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arXiv:2510.12894

Probing Qubit Noise with a Channel-Resolved Post-Markovian Master Equation

Chun-Tse Li, J.G. Zhang C.L. Tan, Vasil Gucev, Lidar, Daniel A.

Published Oct 14, 2025• 0 citations
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Abstract

Accurate noise characterization is essential for scaling quantum processors toward fault-tolerant operation. Although reduced qubit dynamics are often modeled with Markovian master equations, present-day devices can exhibit memory effects generated by residual qubit-qubit couplings, structured environments, and finite bath correlation times. Here we develop a channel-resolved, Post-Markovian Master Equation model for non-Markovian noise and test it in superconducting qubits. Using idle-evolution tomography on IBM Quantum processors, we identify complementary operational signatures of non-Markovianity, including violations of CP-divisibility and revivals of distinguishability-based information-backflow measures. We further derive a closed-form spectator-$ZZ$ model with local dissipation and show that it captures the observed transverse Bloch-vector revivals while leaving the longitudinal relaxation mode Markovian within the model. The fitted closed-form dynamics enable an analytical reconstruction of the transverse memory kernel, whose damped oscillatory structure captures the non-Markovian correction beyond the fitted Markovian baseline. Two-qubit tomography shows buildup and revivals of quantum mutual information on comparable timescales, supporting spectator-induced crosstalk as an important contributor to the observed memory effects. Our results connect operational non-Markovianity diagnostics, microscopic crosstalk modeling, and reduced memory-kernel reconstruction in a single experimental framework for superconducting quantum hardware.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2510.12894

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Accurate noise characterization is essential for scaling quantum processors toward fault-tolerant operation. Although reduced qubit dynamics are often modeled with Markovian master equations, present-day devices can exhibit memory effects generated by residual qubit-qubit couplings, structured environments, and finite bath correlation times. Here we develop a channel-resolved, Post-Markovian Master Equation model for non-Markovian noise and test it in superconducting qubits. Using idle-evolution tomography on IBM Quantum processors, we identify complementary operational signatures of non-Markovianity, including violations of CP-divisibility and revivals of distinguishability-based information-backflow measures. We further derive a closed-form spectator-ZZZZZZ model with local dissipation and show that it captures the observed transverse Bloch-vector revivals while leaving the longitudinal relaxation mode Markovian within the model. The fitted closed-form dynamics enable an analytical reconstruction of the transverse memory kernel, whose damped oscillatory structure captures the non-Markovian correction beyond the fitted Markovian baseline. Two-qubit tomography shows buildup and revivals of quantum mutual information on comparable timescales, supporting spectator-induced crosstalk as an important contributor to the observed memory effects. Our results connect operational non-Markovianity diagnostics, microscopic crosstalk modeling, and reduced memory-kernel reconstruction in a single experimental framework for superconducting quantum hardware.
Non-Markovian noise presents a particularly relevant challenge in understanding and combating decoherence in quantum computers, yet is challenging to capture in terms of simple models. Here we show that a simple phenomenological dynamical model known as the post-Markovian master equation (PMME) accurately captures and predicts non-Markovian noise in a superconducting qubit system. The PMME is constructed using experimentally measured state dynamics of an IBM Quantum Experience cloud-based quantum processor, and the model thus constructed successfully predicts the non-Markovian dynamics observed in later experiments. The model also allows the extraction of information about crosstalk and measures of non-Markovianity. We demonstrate definitively that the PMME model predicts subsequent dynamics of the processor better than the standard Markovian master equation.
We describe temporally correlated noise processes that influence the idle evolution of a superconducting transmon qubit. To model the composite qubit-environment system we use quantum circuit theory, and we show how a circuit Hamiltonian can be derived for transverse noise affecting the qubit. Based on the time-convolutionless projection operator method, we construct a time-local master equation which, when transformed to its canonical Lindblad form, exhibits a decay rate that is negative at all times, corresponding to eternally non-Markovian dynamics. By expressing the solution of the master equation in the Kraus representation, we identify two crucial non-Markovian phenomena: periodic revivals of coherence, and the appearance of additional frequencies far from the qubit frequency in the precession of the qubit state. When a single qubit gate acts on the qubit state, these extra frequency terms rotate undesirably and they effectively act as the memory of the state prior to the rotation around the Bloch sphere.
As progress is made towards the first generation of error-corrected quantum computers, robust characterization and validation protocols are required to assess the noise environments of physical quantum processors. While standard coherence metrics and characterization protocols such as T1{T}_{1}T1​ and T2{T}_{2}T2​, process tomography, and randomized benchmarking are now ubiquitous, these techniques provide only partial information about the dynamic multiqubit loss channels responsible for processor errors, which can be described more fully by a Lindblad operator in the master equation formalism. Here, we introduce and experimentally demonstrate Lindblad tomography, a hardware-agnostic characterization protocol for tomographically reconstructing the Hamiltonian and Lindblad operators of a quantum noise environment from an ensemble of time-domain measurements. Performing Lindblad tomography on a small superconducting quantum processor, we show that this technique naturally builds on standard process tomography and T1/T2{T}_{1}/{T}_{2}T1​/T2​ measurement protocols, characterizes and accounts for state-preparation and measurement errors, and allows one to place bounds on the fit to a Markovian model. Comparing the results of single- and two-qubit measurements on a superconducting quantum processor, we demonstrate that Lindblad tomography can also be used to identify and quantify sources of crosstalk on quantum processors, such as the presence of always-on qubit-qubit interactions.
ABSTRACT Environmental noise is harmful to quantum technologies, but structured environments can temporarily store and return information, producing useful memory effects. We study this mechanism in a microscopic qubit pseudomode model, where a qubit couples to a single damped mode. Although the enlarged qubit–pseudomode dynamics is Markovian, the reduced qubit channel crosses from CP‐divisible‐like to CP‐indivisible‐like regimes as the coupling , damping , and detuning are varied. Using a trace‐distance backflow proxy together with the amplitude‐damping CP‐divisibility criterion, equivalently Choi positivity of intermediate maps, we construct a finite‐window memory map. The backflow proxy is a restricted diagnostic based on selected state pairs, not a faithful estimate of the optimized BLP measure. This map organizes two task‐level benchmarks. In hybrid qubit–qutrit transmission, we use an established RHP‐type entanglement‐revival benchmark; the qutrit is only a passive embedded reference, and qubit–qubit checks confirm channel‐level revivals. In detuning metrology, the quantum Fisher information provides multiple interrogation windows under a time‐budgeted two‐time protocol with the same channel uses as a single‐time baseline. The protocol assumes ideal fresh environments with no reset‐time cost. Overall, the results link pseudomode memory to entanglement preservation and parameter estimation without claiming a full resource theory.
Non-Markovian noise can be a significant source of errors in superconducting qubits. We develop gate sequences utilising mirrored pseudoidentities that allow us to characterise and model the effects of non-Markovian noise on both idle and driven qubits. We compare three approaches to modelling the observed noise: (i) a Markovian noise model, (ii) a model including interactions with a two-level system (TLS), (iii) a model utilising the post Markovian master equation (PMME), which we show to be equivalent to the qubit-TLS model in certain regimes. When running our noise characterisation circuits on a superconducting qubit device we find that purely Markovian noise models cannot reproduce the experimental data. Our model based on a qubit-TLS interaction, on the other hand, is able to closely capture the observed experimental behaviour for both idle and driven qubits. We investigate the stability of the noise properties of the hardware over time, and find that the parameter governing the qubit-TLS interaction strength fluctuates significantly even over short time-scales of a few minutes. Finally, we evaluate the changes in the noise parameters when increasing the qubit drive pulse amplitude. We find that although the hardware noise parameters fluctuate significantly over different days, their drive pulse induced relative variation is rather well defined within computed uncertainties: both the phase error and the qubit-TLS interaction strength change significantly with the pulse strength, with the phase error changing quadratically with the amplitude of the applied pulse. Since our noise model can closely describe the behaviour of idle and driven qubits, it is ideally suited to be used in the development of quantum error mitigation and correction methods.
Abstract Non-Markovian noise can be a significant source of errors in superconducting qubits. We develop gate sequences utilising mirrored pseudoidentities that allow us to characterise and model the effects of non-Markovian noise on both idle and driven qubits. We compare three approaches to modelling the observed noise: (i) a Markovian noise model, (ii) a model including interactions with a two-level system (TLS), (iii) a model utilising the post Markovian master equation, which we show to be equivalent to the qubit-TLS model in certain regimes. When running our noise characterisation circuits on a superconducting qubit device we find that purely Markovian noise models cannot reproduce the experimental data. Our model based on a qubit-TLS interaction, on the other hand, is able to closely capture the observed experimental behaviour for both idle and driven qubits. We investigate the stability of the noise properties of the hardware over time, and find that the parameter governing the qubit-TLS interaction strength fluctuates significantly even over short time-scales of a few minutes. Finally, we evaluate the changes in the noise parameters when increasing the qubit drive pulse amplitude. We find that although the hardware noise parameters fluctuate significantly over different days, their drive pulse induced relative variation is rather well defined within computed uncertainties: both the phase error and the qubit-TLS interaction strength change significantly with the pulse strength, with the phase error changing quadratically with the amplitude of the applied pulse. Since our noise model can closely describe the behaviour of idle and driven qubits, it is ideally suited to be used in the development of quantum error mitigation and correction methods.