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arXiv:2512.19545

$W$- and Dicke-state engineering using optimal global control in nearest-neighbor coupled ring-shaped qubit arrays

Andrea Muratori, Vladimir M. Stojanovic, Eloisa Cuestas, Tommaso Calarco, Felix Motzoi

quant-phSubmitted Dec 22, 2025• Announced Dec 23, 2025• 0 citations
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Abstract

Motivated by a compelling need for time-efficient and robust schemes for quantum-state engineering in systems of neutral atoms in optical tweezers, we consider a ring-shaped array of qubits with nearest-neighbor Ising-type ($zz$) coupling and transverse ($x$ and $y$) global control fields. This system to a large extent mimics -- outside of the Rydberg-blockade regime -- a circular array of neutral atoms interacting through van-der-Waals type interaction. We investigate the preparation of $W$ and Dicke states in this system starting from the default initial state $|00\ldots 0\rangle$ using two different optimal-control approaches: (i) NMR-like pulse sequence, which consists of instantaneous (delta-shaped) control- and Ising-interaction pulses, and (ii) time-dependent control scheme, which entails shaped control pulses in the presence of always-on Ising interaction between adjacent qubits. By making use of the underlying dihedral symmetry of this system -- which allows one to use a symmetry-adapted computational basis with $\mathcal{O}(2^N / N)$ states in an $N$-qubit system -- and utilizing advanced global-optimization methods, we find optimal sequences of pulses for realizing $W$ and Dicke states within both approaches. In addition, we demonstrate robustness of these sequences against unavoidable control errors. Finally, using typical values of parameters in realistic Rydberg-atom systems, we show that our control schemes enable the preparation of the desired multiqubit states on time scales much shorter than the relevant coherence times of those systems.

Comments
18 pages, 16 figures

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WWW- and Dicke-state engineering using optimal global control in nearest-neighbor coupled ring-shaped qubit arrays
Motivated by a compelling need for time-efficient and robust schemes for quantum-state engineering in systems of neutral atoms in optical tweezers, we consider a ring-shaped array of qubits with nearest-neighbor Ising-type (zzzzzz) coupling and transverse (xxx and yyy) global control fields. This system to a large extent mimics -- outside of the Rydberg-blockade regime -- a circular array of neutral atoms interacting through van-der-Waals type interaction. We investigate the preparation of WWW and Dicke states in this system starting from the default initial state ∣00…0⟩|00\ldots 0\rangle∣00…0⟩ using two different optimal-control approaches: (i) NMR-like pulse sequence, which consists of instantaneous (delta-shaped) control- and Ising-interaction pulses, and (ii) time-dependent control scheme, which entails shaped control pulses in the presence of always-on Ising interaction between adjacent qubits. By making use of the underlying dihedral symmetry of this system -- which allows one to use a symmetry-adapted computational basis with O(2N/N)\mathcal{O}(2^N / N)O(2N/N) states in an NNN-qubit system -- and utilizing advanced global-optimization methods, we find optimal sequences of pulses for realizing WWW and Dicke states within both approaches. In addition, we demonstrate robustness of these sequences against unavoidable control errors. Finally, using typical values of parameters in realistic Rydberg-atom systems, we show that our control schemes enable the preparation of the desired multiqubit states on time scales much shorter than the relevant coherence times of those systems.
We consider the problem of engineering the two-excitation Dicke state $|{D}_{2}^{3}\ensuremath{\rangle}$ in a three-qubit system with all-to-all Ising-type qubit-qubit interaction, which is also subject to global transverse (Zeeman-type) control fields. The theoretical underpinning for our envisioned state-preparation scheme, in which $|000\ensuremath{\rangle}$ is adopted as the initial state of the system, is provided by a Lie-algebraic result that guarantees state-to-state controllability of this system for an arbitrary choice of initial and final states that are invariant with respect to permutations of qubits. This scheme is envisaged in the form of a pulse sequence that involves three instantaneous control pulses, which are equivalent to global qubit rotations, and two Ising-interaction pulses of finite durations between consecutive control pulses. The design of this pulse sequence (whose total duration is $T\ensuremath{\approx}0.95\phantom{\rule{0.222222em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\hbar}/J$, where JJJ is the Ising-coupling strength) leans heavily on the concept of the symmetric sector, a four-dimensional, permutationally invariant subspace of the three-qubit Hilbert space. We demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed state-preparation scheme by carrying out a detailed numerical analysis of its robustness to systematic errors, i.e., deviations from the optimal values of the eight parameters that characterize the underlying pulse sequence. Finally, we discuss how our proposed scheme can be generalized for engineering Dicke states in systems with $N\ensuremath{\ge}4$ qubits. For the sake of illustration, we describe the preparation of the two-excitation Dicke state $|{D}_{2}^{4}\ensuremath{\rangle}$ in a four-qubit system.
We explore the feasibility of realizing Dicke states in qubit arrays with always-on isotropic Heisenberg coupling between adjacent qubits, assuming a single Zeeman-type control acting in the zzz direction on an actuator qubit. The Lie-algebraic criteria of controllability imply that such an array is not completely controllable, but satisfies the conditions for subspace controllability on any subspace with a fixed number of excitations. Therefore, a qubit array described by the model under consideration is state-to-state controllable for an arbitrary choice of initial and final states that have the same Hamming weight. This limited controllability is exploited here for the time-efficient dynamical generation of an aaa-excitation Dicke state ∣DaN⟩|D^{N}_{a}\rangle∣DaN​⟩ (a=1,2,…,N−1a=1,2,\ldots, N-1a=1,2,…,N−1) in a linear array with NNN qubits starting from a generic Hamming-weight-aaa product state. To dynamically generate the desired Dicke states -- including WWW states ∣WN⟩|W_{N}\rangle∣WN​⟩ as their special (a=1a=1a=1) case -- in the shortest possible time with a single local ZZZ control, we employ an optimal-control scheme based on the {\em dressed chopped random basis} (dCRAB) algorithm. We optimize the target-state fidelity over the expansion coefficients of smoothly-varying control fields in a truncated random Fourier basis; this is done by combining Nelder-Mead-type local optimizations with the multistart-based clustering algorithm that facilitates searches for global extrema. In this manner, we obtain the optimal control fields for Dicke-state preparation in arrays with up to 999 qubits. Based on our numerical results, we find that the shortest possible state-preparation times scale as O(N2.08)\mathcal{O}(N^{2.08})O(N2.08) for WWW states and O(N1.78)\mathcal{O}(N^{1.78})O(N1.78) for a=2a=2a=2 Dicke states.
We present a quantum optimal control protocol to generate highly spin-squeezed states in Rydberg atom arrays coupled via Ising-type van der Waals interactions. Using gradient-based optimization techniques, we construct time-dependent pulse sequences that steer an initial product state toward highly entangled, spin-squeezed states with predefined magnetization and squeezing axes. We focus on the Wineland parameter ${\ensuremath{\xi}}_{W}^{2}$ to measure spin squeezing, and our approach achieves near-optimal spin squeezing in one-dimensional ring arrays of up to N=8N=8N=8 spins, significantly outperforming conventional quench dynamics for all system sizes studied. Remarkably, optimized pulse sequences can be directly scaled to larger arrays without additional optimization, achieving a squeezing parameter as low as ${\ensuremath{\xi}}_{W}^{2}=0.227$ in systems containing N=50N=50N=50 spins. This work demonstrates the potential of quantum optimal control methods for preparing highly spin-squeezed states, opening pathways to enhanced quantum metrology.
The ability to engineer and control quantum states of many-body systems is a central challenge in quantum information science. For a register of NNN qubits, the full Hilbert space dimension grows exponentially as 2N2^N2N, rendering generic state preparation and control infeasible without exploiting structure or symmetry. A particularly important and physically motivated restriction is to the fully symmetric subspace, spanned by the Dicke states, which are simultaneous eigenstates of collective spin J=N/2J=N/2J=N/2. Ensembles of Rydberg atoms interacting via electric dipoles in two-dimensional tweezer arrays form a promising platform for achieving such control. However, the finite range of dipole-dipole interactions poses a challenge to generating and controlling the Dicke manifold because the Hamiltonian incurs leakage from the computational subspace. To counteract this leakage, we perform quantum optimal control algorithms on a truncated Hilbert space according to our newly developed method of ``irrep distillation'' (IRD), which captures the process by which the symmetric subspace couples to leakage error-spaces, using only linear-scaling Hilbert dimension. We implement gradient ascent pulse engineering (GrAPE) on control schemes with little or no local addressing, to generate resourceful states like Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger, Dicke, and extremal quantum states. We benchmark each scheme of IRD-GrAPE for its quantum speed limit (QSL), as well as exactly testing pulse fidelities on small system sizes and predicting fidelities using higher-order IRD on larger systems.
Interconversions of WWW and Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states in various physical systems have recently been attracting considerable attention. We address this problem in the fairly general physical setting of qubit arrays with long-ranged (all-to-all) Ising-type qubit-qubit interaction, which are simultaneously acted upon by transverse Zeeman-type global control fields. Motivated in part by a recent Lie-algebraic result that implies state-to-state controllability of such a system for an arbitrary pair of states that are invariant with respect to qubit permutations, we present a detailed investigation of the state-interconversion problem in the three-qubit case. The envisioned interconversion protocol has the form of a pulse sequence that consists of two instantaneous ($\ensuremath{\delta}$-shaped) control pulses, each of them corresponding to a global qubit rotation, and an Ising-interaction pulse of finite duration between them. Its construction relies heavily on the use of the (four-dimensional) permutation-invariant subspace (symmetric sector) of the three-qubit Hilbert space. In order to demonstrate the viability of the proposed state-interconversion scheme, we provide a detailed analysis of the robustness of the underlying pulse sequence to systematic errors, i.e., deviations from the optimal values of its five characteristic parameters.
Generating entanglement between two Rydberg atoms is at the core of neutral-atom quantum computers. Current two-qubit gates operate in the Rydberg-blockade regime, in which the full strength of the van der Waals interaction between the two Rydberg atoms is not directly exploited, to avoid sensitivity to the position noise of the tweezer-trapped atoms, at the cost of a longer time spent in the Rydberg state. Here, we propose a set of techniques based on coherent control of the atomic motion obtained by combining optical tweezers and a two-dimensional optical lattice, and a sequence of multiple on/off pulses. The protocols keep the two-qubit gate error contribution from position noise below 10−410^{-4}10−4, heat the atom by less than~Δn=0.01Δn = 0.01Δn=0.01, while being robust to alignment errors of the potential up to 505050~nm and thermal excitation up to nˉ=3\bar{n} = 3nˉ=3. This toolbox opens the path for new two-qubit Rydberg gates directly, or partially, driven by the interaction, in which the atoms spend only ∼10\sim 10∼10~ns in the Rydberg state, minimizing the increasingly dominant error source originating from its finite lifetime.