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Laser Physics Letters

Non-leaky population transfer in a transmon artificial atom

Run‐Ying Yan, M Li, Zhongan Zhao, Xiao-Jing Lu, Zhi‐Bo Feng

Published Dec 18, 2017• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract We propose a theoretical scheme to implement non-leaky population transfer in a transmon-regime artificial atom. Due to the weak level anharmonicity of the transmon system, resonant driving leads to considerable quantum leakage. Facilitated by the level-transition rule, we develop a Λ-type interaction between the first three levels and the driving fields. Under two-photon resonance with large detuning, a reduced two-level system is obtained, with which we perform non-leaky population transfer by adjusting the microwave driving. With the accessible parameters, we further analyse the flexible reversibility and high robustness of the protocol. The present scheme provides a potential approach to optimizing population transfer with transmon artificial atoms.

DOI
10.1088/1612-202x/aa877e

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Abstract We propose a theoretical scheme to implement non-leaky population transfer in a transmon-regime artificial atom. Due to the weak level anharmonicity of the transmon system, resonant driving leads to considerable quantum leakage. Facilitated by the level-transition rule, we develop a Λ-type interaction between the first three levels and the driving fields. Under two-photon resonance with large detuning, a reduced two-level system is obtained, with which we perform non-leaky population transfer by adjusting the microwave driving. With the accessible parameters, we further analyse the flexible reversibility and high robustness of the protocol. The present scheme provides a potential approach to optimizing population transfer with transmon artificial atoms.
We propose a theoretical scheme for implementing nonleaky and accelerated population transfer with a transmon qutrit. For a transmon-regime artificial atom with weak level anharmonicity, the leakage effects on the target population transfer are considerable. Allowed by the level-transition rule, a two-photon resonant interaction can be obtained between the qutrit and microwave drivings. In the regime of large detuning, by adopting the technique of invariant-based inverse engineering, the population transfer with no leakage errors can be sped up drastically when compared with the adiabatic operation. Moreover, the accelerated operation is highly robust against decoherence effects. Thanks to these distinctive advantages, the proposed protocol could offer a promising avenue to optimal quantum operations on transmon artificial atoms.
We propose an effective scheme to implement fast and robust population transfer with a Josephson qutrit via shortcut to adiabaticity. Facilitated by the level-transition rule, a Λ-configuration resonant interaction can be realized between microwave drivings and the qutrit with sufficient level anharmonicity, from which we perform the reversible population transfers via invariant-based shortcut. Compared with the detuned drivings, the utilized resonant drivings shorten the transfer times significantly. Further analysis of the dependence of transfer time on Rabi couplings is helpful to experimental investigations. Thanks to the accelerated process, transfer operation is highly insensitive to noise effects. Thus the protocol could provide a promising avenue to experimentally perform fast and robust quantum operations on Josephson artificial atoms.
We investigate the dynamics of superconducting transmon-based artificial atom under the influence of quantum and classical microwave fields, revealing fundamental differences in their interaction mechanisms. A classical field, acting as an unlimited energy reservoir, sequentially populates the transmon levels, resulting in a Poissonian distribution of level populations. In contrast, a quantum field with its discrete structure and finite photon number exhibits oscillatory population dynamics with a binomial probability distribution, enabling the transfer of quantum statistics between the field and the atom. In the strong coupling regime and with optimal frequency detuning, the quantum field demonstrates the ability to selectively and efficiently populate specific transmon levels, a feature inaccessible to its classical counterpart. These distinctions highlight the potential of transmon qudits as quantum interfaces and detectors of non-classical microwave states in distributed quantum computing architectures.
For a two-level system, it is believed that a far-off-resonant driving cannot help coherent population transfer between two states. In this work, we propose a scheme to implement the coherent transfer with far-off-resonant driving. The scheme works well with both constant driving and Gaussian driving. The total time to finish population transfer is also minimized by optimizing the detuning and coupling constants. We find that the scheme is sensitive to spontaneous emission much more than dephasing. It might find potential applications in X-ray quantum optics and population transfer in Rydberg atoms as well.
In this paper we propose a protocol to achieve coherent population transfer between two states in a three-level atom by using two ac fields. It is based on the physics of stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP), but it is implemented with the constraint of a reduced control, namely, one of the fields cannot be switched off. A combination of frequency chirps is used with resonant fields, allowing us to achieve approximate destructive interference, despite the fact that an exact dark state does not exist. This chirped STIRAP protocol is tailored for applications to artificial atoms, where architectures with several elementary units can be strongly coupled but where the possibility of switching on and off such couplings is often very limited. Demonstration of this protocol would be a benchmark for the implementation of a class of multilevel advanced control procedures for quantum computation and microwave quantum photonics in artificial atoms.
We present an experimental investigation on the spectral characteristics of an artificial atom ``transmon qubit'' constituting a three-level cascade system ($\ensuremath{\Xi}$-system) in the presence of a pair of external driving fields. We observe two different types of Autler-Townes (AT) splitting: type I, where the phenomenon of two-photon resonance tends to diminish as the coupling field strength increases, and type II, where this phenomenon mostly stays constant. We find that the types are determined by the cooperative effect of the decay rates and the field strengths. Theoretically analyzing the density-matrix elements in the weak-field limit where the AT effect is suppressed, we single out events of pure two-photon coherence occurring owing to constructive quantum interference.