due to the Kerr effect. Furthermore, by combining the snap gate with oscillator displacements, we create a one-photon Fock state with high fidelity. Using just these two controls, one can construct arbitrary unitary operations, offering a scalable route to performing logical manipulations on oscillator-encoded qubits.
We propose an efficient scheme to implement a multiplex-controlled phase gate with multiple photonic qubits simultaneously controlling one target photonic qubit based on circuit quantum electrodynamics (QED). For convenience, we denote this multiqubit gate as MCP gate. The gate is realized by using a two-level coupler to couple multiple cavities. The coupler here is a superconducting qubit. This scheme is simple because the gate implementation requires only one step of operation. In addition, this scheme is quite general because the two logic states of each photonic qubit can be encoded with a vacuum state and an arbitrary non-vacuum state ∣ φ 〉 (e.g., a Fock state, a superposition of Fock states, a cat state, or a coherent state, etc.) which is orthogonal or quasi-orthogonal to the vacuum state. The scheme has some additional advantages: because only two levels of the coupler are used, i.e., no auxiliary levels are utilized, decoherence from higher energy levels of the coupler is avoided; the gate operation time does not depend on the number of qubits; and the gate is implemented deterministically because no measurement is applied. As an example, we numerically analyze the circuit-QED based experimental feasibility of implementing a three-qubit MCP gate with photonic qubits each encoded via a vacuum state and a cat state. The scheme can be applied to accomplish the same task in a wide range of physical system, which consists of multiple microwave or optical cavities coupled to a two-level coupler such as a natural or artificial atom.
Quantum phase gates are of fundamental interest in quantum physics and play an important role in quantum communication and quantum computing. Here, we propose a scheme to implement a hybrid discrete-variable–continuous-variable (DV–CV) phase gate on multiple photonic qubits by utilizing multiple control microwave cavities and a single target microwave cavity, all coupled to a common superconducting qutrit (a three-level quantum system) in circuit quantum electrodynamics (QED). In our scheme, two logic states of the target qubit are encoded via the vacuum state and the coherent state (CV state) of the microwave cavity, while two logic states of the control qubits are encoded through the vacuum and single-photon states (DV states) of the microwave cavity. This hybrid DV–CV phase gate enables target qubit to acquire a phase that depends on the total number of control qubits in non-vacuum states, when the target qubit is in the coherent state. Our protocol is extensible and operationally efficient, involving just one step and the measurement of only one target qubit. In addition, as a practical application, this hybrid DV–CV phase gate can be employed as a quantum voting machine. Our numerical simulation demonstrates that the high-fidelity construction of a hybrid three-qubit DV–CV phase gate is feasible with current circuit QED technology.
Microwave cavities coupled to superconducting qubits have been demonstrated to be a promising platform for quantum information processing. A major challenge in this setup is to realize universal control over the cavity. A promising approach are selective number-dependent arbitrary phase (SNAP) gates combined with cavity displacements. It has been proven that this is a universal gate set, but a central question remained open so far: how can a given target operation be realized efficiently with a sequence of these operations. In this work, we present a practical scheme to address this problem. It involves a hierarchical strategy to insert new gates into a sequence, followed by a co-optimization of the control parameters, which generates short high-fidelity sequences. For a broad range of experimentally relevant applications, we find that they can be implemented with 3 to 4 SNAP gates, compared to up to 50 with previously known techniques.
To realize fault-tolerant quantum computing, it is necessary to store quantum information in logical qubits with error correction functions, realized by distributing a logical state among multiple physical qubits or by encoding it in the Hilbert space of a high-dimensional system. Quantum gate operations between these error-correctable logical qubits, which are essential for implementation of any practical quantum computational task, have not been experimentally demonstrated yet. Here we demonstrate a geometric method for realizing controlled-phase gates between two logical qubits encoded in photonic fields stored in cavities. The gates are realized by dispersively coupling an ancillary superconducting qubit to these cavities and driving it to make a cyclic evolution depending on the joint photonic state of the cavities, which produces a conditional geometric phase. We first realize phase gates for photonic qubits with the logical basis states encoded in two quasiorthogonal coherent states, which have important implications for continuous-variable-based quantum computation. Then we use this geometric method to implement a controlled-phase gate between two binomially encoded logical qubits, which have an error-correctable function.
Hybrid qubits have recently drawn intense attention in quantum computing. We here propose a method to implement a universal controlled-phase gate of two hybrid qubits via two three-dimensional (3D) microwave cavities coupled to a superconducting flux qutrit. For the gate considered here, the control qubit is a microwave photonic qubit (particle-like qubit), whose two logic states are encoded by the vacuum state and the single-photon state of a cavity, while the target qubit is a cat-state qubit (wave-like qubit), whose two logic states are encoded by the two orthogonal cat states of the other cavity. During the gate operation, the qutrit remains in the ground state; therefore, decoherence from the qutrit is greatly suppressed. The gate realization is quite simple, because only a single basic operation is employed and neither classical pulse nor measurement is used. Our numerical simulations demonstrate that with current circuit quantum electrodynamics technology, this gate can be realized with a high fidelity. The generality of this proposal allows implementing the proposed gate in a wide range of physical systems, such as two 1D or 3D microwave or optical cavities coupled to a natural or artificial three-level atom. Finally, this proposal can be applied to create a novel entangled state between a particle-like photonic qubit and a wave-like cat-state qubit.