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arXiv:2602.19222 · Physica Scripta

Ion-atom two-qubit quantum gate based on phonon blockade

Subhra Mudli, Bimalendu Deb

quant-phSubmitted Feb 22, 2026• Announced Feb 24, 2026• 0 citations
v1 · Feb 22, 2026v2 · May 9, 2026v3 · May 23, 2026
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Abstract

In a previous paper [S. Mudli {\it et al.} Phys. Rev. A 110, 062618 (2024)], it was shown that a trapped ion can mediate interaction between two largely separated Rydberg atoms, and this mediated interaction can be leveraged to perform a universal two-qubit gate operation between neutral atom qubits in optical tweezers. In this paper, we demonstrate the universal two-qubit CNOT gate with high fidelity between an ionic and an atomic qubit relying on Rydberg excitation of the atom and the resulting phonon blockade in the motional states of the harmonically trapped ion. The phonon blockade arises due to strong ion-atom interaction when the atom is excited to a Rydberg state. These demonstrations suggest that an ion-atom hybrid system can serve as a resourceful platform or module for quantum computing and quantum networking as it can utilize the best features of charged as well as neutral atom qubits.

Journal reference
Phys. Scr. 101, 215105 (2026)
DOI
10.1088/1402-4896/ae6bd9

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In a previous paper [S. Mudli {\it et al.} Phys. Rev. A 110, 062618 (2024)], it was shown that a trapped ion can mediate interaction between two largely separated Rydberg atoms, and this mediated interaction can be leveraged to perform a universal two-qubit gate operation between neutral atom qubits in optical tweezers. In this paper, we demonstrate the universal two-qubit CNOT gate with high fidelity between an ionic and an atomic qubit relying on Rydberg excitation of the atom and the resulting phonon blockade in the motional states of the harmonically trapped ion. The phonon blockade arises due to strong ion-atom interaction when the atom is excited to a Rydberg state. These demonstrations suggest that an ion-atom hybrid system can serve as a resourceful platform or module for quantum computing and quantum networking as it can utilize the best features of charged as well as neutral atom qubits.
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We propose a toy model of ion-atom hybrid quantum system for quantum computing. We show that when two atomic qubits in two largely separated optical tweezers interact with a single trapped ion through Rydberg excitation of the atoms, there exists an ion-mediated atom-atom interaction which exceeds the direct interatomic interaction at large separation. We employ this mediated interaction to demonstrate a two-qubit control phase-gate operation with 97% fidelity by addressing the individual atomic qubits with lasers.
A neutral-atom system serves as a promising platform for realizing gate-based quantum computing because of its capability to trap and control several atomic qubits in different geometries and the ability to perform strong, long-range interactions between qubits; however, the two-qubit entangling gate fidelity lags behind competing platforms such as superconducting systems and trapped ions. The aim of our work is to design a fast, robust, high-fidelity controlled-ZZZ (cz) gate, based on the Rydberg-blockade mechanism, for neutral atoms. We propose a gate procedure that relies on simultaneous and transitionless quantum driving of a pair of atoms using broadband lasers. By simulating a system of two interacting cesium atoms, including spontaneous emission from excited levels and parameter fluctuations, we yield a Rydberg-blockade cz gate with fidelity 0.9985 over an operation time of $0.12\phantom{\rule{3.33333pt}{0ex}}\mathrm{\textmu{}s}$. Our gate procedure delivers cz gates that are superior than the state-of-the-art experimental cz gate and the simulated cz gates based on adiabatic driving of atoms. Our results show that our gate procedure carries significant potential for achieving scalable quantum computing using neutral atoms.
We theoretically investigate the possibility of creating phonon-mediated spin-spin interactions between neutral atoms trapped in optical tweezers. By laser coupling the atoms to Rydberg states, collective modes of motion appear. We show that these can be used to mediate effective spin-spin interactions or quantum logic gates between the atoms in analogy to schemes employed in trapped ions. In particular, we employ Rydberg dressing in a novel scheme to induce the needed interaction, and we show that it is possible to replicate the working of the Mølmer-Sørensen entanglement scheme. The Mølmer-Sørensen gate is widely used in emerging quantum computers using trapped ion qubits and currently features some of the highest fidelities of any quantum gate under consideration. We find arbitrarily high fidelity for the coherent time evolution of the two-atom state even at non-zero temperature.
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We present the first demonstration of a CNOT gate between two individually addressed neutral atoms. Our implementation of the CNOT uses Rydberg blockade interactions between neutral atoms held in optical traps separated by >8 microm. Using two different gate protocols we measure CNOT fidelities of F=0.73 and 0.72 based on truth table probabilities. The gate was used to generate Bell states with fidelity F=0.48+/-0.06. After correcting for atom loss we obtain an a posteriori entanglement fidelity of F=0.58.