Abstract Quantum computing represents a central challenge in modern science. Neutral atoms in optical lattices have emerged as a leading computing platform, with collisional gates offering a stable mechanism for quantum logic 1–10 . However, previous experiments have treated ultracold collisions as a dynamically fine-tuned process 11–22 , which obscures the underlying quantum geometry and quantum statistics crucial for realizing intrinsically robust operations. Here we propose and experimentally demonstrate a purely geometric two-qubit SWAP gate by transiently populating qubit doublon states of fermionic atoms in a dynamical optical lattice. The presence of these doublon states, together with fermionic exchange anti-symmetry, enables a two-particle quantum holonomy—a geometric evolution in which dynamical phases are absent 23 . This yields a gate mechanism that is intrinsically protected against fluctuations and inhomogeneities of the confining potentials. The resilience of the gate is further reinforced by time-reversal and chiral symmetries of the Hamiltonian. We experimentally validate this exceptional protection, achieving a loss-corrected amplitude fidelity of 99.91(7)% measured across the entire system consisting of more than 17,000 atom pairs. When combined with recently developed topological pumping methods for atom transport 16 , our results pave the way for large-scale, highly connected quantum processors. This work introduces a new model for quantum logic that transforms fundamental symmetries, including quantum statistics, into a powerful resource for fault-tolerant computation.
Abstract Quantum computing represents a central challenge in modern science. Neutral atoms in optical lattices have emerged as a leading computing platform, with collisional gates offering a stable mechanism for quantum logic 1–10 . However, previous experiments have treated ultracold collisions as a dynamically fine-tuned process 11–22 , which obscures the underlying quantum geometry and quantum statistics crucial for realizing intrinsically robust operations. Here we propose and experimentally demonstrate a purely geometric two-qubit SWAP gate by transiently populating qubit doublon states of fermionic atoms in a dynamical optical lattice. The presence of these doublon states, together with fermionic exchange anti-symmetry, enables a two-particle quantum holonomy—a geometric evolution in which dynamical phases are absent 23 . This yields a gate mechanism that is intrinsically protected against fluctuations and inhomogeneities of the confining potentials. The resilience of the gate is further reinforced by time-reversal and chiral symmetries of the Hamiltonian. We experimentally validate this exceptional protection, achieving a loss-corrected amplitude fidelity of 99.91(7)% measured across the entire system consisting of more than 17,000 atom pairs. When combined with recently developed topological pumping methods for atom transport 16 , our results pave the way for large-scale, highly connected quantum processors. This work introduces a new model for quantum logic that transforms fundamental symmetries, including quantum statistics, into a powerful resource for fault-tolerant computation.
Abstract Quantum simulations of electronic structure and strongly correlated quantum phases are among the most promising applications of quantum computing. These computations benefit from native fermionic encodings 1,2 , enforcing fermionic statistics and conservation laws such as particle number and magnetization 3 independent of gate errors. While ultracold atoms in optical lattices have become established as powerful analogue simulators of strongly correlated fermionic matter 4–7 , neutral-atom platforms have concurrently emerged as versatile, scalable architectures for spin-based digital quantum computation 8 . Unifying these capabilities requires high-fidelity motionally coherent gates for fermionic atoms 9–11 , similar to collisional gates in bosonic systems 12,13 , paving the way for programmable fermionic quantum processors. Here we demonstrate collisional entangling gates with fidelities up to 99.75(6)% and Bell-state lifetimes exceeding 10 s, realized by means of controlled interactions of fermionic atoms in an optical superlattice. Using quantum gas microscopy 14 , we microscopically characterize spin-exchange and pair-tunnelling gates and realize a robust composite pair-exchange gate, a key building block for quantum chemistry simulations 3,15 . Our results establish controlled collisions in optical lattices as a competitive and complementary route to high entangling gate fidelities in neutral-atom quantum computers. Operating intrinsically with fermions, this capability naturally extends to many-qubit architectures, in which fermionic statistics become relevant, enabling complex state preparation and advanced readout 16–19 in scalable analogue–digital hybrid quantum simulators. Combined with local addressing 20,21 , these gates mark a crucial step towards a fully digital fermionic quantum computer based on controlled motion and entanglement of neutral atoms.
Simulating the dynamics of electrons and other fermionic particles in quantum chemistry, materials science, and high-energy physics is one of the most promising applications of fault-tolerant quantum computers. However, the overhead in mapping time evolution under fermionic Hamiltonians to qubit gates renders this endeavor challenging. We introduce fermionic fault-tolerant quantum computing, a framework which removes this overhead altogether. Using native fermionic operations we first construct a repetition code which corrects phase errors only. Within a fermionic color code, which corrects for both phase and loss errors, we then realize a universal fermionic gate set, including transversal fermionic Clifford gates. Interfacing with qubit color codes we introduce qubit-fermion fault-tolerant computation, which allows for qubit-controlled fermionic time evolution, a crucial subroutine in state-of-the-art quantum algorithms. As an application, we consider simulating crystalline materials, finding an exponential improvement in circuit depth for a single time step from O(N) to O(log(N)) with respect to lattice site number N while retaining a site count of O~(N), implying a linear-in-N end-to-end gate depth for simulating materials, as opposed to quadratic in previous approaches. We also introduce a fermion-inspired qubit algorithm with O(log(N) depth, but a prohibitive number of additional ancilla qubits. We show how our framework can be implemented in neutral atoms, overcoming the apparent inability of neutral atoms to implement non-number-conserving gates. Our work opens the door to fermion-qubit fault-tolerant quantum computation in platforms with native fermions such as neutral atoms, quantum dots and donors in silicon, with applications in quantum chemistry, material science, and high-energy physics.
Abstract Geometric phases and holonomies are a promising resource for the realization of high-fidelity quantum operations in noisy devices, due to their intrinsic fault-tolerance against parametric noise. However, for a long time their practical use in quantum computing was limited to proof of principle demonstrations. This was partly due to the need for adiabatic time evolution or the requirement of complex, high-dimensional state spaces and a large number of driving field parameters to achieve universal quantum gates employing holonomies. In 2016 Liang et al. proposed universal, superadiabatic, geometric quantum gates exploiting transitionless quantum driving, thereby offering fast and universal quantum gate performance on a simple two-level system. Here, we report on the experimental implementation of a set of non-commuting single-qubit superadiabatic, geometric quantum gates on the electron spin of the nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond under ambient conditions. This provides a promising and powerful tool for large-scale quantum computing under realistic, noisy experimental conditions.
Fast collisional SWAP gate for fermionic atoms in an optical superlattice
Collisional gates in optical superlattices have recently achieved record fidelities, but their operation times are typically limited by tunneling. Here we propose and analyze an alternative route to a fast SWAP gate for two fermionic atoms in an optical superlattice based on optimized, time-dependent control of the short and long lattice depths. The gate is implemented by transiently releasing the atoms into a quasi-harmonic confinement centered between the two sites. With an appropriately chosen contact interaction strength, a controlled collision accumulates the exchange phase required for SWAP and generates entanglement. We employ a continuum, time-dependent Schrödinger-equation simulation that goes beyond a two-site Fermi--Hubbard description and benchmark it against experimentally implemented tunneling-based protocols, reproducing the observed single-particle tunneling and spin-exchange dynamics. For experimentally accessible lattice depths, we find that the proposed gate operates in ∼21μs, more than an order of magnitude faster than tunneling-based implementations, while achieving fidelities ≳99%. We further analyze sensitivity to lattice-depth variations and show that a composite sequence improves robustness. Our results establish fast, collision-mediated entangling gates in superlattices as a promising building block for scalable neutral-atom quantum computation.
Abstract In this study we propose and numerically validate a protocol for high-fidelity non-Abelian holonomic gates in Si/SiGe spin-valley qubits, leveraging geometric phases for inherent fault tolerance. By combining electrical control of valley state energy splitting with cyclic in-plane magnetic fields, we engineer a protected subspace where quantum information evolves via geometric phases. Our simulations show these gates achieve 99.4% fidelity and maintain robustness against charge noise, outperforming conventional dynamic gates by 15% under realistic conditions. The gate exploits cyclic modulation of in-plane magnetic fields while dynamically tuning valley splitting to maintain Valley-Zeeman matching, yielding a Berry connection that enables non-commutative holonomies. Numerical analysis reveals distinct operational regimes, from hybridized states for phase accumulation to isolated states for initialization, within experimentally accessible parameter ranges. This work establishes spin-valley qubits as a promising platform for geometric quantum computation, combining holonomic operations' noise resilience with silicon's scalability. The demonstrated performance and compatibility with existing architectures suggest a viable path toward large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum processors.
Geometric phases and holonomies are a promising resource for the realization of high-fidelity quantum operations in noisy devices, due to their intrinsic fault-tolerance against parametric noise. However, for a long time their practical use in quantum computing was limited to proof of principle demonstrations. This was partly due to the need for adiabatic time evolution or the requirement of complex, high-dimensional state spaces and a large number of driving field parameters to achieve universal quantum gates employing holonomies. In 2016 Liang et al. proposed universal, superadiabatic, geometric quantum gates exploiting transitionless quantum driving, thereby offering fast and universal quantum gate performance on a simple two-level system. Here, we report on the experimental implementation of a set of non-commuting single-qubit superadiabatic, geometric quantum gates on the electron spin of the nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond under ambient conditions. This provides a promising and powerful tool for large-scale quantum computing under realistic, noisy experimental conditions.