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Noise Filtering in Quantum Information

Todd J. Green

Published Oct 14, 2016• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

We present novel techniques for modelling and mitigating the effects of time-dependent noise created by interactions between a quantum system and its environment, and by errors in applied controls. Our scope encompasses quantum storage and nontrivial QIP tasks in both single- and multi-qubit systems, with a particular focus on control operations applied to trapped-ion qubits. The work begins with the introduction of a computationally efficient approach to characterizing the impact of time-dependent noise in single-qubit systems, in terms of the spectral characteristics of the noise and a set of generalized control filter functions. In conjunction with brute-force numerical simulation, we show that this novel analytical technique can used to model the evolution of a noisy single-qubit system subject to an arbitrary piecewise-constant control sequence, and to accurately predict the effects of experimentally engineered noise in single-qubit trapped ion systems. We also obtain a number of new and important results that extend the range of utility of state-preserving dynamical decoupling control sequences. These device-independent results provide a means to create a practically useful high-fidelity, long-time quantum memory in both single- and multi-qubit systems. We go on to explain how, given the freedom to arbitrarily and quasi-instantaneously change the phase of the interaction between a system of qubits and a finite collection of oscillators, frequency-specific phase modulation protocols can be implemented that decouple the qubits from targeted oscillator modes at pre-determined times. This technique can be used to generate fast, high-fidelity multi-qubit entangling operations in, for example, ion trap QIP devices.

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We present novel techniques for modelling and mitigating the effects of time-dependent noise created by interactions between a quantum system and its environment, and by errors in applied controls. Our scope encompasses quantum storage and nontrivial QIP tasks in both single- and multi-qubit systems, with a particular focus on control operations applied to trapped-ion qubits. The work begins with the introduction of a computationally efficient approach to characterizing the impact of time-dependent noise in single-qubit systems, in terms of the spectral characteristics of the noise and a set of generalized control filter functions. In conjunction with brute-force numerical simulation, we show that this novel analytical technique can used to model the evolution of a noisy single-qubit system subject to an arbitrary piecewise-constant control sequence, and to accurately predict the effects of experimentally engineered noise in single-qubit trapped ion systems. We also obtain a number of new and important results that extend the range of utility of state-preserving dynamical decoupling control sequences. These device-independent results provide a means to create a practically useful high-fidelity, long-time quantum memory in both single- and multi-qubit systems. We go on to explain how, given the freedom to arbitrarily and quasi-instantaneously change the phase of the interaction between a system of qubits and a finite collection of oscillators, frequency-specific phase modulation protocols can be implemented that decouple the qubits from targeted oscillator modes at pre-determined times. This technique can be used to generate fast, high-fidelity multi-qubit entangling operations in, for example, ion trap QIP devices.
Abstract. We address the problem of deriving analytic expressions for calculating universal decoherence-induced errors in qubits undergoing arbitrary, unitary, time-dependent quantum-control protocols. We show that the fidelity of a control operation may be expressed in terms of experimentally relevant spectral characteristics of the noise and of the control, over all Cartesian directions. We formulate control matrices in the time domain to capture the effects of piecewise-constant control, and convert them to generalized Fourier-domain filter functions. These generalized filter functions may be derived for complex temporally modulated control protocols, accounting for susceptibility to rotations of the qubit state vector in three dimensions. Taken together, we show that this framework provides a computationally efficient means to calculate the effects of universal noise on arbitrary quantum control protocols, producing results comparable to those obtained via time-consuming simulations of Bloch vector evolution. As a concrete example, we apply our method to treating the problem of dynamical decoupling incorporating realistic control pulses of arbitrary duration or form, including the replacement of simple pi-pulses with complex dynamically corrected gates. ar
The main obstacles to implementing ideal quantum operations are unwanted interactions of quantum systems with the environment and noise in control fields. This problem can be tackled by methods of quantum control. Among these methods are \ncomposite pulse (CP) sequences which have long been employed in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to mitigate the effects of systematic errors in the control. CP sequences have been initially developed to correct for static but otherwise unknown \nerrors in the amplitude or frequency of the driving field. One of the challenges to the systematic incorporation of these control protocols into practical quantum information systems remains the limited understanding of CP performance in the presence \nof time-dependent noise. Treating the influence of time-dependent noise processes on quantum control operations has been facilitated by recent advances in dynamical \nerror suppression based on open-loop Hamiltonian engineering. These approaches provide a general framework for understanding and mitigating non-Markovian time- \ndependent noise in a finite-dimensional open quantum system. Particularly, arbitrary single-qubit control characteristics may be captured quantitatively in filter-transfer \nfunctions (FF) using methods of spectral overlap in the frequency domain. In this thesis work, we present a systematic study of control pulse sequences in the presence of time-dependent noise. We use a combination of analytic formulations based on FFs and numerical simulations to demonstrate that CPs are able to effectively suppress control errors caused by time-dependent processes possessing realistic noise \npower spectra. We provide a geometric interpretation of CP performance under time-dependent amplitude noise, further linking the FF formalism with known techniques in CP construction. We also develop new optimized pulse sequences that act as notch filters for time-dependent noise. These high-fidelity control protocols effectively sup- \npress errors from the noise sources with sharp features in spectral densities and can be used practically on various quantum architectures. We also present our work \non simulation of randomized benchmarking protocols and CPs that have been used experimentally by our collaborators to measure gate errors.
We address the problem of deriving analytic expressions for calculating universal decoherence-induced errors in qubits undergoing arbitrary, unitary, time-dependent quantum control protocols. We show that the fidelity of a control operation may be expressed in terms of experimentally relevant spectral characteristics of the noise and of the control, over all Cartesian directions. We formulate control matrices in the time domain to capture the effects of piecewise-constant control, and convert them to generalized Fourier-domain filter functions. These generalized filter functions may be derived for complex temporally modulated control protocols, accounting for susceptibility to rotations of the qubit state vector in three dimensions. Taken together, we show that this framework provides a computationally efficient means to calculate the effects of universal noise on arbitrary quantum control protocols, producing results comparable with those obtained via time-consuming simulations of Bloch vector evolution. As a concrete example, we apply our method to treating the problem of dynamical decoupling incorporating realistic control pulses of arbitrary duration or form, including the replacement of simple π -pulses with complex dynamically corrected gates.
Quantum-enabled technologies promise advancements across a huge range of industrial, metrological and medical applications and are already demonstrating significant impacts, especially in the realm of sensing and metrology. While the extreme sensitivity of quantum systems to their environment is fueling those applications, it also represents a major hurdle to technologies which require long-term stability such as quantum computing and quantum simulations. In addition to the inherent decoherence phenomenon, the challenge associated with controlling a quantum system accurately and precisely, does in fact impede all of the aforementioned applications. Such techniques have therefore been subject to extensive research in both the academic and industrial sector and as a result, sophisticated quantum control techniques are emerging in order to understand, characterize and mitigate errors in quantum systems. This thesis presents how quantum control techniques can be employed to characterize and suppress both control imperfections and environmental noise in quantum systems, using experiments with trapped ions as a model quantum platform. We demonstrate two distinct but interrelated approaches that leverage either time-domain or frequency-domain information about the noise. In the first approach, we show how supervised learning algorithms can efficiently extract time-domain correlations from time-stamped sequences of projective measurements on a qubit. This information can then be used to perform real-time predictive control in which we autonomously pre-compensate anticipated qubit noise in order to stabilize the system. The second approach deploys provably optimal narrowband controls in order to characterize the specific spectral components of noise experienced by a qubit. Here, frequency-shifted Slepian functions permit reconstruction of system noise with maximum out-of-band rejection, and full spectrum reconstruction is enabled using techniques based on multitaper and Bayesian methods.
Recent studies have shown that applying a sequence of Hahn spin-echo pulses to a qubit system at judiciously chosen intervals can, in certain noise environments, greatly improve the suppression of phase errors compared to traditional dynamical decoupling approaches. By enforcing a simple analytical condition, we obtain sets of dynamical decoupling sequences that are designed for optimized noise filtration, but are independent of the noise spectrum up to a single scaling factor set by the coherence time of the system. These sequences are tested in a model qubit system, ;{9}Be;{+} ions in a Penning trap. Our combined theoretical and experimental studies show that in high-frequency-dominated noise environments with sharp high-frequency cutoffs this approach may suppress phase errors orders of magnitude more efficiently than comparable techniques can.
We consider a class of multi-qubit dephasing models that combine classical noise sources and linear coupling to a bosonic environment, and are controlled by arbitrary sequences of dynamical decoupling pulses. Building on a general transfer filter-function framework for open-loop control, we provide an exact representation of the controlled dynamics for arbitrary stationary non-Gaussian classical and quantum noise statistics, with analytical expressions emerging when all dephasing sources are Gaussian. This exact characterization is used to establish two main results. First, we construct multi-qubit sequences that ensure maximum high-order error suppression in both the time and frequency domain and that can be exponentially more efficient than existing ones in terms of total pulse number. Next, we show how long-time multi-qubit storage may be achieved by meeting appropriate conditions for the emergence of a fidelity plateau under sequence repetition, thereby generalizing recent results for single-qubit memory under Gaussian dephasing. In both scenarios, the key step is to endow multi-qubit sequences with a suitable displacement anti-symmetry property, which is of independent interest for applications ranging from environment-assisted entanglement generation to multi-qubit noise spectroscopy protocols.