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arXiv:2503.19818 · Physical Review A

Entanglement-fidelity limits of photonically networked atomic qubits from recoil and timing

Yichao Yu, Sagnik Saha, Mikhail Shalaev, George Toh, Jameson O'Reilly, Isabella Goetting, Ashish Kalakuntla, Christopher Monroe

Published Nov 26, 2025• 1 citation
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The remote entanglement of two atomic quantum memories through photonic interactions is accompanied by atomic momentum recoil. When the interactions occur at different times, such as from the random emission over the lifetime of the atomic excited state, the difference in recoil timing can expose “which-path” information and ultimately lead to decoherence. Time-bin encoded photonic qubits can be particularly sensitive to asynchronous recoil timing. In this paper we study the limits of entanglement fidelity in atomic systems due to recoil and other timing imbalances and show how these effects can be suppressed or even eliminated through proper experimental design.

DOI
10.1103/82c6-4nkl

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The remote entanglement of two atomic quantum memories through photonic interactions is accompanied by atomic momentum recoil. When the interactions occur at different times, such as from the random emission over the lifetime of the atomic excited state, the difference in recoil timing can expose “which-path” information and ultimately lead to decoherence. Time-bin encoded photonic qubits can be particularly sensitive to asynchronous recoil timing. In this paper we study the limits of entanglement fidelity in atomic systems due to recoil and other timing imbalances and show how these effects can be suppressed or even eliminated through proper experimental design.
Photonic interconnects between quantum processing nodes are likely the only way to achieve large-scale quantum computers and networks. The bottleneck in such an architecture is the interface between well-isolated quantum memories and flying photons. We establish high-fidelity entanglement between remotely separated trapped atomic qubit memories, mediated by photonic qubits stored in the timing of their pulses. Such time-bin encoding removes sensitivity to polarization errors, enables long-distance quantum communication, and is extensible to quantum memories with more than two states. Using a measurement-based error detection process and suppressing a fundamental source of error due to atomic recoil, we achieve an entanglement fidelity of 97% and show that fundamental limits due to atomic recoil still allow fidelities in excess of 99.9%.
Abstract Photonic interconnects between quantum processing nodes are likely the only way to achieve large-scale quantum computers and networks (1). The bottleneck in such an architecture is the interface between well-isolated quantum memories and flying photons. We establish high-fidelity entanglement between remotely separated trapped atomic qubit memories (2–4), mediated by photonic qubits stored in the timing of their pulses (5). Such time-bin encoding removes sensitivity to polarization errors, enables long-distance quantum communication, and is extensible to quantum memories with more than two states. Using a measurementbased error detection process and suppressing a fundamental source of error due to atomic recoil, we achieve an entanglement fidelity of 97% and show that fidelities beyond 99.9% are feasible.
Photon recoil is one of the fundamental limitations for high-fidelity control of trapped-atom qubits such as neutral atoms and trapped ions. In this work, we derive an analytical model for efficiently evaluating the motion-induced infidelity in remote entanglement generation protocols. Our model is applicable for various photonic qubit encodings, such as polarization, time-bin, and frequency encodings, and with arbitrary initial motional states, thus providing a crucial theoretical tool for realizing high-fidelity quantum networking. For the case of tweezer-trapped neutral atoms, our results indicate that operation in the with cavity decay rate exceeding the atom-photon coupling rate and near-ground-state cooling with motional quanta below 1 are desired to suppress the motion-induced infidelity sufficiently below the 1% level required for efficient quantum networking. Finite-temperature effects can be mitigated efficiently by detection time filtering at the moderate cost of success probability and network speed. These results extend the understanding of infidelity sources in remote entanglement generation protocols, establishing a concrete path toward fault-tolerant quantum networking with scalable trapped-atom qubit systems.
Time-bin photonic qubits are well-suited for quantum network applications due to their robustness to polarization instability in fiber links and potential for heterogeneous networks. In this work, we implement the first entanglement-preserving polarization-to-time-bin conversion of a photon qubit in an entangled state with a matter qubit, together with the independent work of Haen \textit{et al.} \cite{haen2026telecom}. Photons initially generated with polarization encoding are converted to the time-bin basis through a polarization-discriminating asymmetric Mach--Zehnder interferometer. The photonic qubits are generated via the 109210921092~nm transition of a 88^{88}88Sr+^{+}+ ion. We measure state fidelity bounds of 0.906±0.011≤F≤0.934±0.0110.906 \pm 0.011 \le \mathcal{F} \le 0.934\pm 0.0110.906±0.011≤F≤0.934±0.011, with conversion error <0.028< 0.028<0.028, and find this fidelity shows no statistically significant reduction under depolarizing noise, even at full depolarization strength.
We theoretically evaluate establishing remote entanglement between distinguishable matter qubits through interference and detection of two emitted photons. The fidelity of the entanglement operation is analyzed as a function of the temporal- and frequency-mode matching between the photons emitted from each quantum memory. With a general analysis, we define limits on the absolute magnitudes of temporal- and frequency-mode mismatches in order to maintain entanglement fidelities greater than 99% with two-photon detection efficiencies greater than 90%. We apply our analysis to several selected systems of quantum memories. Results indicate that high fidelities may be achieved in each system using current experimental techniques, while maintaining acceptable rates of entanglement. Thus, it might be possible to use two-photon-mediated entanglement operations between distinguishable quantum memories to establish a network for quantum communication and distributed quantum computation.