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Adiabatic population transfer methods in performing Quantum Computations and their application with Femtosecond Pulses

Cian Menzel-Jones

Published Jan 1, 2011• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

This thesis is based upon the work published in the following two articles entitled: Robust Operation of a Universal Set of Logic Gates for Quantum Computation using Adiabatic Population Transfer between Molecular Levels [37], and Piecewise Adiabatic Passage with a Series of Femtosecond Pulses [54]. Both papers involve using the concept of a quantum control phenomenon, known as adiabatic passage in different manners, in order to achieve particular goals. In the first paper we present a robust construction of a set of logic gates operating on a system of qubits encoded in the ro-vibrational eigenstates of an Na₂ molecule using the optical Adiabatic Population Transfer (APT) method. We demonstrate the operation of a complete universal gate-set for quantum computation on a two-qubit system with gate fidelities approaching 99.99%. Like other APT-based processes, the method is robust against substantial fluctuations in the intensity of the laser pulse. Our construction is easily scalable to dealing with a larger number of qubits. The second line of research developed from the desire to merge the robustness of an adiabatic process, as presented in the previous paper, with the speed and additional level of control available by using pulse shaping techniques of broadband pulses. Therein we develop a method of executing complete population transfers between quantum states in a piecewise manner using a series of femtosecond laser pulses. The method can be applied to a large class of problems as it benefits from the high peak powers and large spectral bandwidths afforded by femtosecond pulses. The degree of population transfer is found to be robust to a wide variation in the absolute and relative intensities, durations, and time ordering of the pulses. The method is studied in detail for atomic sodium where piecewise adiabatic population transfer, as well as the induction of Ramsey-type interferences, is demonstrated.

DOI
10.14288/1.0084934

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This thesis is based upon the work published in the following two articles entitled: Robust Operation of a Universal Set of Logic Gates for Quantum Computation using Adiabatic Population Transfer between Molecular Levels [37], and Piecewise Adiabatic Passage with a Series of Femtosecond Pulses [54]. Both papers involve using the concept of a quantum control phenomenon, known as adiabatic passage in different manners, in order to achieve particular goals. In the first paper we present a robust construction of a set of logic gates operating on a system of qubits encoded in the ro-vibrational eigenstates of an Na₂ molecule using the optical Adiabatic Population Transfer (APT) method. We demonstrate the operation of a complete universal gate-set for quantum computation on a two-qubit system with gate fidelities approaching 99.99%. Like other APT-based processes, the method is robust against substantial fluctuations in the intensity of the laser pulse. Our construction is easily scalable to dealing with a larger number of qubits. The second line of research developed from the desire to merge the robustness of an adiabatic process, as presented in the previous paper, with the speed and additional level of control available by using pulse shaping techniques of broadband pulses. Therein we develop a method of executing complete population transfers between quantum states in a piecewise manner using a series of femtosecond laser pulses. The method can be applied to a large class of problems as it benefits from the high peak powers and large spectral bandwidths afforded by femtosecond pulses. The degree of population transfer is found to be robust to a wide variation in the absolute and relative intensities, durations, and time ordering of the pulses. The method is studied in detail for atomic sodium where piecewise adiabatic population transfer, as well as the induction of Ramsey-type interferences, is demonstrated.
We develop a method of executing complete population transfers between quantum states in a piecewise manner using a series of femtosecond laser pulses. The method can be applied to a large class of problems as it benefits from the high peak powers and large spectral bandwidths afforded by femtosecond pulses. The degree of population transfer is robust to a wide variation in the absolute and relative intensities, durations, and time ordering of the pulses. The method is studied in detail for atomic sodium where piecewise adiabatic population transfer, as well as the induction of Ramsey-type interferences, is demonstrated.
We present a robust construction of a set of logic gates operating on a system of qubits encoded in the rovibrational eigenstates of an Na2{\mathrm{Na}}_{2}Na2​ molecule using the optical adiabatic population transfer (APT) phenomenon. We demonstrate the operation of a complete universal gate set for quantum computation on a two-qubit system with gate fidelities approaching 99.99%. Like other APT-based processes, the method is robust against substantial fluctuations in the intensity of the laser pulse. Our construction is easily scalable to deal with a larger number of qubits. With the aid of the set of gates thus shown we may construct pulse sequences for a wide class of quantum logic operations. We also show how to produce a representation of Bell states from a representation of product states with essentially perfect fidelity. Our scheme can be realized in all diatomic and polyatomic molecules that possess easily accessible and well characterized excited electronic states.
We propose and experimentally demonstrate the method of population transfer by piecewise adiabatic passage between two quantum states. Coherent excitation of a two-level system with a train of ultrashort laser pulses is shown to reproduce the effect of an adiabatic passage, conventionally achieved with a single frequency-chirped pulse. By properly adjusting the amplitudes and phases of the pulses in the excitation pulse train, we achieve complete and robust population transfer to the target state. The piecewise nature of the process suggests a possibility for the selective population transfer in complex quantum systems.
The main goal of this PhD work is an experimental study of coherent excitation of atomic and molecular wavepackets, i.e. superpositions of many quantum eigenstates, by shaped femtosecond pulses. Approaches allowing nearly complete population transfer between quantum eigenstates were well studied in the past within the two level approximation. In this work we focus on adiabatic and non-adiabatic methods of population transfer beyond the two-level approximation. Excitation of multi-level target states is possible due to broad spectrum of an ultrashort pulse which contains frequencies needed for multiple transitions to different states in the final superposition. At the same time, the spectrum of an ultrashort pulse can be modified, or ``shaped'', in order to affect the excitation process and control the amplitudes in the final superposition. Both non-adiabatic and quasi-adiabatic methods were first implemented and studied in electronic wavepackets in alkali atoms. The non-adiabatic approach revealed features linked to the strong-field perturbations of the energy level structure of the quantum system. An adiabatic method was implemented for the first time on a femtosecond time scale, and was thoroughly characterized. The control over complex amplitudes in the target superposition was demonstrated as well as completeness of the population transfer. In the second part of this work, we focused on coherent control of rotational wavepackets in diatomic molecules. Rotational excitation by a periodic train of femtosecond pulses was investigated in the context of ``delta-kicked'' rotor - a paradigm system for studying quantum chaos, and the effect of quantum resonance was demonstrated for the first time in a system of true quantum rotors. Control of uni-directional molecular rotation was proposed and demonstrated with a novel ``chiral pulse train'' - a sequence of femtosecond pulses with polarization rotating from pulse to pulse by a predefined angle. All the developed techniques offer new tools in coherent control of atomic and molecular wavepackets on an ultrashort time scale.
We demonstrate a method of adiabatic population transfer from a single quantum state into a coherent superposition of states. The transfer is executed with femtosecond pulses, spectrally shaped in a simple and intuitive manner, which does not require iterative feedback-controlled loops. In contrast to nonadiabatic methods of excitation, our approach is not sensitive to the exact value of laser intensity. We show that the population transfer is complete, and analyze the possibility of controlling the relative phases and amplitudes of the excited eigenstates. We discuss the limitations of the proposed control methods due to the dynamic level shifts and suggest ways of reducing their influence.
We develop a method for executing robust and selective transfer of populations between a single level and preselected superpositions of energy eigenstates. Viewed in the frequency domain, our method amounts to executing a series of simultaneous adiabatic passages into each component of the target superposition state. Viewed in the time domain, the method works by accumulating the wave function of the target wave packet as it revisits the transition region, in what amounts to an extension of the piecewise adiabatic passage technique [E. A. Shapiro et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 033002 (2007)] to the multistate regime. The viability of the method is verified by performing numerical tests for the Na2{\text{Na}}_{2}Na2​ molecule.