We propose a general method to characterize classical stochastic noise causing qubit dephasing through repetitive Ramsey interferometry measurements (RIMs) on the qubit. Compared to filter-function-based spectroscopy, our method with simpler pulse control is less constrained by probe coherence time and can directly detect arbitrary-order correlation functions of quasistatic noise processes. We show that each RIM with a short evolution time and suitably chosen control pulses directly samples the noise field and the
n-point correlations of the RIM outcomes are proportional to the
n-point correlation functions of the noise processes. We demonstrate the method numerically for two representative cases: an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck Gaussian process and a non-Gaussian ensemble of two-level fluctuators. While practical constraints such as readout contrast and sampling cost persist, our method offers a direct route to quasistatic classical noise spectroscopy across diverse platforms.
A better understanding of the noise causing qubit decoherence is crucial for improving qubit performance. The noise spectrum affecting the qubit may be extracted by measuring dephasing under the application of pulse sequences but requires accurate qubit control and sufficiently long relaxation times, which are not always available. Here, we describe an alternative method to extract the spectrum from correlations of single-shot measurement outcomes of successive free induction decays. This method only requires qubit initialization and readout with a moderate fidelity and also allows independent tuning of both the overall sensitivity and the frequency region over which it is sensitive. Thus, it is possible to maintain a good detection contrast over a very wide frequency range. We discuss using our method for measuring both 1/f noise and the fluctuation spectrum of the nuclear bath of GaAs spin qubits.
We introduce Single-Shot Cross-Spectroscopy (SSCS), a method for extracting the auto- and cross-power spectral densities of dephasing noise in a qubit pair. The method uses straightforward input, namely, single-shot readouts from single-qubit Ramsey-type experiments, without requiring the reconstruction of qubit energy fluctuations from repeated measurements, and is resilient against errors in state preparation and measurement. We apply it to experimental data from a semiconductor spin-qubit device and obtain noise spectra over five orders of magnitude in frequency (5 mHz–500 Hz). Compared to other techniques, for spin qubits, SSCS enables access to noise correlations in the previously inaccessible intermediate-frequency range (1–500 Hz), and can be further extended with faster readout. The method is directly applicable to other qubit platforms, and the upper frequency it can probe is set by the repetition rate of a single-qubit preparation and measurement.
Qubit noise spectroscopy is an important tool for the experimental investigation of open quantum systems. However, conventional techniques for noise spectroscopy are time-consuming, because they require measurements of the noise spectral density at many different frequencies. Here we describe an alternative approach to noise spectroscopy, which requires fewer resources, and relies on direct measurement of arbitrary linear functionals of the noise spectral density. This method uses random pulse sequences with carefully controlled correlations, which are chosen using algorithms for phase retrieval. These measurements allow us to reconstruct sparse noise spectra via compressed sensing. Our simulations of the performance of the random pulse sequences on a realistic physical system, self-assembled quantum dots, reveal a speedup of an order of magnitude in extracting the noise spectrum, compared to conventional dynamical decoupling approaches.
We report a direct measurement of the low-frequency noise spectrum in a superconducting flux qubit. Our method uses the noise sensitivity of a free-induction Ramsey interference experiment, comprising free evolution in the presence of noise for a fixed period of time followed by single-shot qubit-state measurement. Repeating this procedure enables Fourier-transform noise spectroscopy with access to frequencies up to the achievable repetition rate, a regime relevant to dephasing in ensemble-averaged time-domain measurements such as Ramsey interferometry. Rotating the qubit's quantization axis allows us to measure two types of noise: effective flux noise and effective critical-current or charge noise. For both noise sources, we observe that the very same
1/f-type power laws measured at considerably higher frequencies ($0.2\ensuremath{-}20$ MHz) are consistent with the noise in the $0.01\ensuremath{-}100$-Hz range measured here. We find no evidence of temperature dependence of the noises over $65\ensuremath{-}200$ mK, and also no evidence of time-domain correlations between the two noises. These methods and results are pertinent to the dephasing of all superconducting qubits.
A qubit suffers decoherence when coupled to a classical or quantum environment, and characterizing the qubit decoherence process is vital in quantum technologies. Repetitive Ramsey interferometry measurements (RIMs) are often used to measure qubit coherence, assuming that the environment remains unaffected after each measurement and the outcomes of all measurements are independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.). While this assumption is valid for a classical environment, it may not hold for a quantum environment due to the non-negligible backaction from qubit to environment, especially when the environment has a memory time much longer than the duration of each RIM cycle. Here, we present a general theoretical framework to incorporate the measurement backaction from qubit to environment in sequential RIMs. We show that a RIM of a qubit induces a quantum channel on the quantum environment, and sequential RIMs gradually steer the quantum environment to the fixed points of the channel. We reveal three distinct environment steering effects---polarization, depolarization, and metastable polarization, depending on the commutativity of the noise operator
B and the free environment Hamiltonian
He: (1) If
B commutes with
He, i.e.,
[B,He]=0, the quantum environment is gradually polarized to different eigenstates of
B as the number
m of repetitive RIMs increases; (2) when $[B,{H}_{e}]\ensuremath{\ne}0$, the quantum environment is gradually depolarized to a maximally mixed state of its whole Hilbert space or a Hilbert subspace; (3) when $[B,{H}_{e}]\ensuremath{\ne}0$ but one of
He and
B is a small perturbation on the other, metastable polarization can happen, such that the quantum environment is first polarized for a finite range of
m but becomes gradually depolarized as
m increases further. The environment steering also makes the measurement statistics of sequential RIMs develop non-i.i.d. features, such that the measurement result distribution can display multiple peaks for a small quantum environment, corresponding to different fixed points of the quantum channel. Realistic examples of central spin models are presented to demonstrate the measurement statistics and environment steering effects. Our paper not only elucidates the measurement backaction and statistics of repetitive qubit coherence measurements, but is also useful for designing protocols to engineer the state or dynamics of a quantum environment with a qubit ancilla.