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He-Kang Li

Publications and source records attributed to He-Kang Li.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

Macroscopic Bell state between a millimeter-sized spin system and a superconducting qubit

Entanglement is a fundamental property in quantum mechanics that systems share inseparable quantum correlation regardless of their mutual distances. Owing to the fundamental significance and versatile applications, the generation of quantum entanglement between {\it macroscopic} systems has been a focus of current research. Here we report on the deterministic generation and tomography of the macroscopically entangled Bell state in a hybrid quantum system containing a millimeter-sized spin system ($\sim 1\times10^{19}$ atoms) and a micrometer-sized superconducting qubit. The deterministic generation is realized by coupling the macroscopic spin system and the qubit via a microwave cavity. Also, we develop a joint tomography approach to confirming the deterministic generation of the Bell state, which gives a generation fidelity of $0.90\pm0.01$. Our work makes the macroscopic spin system the {\it largest} system (in the sense of atom number) capable of generating the maximally entangled quantum state.

quant-ph

Thermal variational quantum simulation on a superconducting quantum processor

Solving finite-temperature properties of quantum many-body systems is generally challenging to classical computers due to their high computational complexities. In this article, we present experiments to demonstrate a hybrid quantum-classical simulation of thermal quantum states. By combining a classical probabilistic model and a 5-qubit programmable superconducting quantum processor, we prepare Gibbs states and excited states of Heisenberg XY and XXZ models with high fidelity and compute thermal properties including the variational free energy, energy, and entropy with a small statistical error. Our approach combines the advantage of classical probabilistic models for sampling and quantum co-processors for unitary transformations. We show that the approach is scalable in the number of qubits, and has a self-verifiable feature, revealing its potentials in solving large-scale quantum statistical mechanics problems on near-term intermediate-scale quantum computers.

quant-ph

Quantum control of a single magnon in a macroscopic spin system

Non-classical quantum states are the pivotal features of a quantum system that differs from its classical counterpart. However, the generation and coherent control of quantum states in a macroscopic spin system remain an outstanding challenge. Here we experimentally demonstrate the quantum control of a single magnon in a macroscopic spin system (i.e., 1~mm-diameter yttrium-iron-garnet sphere) coupled to a superconducting qubit via a microwave cavity. By tuning the qubit frequency {\it in situ} via the Autler-Townes effect, we manipulate this single magnon to generate its non-classical quantum states, including the single-magnon state and the superposition state of a single magnon and vacuum. Moreover, we confirm the deterministic generation of these non-classical states by Wigner tomography. Our experiment offers the first reported deterministic generation of the non-classical quantum states in a macroscopic spin system and paves a way to explore its promising applications in quantum engineering.

quant-ph

Observation of dynamical quantum phase transition by a superconducting qubit simulation

A dynamical quantum phase transition can occur during time evolution of sudden quenched quantum systems across a phase transition. It corresponds to the nonanalytic behavior at a critical time of the rate function of the quantum state return amplitude, analogous to nonanalyticity of the free energy density at the critical temperature in macroscopic systems. A variety of many-body systems can be represented in momentum space as a spin-1/2 state evolving on the Bloch sphere, where each momentum mode is decoupled and thus can be simulated independently by a single qubit. Here, we report the observation of a dynamical quantum phase transition in a superconducting qubit simulation of the quantum quench dynamics of many-body systems. We take the Ising model with a transverse field as an example for demonstration. In our experiment, the spin state, which is initially polarized longitudinally, evolves based on a Hamiltonian with adjustable parameters depending on the momentum and strength of the transverse magnetic field. The time evolving quantum state is read out by state tomography. Evidence of dynamical quantum phase transitions, such as paths of time evolution states on the Bloch sphere, non-analytic behavior of the dynamical free energy and the emergence of Skyrmion lattice in momentum-time space, is observed. The experimental data agrees well with theoretical and numerical calculations. The experiment demonstrates for the first time explicitly the topological invariant, both topologically trivial and non-trivial, for dynamical quantum phase transitions. Our results show that the quantum phase transitions of this class of many-body systems can be simulated successfully with a single qubit by varying certain control parameters over the corresponding momentum range.

quant-ph