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arXiv:2509.06881 · Physical Review A

Benchmarking single-qubit gates on a neutral-atom quantum processor

A. Rozanov, B. I. Bantysh, I. B. Bobrov, G. I. Struchalin, Stanislav S. Straupe

Published Mar 19, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

We present benchmarking results for single-qubit gates implemented on a neutral atom quantum processor using Direct Randomized Benchmarking (DRB) and Gate Set Tomography (GST). The DRB protocol involves preparing stabilizer states, applying $m$ layers of native single-qubit gates, and measuring in the computational basis, providing an efficient error characterization under a stochastic Pauli noise model. GST enables the full, self-consistent reconstruction of quantum processes, including gates, input states, and measurements. Both protocols provide robust to state preparation and measurement (SPAM) errors estimations of gate performance, offering complementary perspectives on quantum gate fidelity. For single-qubit gates, DRB yields an average fidelity of $99.963 \%$. The protocol was further applied to a 25-qubit array under global single-qubit control. GST results are consistent with those obtained via DRB. We also introduce a gauge optimization procedure for GST that brings the reconstructed gates, input states, and measurements into a canonical frame, enabling meaningful fidelity comparisons while preserving physical constraints. These constraints of the operators -- such as complete positivity and trace preservation -- are enforced by performing the optimization over the Stiefel manifold. The combined analysis supports the use of complementary benchmarking techniques for characterizing scalable quantum architectures.

DOI
10.1103/vbwh-sk7s

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We present benchmarking results for single-qubit gates implemented on a neutral atom quantum processor using Direct Randomized Benchmarking (DRB) and Gate Set Tomography (GST). The DRB protocol involves preparing stabilizer states, applying mmm layers of native single-qubit gates, and measuring in the computational basis, providing an efficient error characterization under a stochastic Pauli noise model. GST enables the full, self-consistent reconstruction of quantum processes, including gates, input states, and measurements. Both protocols provide robust to state preparation and measurement (SPAM) errors estimations of gate performance, offering complementary perspectives on quantum gate fidelity. For single-qubit gates, DRB yields an average fidelity of 99.963%99.963 \%99.963%. The protocol was further applied to a 25-qubit array under global single-qubit control. GST results are consistent with those obtained via DRB. We also introduce a gauge optimization procedure for GST that brings the reconstructed gates, input states, and measurements into a canonical frame, enabling meaningful fidelity comparisons while preserving physical constraints. These constraints of the operators -- such as complete positivity and trace preservation -- are enforced by performing the optimization over the Stiefel manifold. The combined analysis supports the use of complementary benchmarking techniques for characterizing scalable quantum architectures.
Typical quantum gate tomography protocols struggle with a self-consistency problem: the gate operation cannot be reconstructed without knowledge of the initial state and final measurement, but such knowledge cannot be obtained without well-characterized gates. A recently proposed technique, known as randomized benchmarking tomography (RBT), sidesteps this self-consistency problem by designing experiments to be insensitive to preparation and measurement imperfections. We implement this proposal in a superconducting qubit system, using a number of experimental improvements including implementing each of the elements of the Clifford group in single 'atomic' pulses and custom control hardware to enable large overhead protocols. We show a robust reconstruction of several single-qubit quantum gates, including a unitary outside the Clifford group. We demonstrate that RBT yields physical gate reconstructions that are consistent with fidelities obtained by RB.
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Quantum computers have the potential to bring about a new age of technology, but in order for them to become a reality, the elephant in the room must be addressed, quantum errors. The complexity of quantum errors grows exponentially as the system size is increased; scalable characterization protocols which work under physically realistic noise are therefore needed to assess and optimize control. \n \nRandomized Benchmarking (RB) is a family of characterization protocols with the requisite qualities. RB protocols are independent of state preparation and measurement (SPAM) errors, and because they extract partial information about the error profiles in the form of figures of merit, they are scalable in the number of qubits. In this thesis, we study these figures of merit under various error models, gate-sets, and sample distributions, to further our understanding of their physical meaning, and to fine-tune the best practice for diagnosing errors in basic gate-sets. \n \nThe first study presented in this thesis looks at the physical meaning of the unitarity under physically realistic gate-dependent noise. Numerically, we demonstrate that under these realistic noise models, the unitarity obtained via Extended RB (XRB) overlaps strongly with the average of the unitarity of the errors over the set of individual operations. \n \nThe second study numerically and analytically proves that the Standard RB (SRB) decay parameter p coincides with the decay parameter of the novel figure of merit gate-set circuit fidelity. We also prove that, in the limit of high-fidelity single-qubit experiments, the disconnect between the average gate fidelity and SRB experimental results is caused by a basis mismatch between the gates and the state-preparation and measurement procedures. \n \nIn the third part of this thesis, we compare the results of two variations of the SRB protocol, one that samples uniformly (SRB) and one that samples non-uniformly (NIST RB) from the Clifford group. We prove that NIST RB produces an exponential fidelity curve that gives different infidelity results than SRB. \n \nThe fourth and final study gives a standard for assessing basic gate-sets. Experimental results are given from the assessment run on super-conducting and ion-trap devices. We also experimentally show how the systematic error bounds can be tightened by accounting for the error's degree of coherence, as well as using weaker randomizing sets.
Abstract Implementing arbitrary single-qubit gates with near perfect fidelity is among the most fundamental requirements in gate-based quantum information processing. In this work, we fabricate a transmon qubit with long coherence times and demonstrate single-qubit gates with the average gate error below 10 −4 , i.e. (7.42 ± 0.04) × 10 −5 by randomized benchmarking (RB). To understand the error sources, we experimentally obtain an error budget, consisting of the decoherence errors lower bounded by (4.62 ± 0.04) × 10 −5 and the leakage rate per gate of (1.16 ± 0.04) × 10 −5 . Moreover, we reconstruct the process matrices for the single-qubit gates by the gate set tomography (GST), with which we simulate RB sequences and obtain single-qubit fidelities consistent with experimental results. We also observe non-Markovian behavior in the experiment of long-sequence GST, which may provide guidance for further calibration. The demonstration extends the upper limit that the average fidelity of single-qubit gates can reach in a transmon-qubit system, and thus can be an essential step towards practical and reliable quantum computation in the near future.