arXiv subjects

Alejandro Bermudez

Publications and source records attributed to Alejandro Bermudez.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Optimizing bias-tailored quantum error correction beyond code-capacity noise

We find that the substantial advantages predicted for bias-tailored quantum error correction (QEC) under code-capacity noise are strongly reduced once realistic syndrome extraction and circuit-level noise models are considered. We start by comparing XZZX codes to rectangular surface codes with a bias-dependent optimised anisotropy. Although code-capacity simulations predict an advantage of rectangular surface codes in the limit of high noise bias, this actually disappears under circuit-level noise, making the XZZX codes the preferred and simplest choice even for platforms that allow for a flexible variation of the code layout adapted to changes in noise calibration. Our results identify bias degradation during syndrome extraction under circuit-level noise as the central limitation of biased-tailored QEC. To partially mitigate this effect, we introduce a bias-filtering CNOT gadget that temporarily encodes the ancillary target qubit during syndrome extraction in a repetition code and, upon measurement and feed forward, manages to reduce the bias degradation. In a regime of high-bias and low-idle errors, this bias-filtering gadget yields a few-percent relative improvement of the XZZX code error threshold, demonstrating that lightweight bias-filtering strategies can recover part of the lost bias-tailoring advantage for realistic circuit-level noise.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Entangling ions with engineered light gradients

Spectral crowding of collective motional modes limits the fidelity of entangling interactions in trapped-ion quantum processors by inducing off-resonant coupling to spectator modes. We introduce a geometric-phase entangling interaction driven by a transverse, time-dependent structured-light force. By applying the force in a plane orthogonal to the optical propagation direction, we reduce the effects of spectral crowding while preserving single-ion addressing. The scheme is compatible with arbitrary qubit encodings, provided that the qubit states experience a differential AC Stark shift. We experimentally realise high-fidelity two-qubit gates with error rates below $5\times10^{-3}$ in ion crystals containing up to 12 ions confined within a single potential well. These results establish gradient-field light-shift gates as a scalable approach to high-fidelity entangling generation in spectrally crowded trapped-ion systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Hybrid quantum-classical simulations of semiclassical gravity

We propose a hybrid quantum-classical algorithm for the simulation of real-time dynamics in interacting quantum field theories coupled to classical fields, focusing on the self-consistent estimation of semiclassical backreaction. By discretizing space and time, we construct an iterative protocol that simulates the Trotterized dynamics of the quantum fields subject to the dynamical classical fields. By estimating certain quantum expectation values through a set of projective measurements, we source the equations of motion of the classical fields, and solve them numerically to feed them forward to the quantum simulation in an iterative self-consistent loop. Semiclassical backreaction is relevant in various fields of physics, particularly in cosmology, where quantum matter fluctuations affect the gravitational field dynamics, and a controlled renormalization must be carefully considered to get a sensible continuum limit. We benchmark our algorithm in this context, focusing on scalar-tensor theories of modified gravity exhibiting a chameleon mechanism, such that a light classical scalar field driving cosmic acceleration becomes massive in high-density regions, effectively screening any possible yet unobserved fifth force. By focusing on numerically tractable regimes, we explicitly show the convergence and robustness of our algorithm when considering the continuum limit and the effect of quantum shot noise. Our work paves the way for future experiments exploring other non-tractable regimes, including non-perturbative interactions of the quantum fields and how these can change backreaction and the gravitational dynamics.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2026

Symmetry-protected topology and deconfined solitons in a multi-link $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge theory

With the advent of quantum simulators, exploring exotic collective phenomena in lattice models with local symmetries and unconventional geometries is at reach of near-term experiments. Motivated by recent progress in this direction, we study a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ lattice gauge theory defined on a multi-graph with links that can be visualized as great circles of a spherical shell hosting the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge fields. Elementary Wilson loops along pairs of these bonds allow to identify a dynamical gauge-invariant flux, responsible for Aharonov-Bohm-like interference effects in the tunneling dynamics of charged matter residing on the vertices. Focusing on an odd number of links, we show that this leads to state-dependent tunneling amplitudes underlying a phenomenon analogous to the Peierls instability. We find inhomogeneous phases in which an ordered pattern of the gauge fluxes spontaneously breaks translational invariance, and intertwines with a bond order wave for the gauge-invariant kinetic matter operators. Long-range order is shown to coexist with symmetry protected topological order, which survives the quantum fluctuations of the gauge flux induced by an external electric field. Doping the system above half filling leads to the formation of topological soliton/anti-soliton pairs interpolating between different inhomogeneous orderings of the gauge fluxes. By performining a detailed analysis based on matrix product states, we prove that charge deconfinement emerges as a consequence of charge-fractionalization. Quasiparticles carrying fractional charge and bound at the soliton centers can be arbitrarily separated without feeling a confining force, in spite of the long-range attractive interactions set by the small electric field on the individual integer charges.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2025

Scaling roadmap for modular trapped-ion QEC and lattice-surgery teleportation

We present a footprint study for the scaling of modular quantum error correction (QEC) protocols designed for triangular color codes, including a lattice-surgery-based logical teleportation gadget, and compare the performance of various possible architectures based on trapped ions. The differences in these architectures arise from the technology that enables the connectivity between physical qubits and the modularity required for the QEC gadgets, which is either based on laser-beam deflectors focused to independent modules hosting mid-size ion crystals, or integrated photonics guided to segmented modules of the trap and allowing for the manipulation of smaller ion crystals. Our approach integrates the transpilation of the QEC gadgets into native trapped-ion primitives and a detailed account of the specific laser addressing and ion transport leading to different amounts of crosstalk errors, motional excitation and idle qubit errors. Combining a microscopically-informed noise model with an efficient Pauli-frame simulator and different scalable decoders, we assess the near-term performance of the color-code memory and teleportation protocols on these architectures. Our analysis demonstrates that modular color-code teleportation is achievable in these near-term trapped-ion architectures, and identifies the integrated-photonics connectivity as the most promising route for longer-term scaling.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Real-time collisions of fractional charges in a trapped-ion Jackiw-Rebbi field theory

We propose and analyze a trapped-ion quantum simulator of the Jackiw-Rebbi model, a paradigmatic quantum field theory in (1+1) dimensions where solitonic excitations of a scalar field can bind fermionic zero modes leading to fractionally-charged excitations. In our approach, the scalar field is a coarse-grained description of the planar zigzag ion displacements in the vicinity of a structural phase transition. The internal electronic states of the ions encode spins with interactions mediated by the transverse phonons and in-plane spin-phonon couplings with a zigzag pattern, which together correspond to a Yukawa-coupled Dirac field. Instead of assuming a fixed soliton background, we study the effect of back-reaction and quantum fluctuations on the coupled dynamics of the full fermion-boson system. We start by applying a Born-Oppenheimer approximation to obtain an effective Peierls-Nabarro potential for the topological kink, unveiling how the fermionic back-reaction can lead to localization of the kink. Beyond this limit, a truncated Wigner approximation combined with fermionic Gaussian states captures the quantum spreading and localization of a kink and kink-antikink scattering. Our results reveal how back-reaction and quantum fluctuations modify the stability and real-time evolution of fractionalized fermions, predicting experimentally accessible signatures in current trapped-ion architectures.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Surface code scaling on heavy-hex superconducting quantum processors

Demonstrating subthreshold scaling of a surface-code quantum memory on hardware whose native connectivity does not match the code remains a central challenge. We address this on IBM heavy-hex superconducting processors by co-designing the code embedding and control: a depth-minimizing SWAP-based "fold-unfold" embedding that uses bridge ancillas, together with robust, gap-aware dynamical decoupling (DD). On Heron-generation devices we perform anisotropic scaling from a uniform distance 3 code to anisotropic distance (dx,dz) = (3,5) and (5,3) codes. We find that increasing dz (dx) improves the protection of Z-basis (X-basis) logical states across multiple quantum error correction cycles. Even if global subthreshold code scaling for arbitrary logical initial states is not yet achieved, we argue that it is within reach with minor hardware improvements. We show that DD plays a major role: it suppresses coherent ZZ crosstalk and non-Markovian dephasing that accumulate during idle gaps on heavy-hex layouts, and it eliminates spurious subthreshold claims that arise when scaled codes without DD are compared against smaller codes with DD. To quantify performance, we derive an entanglement fidelity metric that is computed directly from X- and Z-basis logical-error data and provides per-cycle, SPAM-aware bounds. The entanglement fidelity metric reveals that widely used single-parameter fits used to compute suppression factors can mischaracterize or obscure code performance when their assumptions are violated; we identify the strong assumptions of stationarity, unitality, and negligible logical SPAM required for those fits to be valid and show that they do not hold for our data. Our results establish a concrete path to robust tests of subthreshold surface-code scaling under biased, non-Markovian noise by integrating QEC with optimized DD on non-native architectures.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Real-Time Dynamics in a (2+1)-D Gauge Theory: The Stringy Nature on a Superconducting Quantum Simulator

Understanding the confinement mechanism in gauge theories and the universality of effective string-like descriptions of gauge flux tubes remains a fundamental challenge in modern physics. We probe string modes of motion with dynamical matter in a digital quantum simulation of a (2+1) dimensional gauge theory using a superconducting quantum processor with up to 144 qubits, stretching the hardware capabilities with quantum-circuit depths comprising up to 192 two-qubit layers. We realize the $Z_2$-Higgs model ($Z_2$HM) through an optimized embedding into a heavy-hex superconducting qubit architecture, directly mapping matter and gauge fields to vertex and link superconducting qubits, respectively. Using the structure of local gauge symmetries, we implement a comprehensive suite of error suppression, mitigation, and correction strategies to enable real-time observation and manipulation of electric strings connecting dynamical charges. Our results resolve a dynamical hierarchy of longitudinal oscillations and transverse bending at the end points of the string, which are precursors to hadronization and rotational spectra of mesons. We further explore multi-string processes, observing the fragmentation and recombination of strings. The experimental design supports 300,000 measurement shots per circuit, totaling 600,000 shots per time step, enabling high-fidelity statistics. We employ extensive tensor network simulations using the basis update and Galerkin method to predict large-scale real-time dynamics and validate our error-aware protocols. This work establishes a milestone for probing non-perturbative gauge dynamics via superconducting quantum simulation and elucidates the real-time behavior of confining strings.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Context-aware gate set tomography: Improving the self-consistent characterization of trapped-ion universal gate sets by leveraging non-Markovianity

To progress in the characterization of noise for current quantum computers, gate set tomography (GST) has emerged as a self-consistent tomographic protocol that can accurately estimate the complete set of noisy quantum gates, state preparations, and measurements. In its original incarnation, GST improves the estimation precision by applying the gates sequentially, provided that the noise makes them a set of fixed completely-positive and trace preserving (CPTP) maps independent of the history of previous gates in the sequence. This 'Markovian' assumption is sometimes in conflict with experimental evidence, as there might be time-correlated noise leading to non-Markovian dynamics or, alternatively, slow drifts and cumulative calibration errors that lead to context dependence, such that the CP-divisible maps composed during a sequence actually change with the circuit depth. In this work, we address this issue for trapped-ion devices with phonon-mediated two-qubit gates. By a detailed microscopic modeling of high-fidelity light-shift gates, we tailor GST to capture the main source of context dependence: motional degrees of freedom. Rather than invalidating GST, we show that context dependence can be incorporated in the parametrization of the gate set, allowing us to reduce the sampling cost of GST. Our results identify a promising research avenue that might be applicable to other platforms where microscopic modeling can be incorporated: the development of a context-aware GST.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Topological crystals and soliton lattices in a Gross-Neveu model with Hilbert-space fragmentation

We explore the finite-density phase diagram of the single-flavour Gross-Neveu-Wilson (GNW) model using matrix product state (MPS) simulations. At zero temperature and along the symmetry line of the phase diagram, we find a sequence of inhomogeneous ground states that arise through a real-space version of the mechanism of Hilbert-space fragmentation. For weak interactions, doping the symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phase of the GNW model leads to localized charges or holes at periodic arrangements of immobile topological defects separating the fragmented subchains: a topological crystal. Increasing the interactions, we observe a transition into a parity-broken phase with a pseudoscalar condensate displaying a modulated periodic pattern. This soliton lattice is a sequence of topological charges corresponding to anti-kinks, which also bind the doped fermions at their respective centers. Out of this symmetry line, we show that quasi-spiral profiles appear with a characteristic wavevector set by the density $k = 2{\pi}{\rho}$, providing non-perturbative evidence for chiral spirals beyond the large-N limit. These results demonstrate that various exotic inhomogeneous phases can arise in lattice field theories, and motivate the use of quantum simulators to confirm such QCD-inspired phenomena in future experiments.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2025

Emergent Kitaev materials in synthetic Fermi-Hubbard bilayers

We investigate the emergence of bond-directional spin-spin interactions in a synthetic Fermi-Hubbard bilayer that can be realized with ultracold fermions in Raman optical lattices. The model exploits synthetic dimensions to couple two honeycomb layers, each corresponding to a different hyperfine atomic state, via Raman-assisted tunneling and, moreover, via an inter-layer Hubbard repulsion due to the cold-atom scattering. In the strong-coupling regime at half filling, we derive effective spin Hamiltonians for the kinetic exchange featuring Kitaev, Heisenberg, off-diagonal exchange ($\Gamma$-couplings), as well as tunable Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions. We identify specific configurations that generate both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic Kitaev couplings with various perturbations of relevance to Kitaev materials, providing a tunable platform that can explore how quantum spin liquids emerge from itinerant fermion systems. We analyze the Fermi-liquid and Mott-insulating phases, highlighting a correspondence between Dirac and Majorana quasi-particles, with possible phase transitions thereof. In an extreme anisotropic limit, we show that the model reduces to an inter-layer ribbon in a quasi-1D ladder, allowing for a numerical study of the correlated ground state using matrix product states. We find a transition from a symmetry-protected topological insulator to a Kitaev-like regime characterized by nonlocal string order. Our results establish that cold-atom quantum simulators based on Raman optical lattices can be a playground for extended Kitaev models, bridging itinerant fermionic systems and spin-liquid physics.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2025

A quasi-particle picture for entanglement cones and horizons in analogue cosmology

Although particle production in curved quantum field theories (cQFTs) is key to our understanding of the early universe and black hole physics, its direct observation requires extreme conditions or unrealistic sensitivities. Recent progress in quantum simulators indicates that analogues of cosmological particle production can be observed in table-top experiments of cold atomic gases described by effective cQFTs. This promises a high degree of tunability in the synthesised curved spacetimes and, moreover, sets a clear roadmap to explore the interplay of particle production with other non-perturbative effects genuine to interacting QFTs. We hereby focus on the appearance of scalar and pseudo-scalar condensates for self-interacting Dirac fermions, and study how dynamical mass generation and spontaneous symmetry breaking affects real-time dynamics through the lens of entanglement. We use the entanglement contour (EC) to analyse the spatio-temporal structure of particle production, showing that a quasi-particle picture for the EC captures the cosmological horizon in accelerating spacetimes, while also being sensitive to the effect of different symmetry-breaking processes. In particular, we show that the combined breakdown of time-reversal symmetry due to the expanding spacetime, and parity due to a pseudo-scalar condensate, manifests through the structure of the light-cone-like propagation of entanglement.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Dynamical Aharonov-Bohm cages and tight meson confinement in a $\mathbb{Z}_2$-loop gauge theory

We study the finite-density phases of a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ lattice gauge theory (LGT) of interconnected loops and dynamical $\mathbb{Z}_2$ charges. The gauge-invariant Wilson terms, accounting for the magnetic flux threading each loop, correspond to simple two-body Ising interactions in this setting. Such terms control the interference of charges tunneling around the loops, leading to dynamical Aharonov-Bohm (AB) cages that are delimited by loops threaded by a $\pi$-flux. The latter can be understood as $\mathbb{Z}_2$ vortices, the analog of visons in two dimensional LGTs, which become mobile by adding quantum fluctuations through an external electric field. In contrast to a semi-classical regime of static and homogeneous AB cages, the mobile visons can self-assemble leading to AB cages of different lengths depending on the density of $\mathbb{Z}_2$ charges and the interplay of magnetic and electric terms. Inside these cages, the individual charges get confined into tightly-bound charge-neutral pairs, the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ analogue of mesons. Depending on the region of parameter space, these tightly-bound mesons can propagate within dilute AB-dimers that virtually expand and contract, or else move by virtually stretching and compressing an electric field string. Both limits lead to a Luttinger liquid described by a constrained integrable model. This phase is separated from an incompressible Mott insulator where mesons belong to closely-packed AB-trimers. In light of recent trapped-ion experiments for a single $\mathbb{Z}_2$ loop, these phases could be explored in future experiments.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2024

Interacting Dirac fields in an expanding universe: dynamical condensates and particle production

The phenomenon of particle production for quantum field theories in curved spacetimes is crucial to understand the large-scale structure of a universe from an inflationary epoch. In contrast to the free and fixed-background case, the production of particles with strong interactions and back reaction is not completely understood, especially in situations that require going beyond perturbation theory. In this work, we present advances in this direction by focusing on a self-interacting field theory of Dirac fermions in an expanding Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe. By using a Hamiltonian lattice regularization with continuous conformal time and rescaled fields, this model becomes amenable to either a cold-atom analogue-gravity quantum simulation, or a dynamical variational approach. Leveraging a family of variational fermionic Gaussian states, we investigate how dynamical mass generation and the formation of fermion condensates associated to certain broken symmetries modify some well-known results of the free field theory. In particular, we study how the non-perturbative condensates arise and, more importantly, how their real-time evolution has an impact on particle production. Depending on the Hubble expansion rate, we find an interesting interplay of interactions and particle production, including a non-trivial back reaction on the condensates and a parity-breaking spectrum of produced particles.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2024

Demonstration of two-dimensional connectivity for a scalable error-corrected ion-trap quantum processor architecture

A major hurdle for building a large-scale quantum computer is increasing the number of qubits while maintaining connectivity between them. In trapped-ion devices, this connectivity can be achieved by moving subregisters consisting of a few ions across the processor. Here, we focus on an architecture, which we refer to as the Quantum Spring Array (QSA), that is based on a rectangular two-dimensional lattice of linear strings of ions. Connectivity between adjacent ion strings can be controlled by adjusting their separation. This requires control of trapping potentials along two directions, one along the axis of the ion string and one radial to it. In this work, we investigate key elements of the QSA architecture along both directions: We show that the coupling rate between neighboring lattice sites increases with the number of ions per site and the motion of the coupled system can be resilient to electrical noise, both being key requisites for fast and high-fidelity quantum gate operations. The coherence of the coupling is assessed and an entangling gate between qubits stored in radially separated trapping regions is demonstrated. Moreover, we demonstrate control over radio-frequency signals to adjust the radial separation, and thus the coupling rate, between strings. We further present constructions for the implementation of parallelized, transversal gate operations, and map the QSA architecture to code primitives for fault-tolerant quantum error correction, providing a step towards a quantum processor architecture that is optimized for large-scale operation.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Lindblad-like quantum tomography for non-Markovian quantum dynamical maps

We introduce Lindblad-like quantum tomography (L$\ell$QT) as a quantum characterization technique of time-correlated noise in quantum information processors. This approach enables the estimation of time-local master equations, including their possible negative decay rates, by maximizing a likelihood function subject to dynamical constraints. We discuss L$\ell$QT for the dephasing dynamics of single qubits in detail, which allows for a neat understanding of the importance of including multiple snapshots of the quantum evolution in the likelihood function, and how these need to be distributed in time depending on the noise characteristics. By a detailed comparative study employing both frequentist and Bayesian approaches, we assess the accuracy and precision of L$\ell$QT of a dephasing quantum dynamical map that goes beyond the Lindblad limit, focusing on two different microscopic noise models that can be realised in either trapped-ion or superconducting-circuit architectures. We explore the optimization of the distribution of measurement times to minimize the estimation errors, assessing the superiority of each learning scheme conditioned on the degree of non-Markovinity of the noise, and setting the stage for future experimental designs of non-Markovian quantum tomography.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Compressed-sensing Lindbladian quantum tomography with trapped ions

Characterizing the dynamics of quantum systems is a central task for the development of quantum information processors (QIPs). It serves to benchmark different devices, learn about their specific noise, and plan the next hardware upgrades. However, this task is also very challenging, for it requires a large number of measurements and time-consuming classical processing. Moreover, when interested in the time dependence of the noise, there is an additional overhead since the characterization must be performed repeatedly within the time interval of interest. To overcome this limitation while, at the same time, ordering the learned sources of noise by their relevance, we focus on the inference of the dynamical generators of the noisy dynamics using Lindbladian quantum tomography (LQT). We propose two different improvements of LQT that alleviate previous shortcomings. In the weak-noise regime of current QIPs, we manage to linearize the maximum likelihood estimation of LQT, turning the constrained optimization into a convex problem to reduce the classical computation cost and to improve its robustness. Moreover, by introducing compressed sensing techniques, we reduce the number of required measurements without sacrificing accuracy. To illustrate these improvements, we apply our LQT tools to trapped-ion experiments of single- and two-qubit gates, advancing in this way the previous state of the art.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Comparative study of quantum error correction strategies for the heavy-hexagonal lattice

Topological quantum error correction is a milestone in the scaling roadmap of quantum computers, which targets circuits with trillions of gates that would allow running quantum algorithms for real-world problems. The square-lattice surface code has become the workhorse to address this challenge, as it poses milder requirements on current devices both in terms of required error rates and small local connectivities. In some platforms, however, the connectivities are kept even lower in order to minimise gate errors at the hardware level, which limits the error correcting codes that can be directly implemented on them. In this work, we make a comparative study of possible strategies to overcome this limitation for the heavy-hexagonal lattice, the architecture of current IBM superconducting quantum computers. We explore two complementary strategies: the search for an efficient embedding of the surface code into the heavy-hexagonal lattice, as well as the use of codes whose connectivity requirements are naturally tailored to this architecture, such as subsystem-type and Floquet codes. Using noise models of increased complexity, we assess the performance of these strategies for IBM devices in terms of their error thresholds and qubit footprints. An optimized SWAP-based embedding of the surface code is found to be the most promising strategy towards a near-term demonstration of quantum error correction advantage.

quant-ph↗