Continuous measurements of two qubits

Abstract

We develop a theory of coherent quantum oscillations in two, in general interacting, qubits measured continuously by a mesoscopic detector with arbitrary non-linearity and discuss an example of SQUID magnetometer that can operate as such a detector. Calculated spectra of the detector output show that the detector non-linearity should lead to mixing of the oscillations of the two qubits. For non-interacting qubits oscillating with frequencies $Ω_1$ and $Ω_2$, the mixing manifests itself as spectral peaks at the combination frequencies $Ω_1\pm Ω_2$. Additional nonlinearity introduced by the qubit-qubit interaction shifts all the frequencies. In particular, for identical qubits, the interaction splits coherent superposition of the single-qubit peaks at $Ω_1=Ω_2$. Quantum mechanics of the measurement imposes limitations on the height of the spectral peaks.