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arXiv:2510.01306

Chiral quantum state circulation from photon lattice topology

Souvik Kumar Bandyopadhyay, Anushya Chandran, Philip J. D. Crowley

Published Oct 1, 2025• 0 citations
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Abstract

Chiral quantum state circulation is the unidirectional transfer of a quantum state from one subsystem to the next. It is essential to the working of a quantum computer; for instance, for state preparation and isolation. We propose a cavity-QED architecture consisting of three cavities coupled to a qubit, in which \emph{any} photonic state of cavity 1 with sufficiently many photons circulates to cavity 2 after a fixed time interval, and then to cavity 3 and back to 1. Cavity-state circulation arises from topologically protected chiral boundary states in the associated photon lattice and is thus robust to perturbation. We compute the circulation period in the semi-classical limit, demonstrate that circulation persists for time-scales diverging with the total photon number, and provide a Floquet protocol to engineer the desired Hamiltonian. Superconducting qubits offer an ideal platform to build and test these devices in the near term.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2510.01306

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Chiral quantum state circulation is the unidirectional transfer of a quantum state from one subsystem to the next. It is essential to the working of a quantum computer; for instance, for state preparation and isolation. We propose a cavity-QED architecture consisting of three cavities coupled to a qubit, in which \emph{any} photonic state of cavity 1 with sufficiently many photons circulates to cavity 2 after a fixed time interval, and then to cavity 3 and back to 1. Cavity-state circulation arises from topologically protected chiral boundary states in the associated photon lattice and is thus robust to perturbation. We compute the circulation period in the semi-classical limit, demonstrate that circulation persists for time-scales diverging with the total photon number, and provide a Floquet protocol to engineer the desired Hamiltonian. Superconducting qubits offer an ideal platform to build and test these devices in the near term.
Mesoscopic superposition states of photons can be prepared in three cavities interacting with the same two-level atom. By periodically modulating the three cavity frequencies around the transition frequency of the atom with a 2π/3 phase difference, the time reversal symmetry is broken and an optical circulator is generated with chiralities depending on the quantum state of the atom. A superposition of the atomic states can guide photons from one cavity to a mesoscopic superposition of the other two cavities. The physics can be understood in a finite spin-orbit-coupled Fock-state lattice where the atom and the cavities carry the spin and the orbit degrees of freedom, respectively. This scheme can be realized in circuit QED architectures and provides a new platform for exploring quantum information and topological physics in novel lattices.
Perfect chiral circulation-the sequential transfer of a quantum state around a closed loop with unit fidelity-has been achieved in specific few-site systems, yet the universal physical conditions underlying this phenomenon remain unclear. We prove that discrete translational invariance and an equidistant energy spectrum together constitute the necessary and sufficient conditions for perfect chiral circulation. With this criterion established, an exact closed-form Hamiltonian valid for arbitrary NNN-site rings naturally follows. In the minimal three-site ring, we demonstrate two physically distinct realizations: Floquet engineering of a driven open chain that restores translational invariance by equalizing the couplings, and correlated doublon dynamics in an anyon-Hubbard model where fractional statistics intrinsically provide the chiral flux that renders the spectrum equidistant. Our results establish unified physical criteria for perfect chiral circulation and demonstrate their applicability across diverse platforms such as superconducting circuits, cold atoms, classical electrical circuits, and photonic synthetic dimensions.
The ability to route quantum states between arbitrary nodes in a multinode network is one of the many facets required to build future large-scale quantum computing devices. Quantum routing can be implemented based on chiral dynamics, while their related research stays in three-node networks. In this paper, we give the target Hamiltonian for realizing chiral dynamics in arbitrary NNN-node networks. Based on the derived Hamiltonian, we present key features of chiral state transfer in multinode spin and bosonic networks. For the realistic implementation of the required Hamiltonian, we propose a modulation scheme to generate the matched effective Floquet Hamiltonian. Furthermore, we numerically simulate the multinode chiral dynamics with realistic parameters in superconducting circuits, and the results clearly show multinode chiral state transfer. Our work provides a universal and fundamental framework for understanding chiral dynamics in multinode networks. These findings will stimulate quantum state transfer, quantum routing, and nonreciprocal circulators in multinode networks.
In this study, we explore the breaking of time-reversal symmetry in a scalable cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) lattice. Such a lattice consists of triangular cells of three cavities coupled to a two-level atom. We synthesize artificial magnetic fields to enable the chiral transfer of photons by sinusoidally modulating the cavity frequencies. Considering various configurations with different numbers of cells in the system, we analyze the circulation of photons and investigate the effect of the frequency modulation on the control of the state transfer in the system. We show the breaking and sustaining of time-reversal symmetry in certain system geometries and consider the scalability of the generating synthetic magnetic field in the system. Our study highlights the potential of scalable cavity QED lattices with synthetic magnetic fields as a versatile tool for investigating quantum phenomena and shows the utility of these systems to serve as test beds for the simulation of condensed matter systems in quantum optical settings.
The generation and control of quantum states of spatially-separated qubits distributed in different cavities constitute fundamental tasks in cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED). An interesting question in this context is how to prepare entanglement and realize quantum information transfer between qubits located at different cavities, which are important in large-scale quantum information processing. In this paper, we consider a physical system consisting of two cavities and three qubits. Two of the qubits are placed in two different cavities while the remaining one acts as a coupler, which is used to connect the two cavities. We propose an approach for generating quantum entanglement and implementing quantum information transfer between the two spatially-separated inter-cavity qubits. The quantum operations involved in this proposal are performed by a virtual photon process; thus the cavity decay is greatly suppressed during operations. In addition, to complete these tasks, only one coupler qubit and one operation step are needed. Moreover, there is no need to apply classical pulses, so that the engineering complexity is much reduced and the operation procedure is greatly simplified. Finally, our numerical results illustrate that high-fidelity implementation of this proposal using superconducting phase qubits and one-dimensional transmission line resonators is feasible for current circuit QED implementations. This proposal can also be applied to other types of superconducting qubits, including flux and charge qubits.
Superconducting qubits provide a competitive platform for quantum simulation of complex dynamics that lies at the heart of quantum many-body systems, because of the flexibility and scalability afforded by the nature of microfabrication. However, in a multiqubit device, the physical form of couplings between qubits is either an electric (capacitor) or magnetic field (inductor), and the associated quadratic field energy determines that only two-body interaction in the Hamiltonian can be directly realized. Here, we propose and experimentally synthesize a three-body spin-chirality interaction in a superconducting circuit based on Floquet engineering. By periodically modulating the resonant frequencies of the qubits connected with each other via capacitors, we can dynamically turn on and off qubit–qubit couplings and further create chiral flows of the excitations in the three-qubit circular loop. Our result is a step toward engineering dynamical and many-body interactions in multiqubit superconducting devices, which potentially expands the degree of freedom in quantum simulation tasks.