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Liang Jiang

Publications and source records attributed to Liang Jiang.

At least 235 records · Page 13Linked to original sources

Hardware-efficient quantum random access memory with hybrid quantum acoustic systems

Hybrid quantum systems in which acoustic resonators couple to superconducting qubits are promising quantum information platforms. High quality factors and small mode volumes make acoustic modes ideal quantum memories, while the qubit-phonon coupling enables the initialization and manipulation of quantum states. We present a scheme for quantum computing with multimode quantum acoustic systems, and based on this scheme, propose a hardware-efficient implementation of a quantum random access memory (QRAM). Quantum information is stored in high-Q phonon modes, and couplings between modes are engineered by applying off-resonant drives to a transmon qubit. In comparison to existing proposals that involve directly exciting the qubit, this scheme can offer a substantial improvement in gate fidelity for long-lived acoustic modes. We show how these engineered phonon-phonon couplings can be used to access data in superposition according to the state of designated address modes--implementing a QRAM on a single chip.

quant-ph↗

Development of Quantum InterConnects for Next-Generation Information Technologies

Just as classical information technology rests on a foundation built of interconnected information-processing systems, quantum information technology (QIT) must do the same. A critical component of such systems is the interconnect, a device or process that allows transfer of information between disparate physical media, for example, semiconductor electronics, individual atoms, light pulses in optical fiber, or microwave fields. While interconnects have been well engineered for decades in the realm of classical information technology, quantum interconnects (QuICs) present special challenges, as they must allow the transfer of fragile quantum states between different physical parts or degrees of freedom of the system. The diversity of QIT platforms (superconducting, atomic, solid-state color center, optical, etc.) that will form a quantum internet poses additional challenges. As quantum systems scale to larger size, the quantum interconnect bottleneck is imminent, and is emerging as a grand challenge for QIT. For these reasons, it is the position of the community represented by participants of the NSF workshop on Quantum Interconnects that accelerating QuIC research is crucial for sustained development of a national quantum science and technology program. Given the diversity of QIT platforms, materials used, applications, and infrastructure required, a convergent research program including partnership between academia, industry and national laboratories is required. This document is a summary from a U.S. National Science Foundation supported workshop held on 31 October - 1 November 2019 in Alexandria, VA. Attendees were charged to identify the scientific and community needs, opportunities, and significant challenges for quantum interconnects over the next 2-5 years.

quant-ph↗

Efficient multiphoton sampling of molecular vibronic spectra on a superconducting bosonic processor

The efficient simulation of quantum systems is a primary motivating factor for developing controllable quantum machines. For addressing systems with underlying bosonic structure, it is advantageous to utilize a naturally bosonic platform. Optical photons passing through linear networks may be configured to perform quantum simulation tasks, but the efficient preparation and detection of multiphoton quantum states of light in linear optical systems are challenging. Here, we experimentally implement a boson sampling protocol for simulating molecular vibronic spectra [Nature Photonics $\textbf{9}$, 615 (2015)] in a two-mode superconducting device. In addition to enacting the requisite set of Gaussian operations across both modes, we fulfill the scalability requirement by demonstrating, for the first time in any platform, a high-fidelity single-shot photon number resolving detection scheme capable of resolving up to 15 photons per mode. Furthermore, we exercise the capability of synthesizing non-Gaussian input states to simulate spectra of molecular ensembles in vibrational excited states. We show the re-programmability of our implementation by extracting the spectra of photoelectron processes in H$_2$O, O$_3$, NO$_2$, and SO$_2$. The capabilities highlighted in this work establish the superconducting architecture as a promising platform for bosonic simulations, and by combining them with tools such as Kerr interactions and engineered dissipation, enable the simulation of a wider class of bosonic systems.

quant-ph↗

Electromagnetically induced transparency at a chiral exceptional point

Electromagnetically induced transparency, as a quantum interference effect to eliminate optical absorption in an opaque medium, has found extensive applications in slow light generation, optical storage, frequency conversion, optical quantum memory as well as enhanced nonlinear interactions at the few-photon level in all kinds of systems. Recently, there have been great interests in exceptional points, a spectral singularity that could be reached by tuning various parameters in open systems, to render unusual features to the physical systems, such as optical states with chirality. Here we theoretically and experimentally study transparency and absorption modulated by chiral optical states at exceptional points in an indirectly-coupled resonator system. By tuning one resonator to an exceptional point, transparency or absorption occurs depending on the chirality of the eigenstate. Our results demonstrate a new strategy to manipulate the light flow and the spectra of a photonic resonator system by exploiting a discrete optical state associated with specific chirality at an exceptional point as a unique control bit, which opens up a new horizon of controlling slow light using optical states. Compatible with the idea of state control in quantum gate operation, this strategy hence bridges optical computing and storage.

physics.optics↗

Optimal approximate quantum error correction for quantum metrology

For a generic set of Markovian noise models, the estimation precision of a parameter associated with the Hamiltonian is limited by the $1/\sqrt{t}$ scaling where $t$ is the total probing time, in which case the maximal possible quantum improvement in the asymptotic limit of large $t$ is restricted to a constant factor. However, situations arise where the constant factor improvement could be significant, yet no effective quantum strategies are known. Here we propose an optimal approximate quantum error correction (AQEC) strategy asymptotically saturating the precision lower bound in the most general adaptive parameter estimation scheme where arbitrary and frequent quantum controls are allowed. We also provide an efficient numerical algorithm finding the optimal code. Finally, we consider highly-biased noise and show that using the optimal AQEC strategy, strong noises are fully corrected, while the estimation precision depends only on the strength of weak noises in the limiting case.

quant-ph↗

Radiative cooling of a superconducting resonator

Cooling microwave resonators to near the quantum ground state, crucial for their operation in the quantum regime, is typically achieved by direct device refrigeration to a few tens of millikelvin. However, in quantum experiments that require high operation power such as microwave-to-optics quantum transduction, it is desirable to operate at higher temperatures with non-negligible environmental thermal excitations, where larger cooling power is available. In this Letter, we present a radiative cooling protocol to prepare a superconducting microwave mode near its quantum ground state in spite of warm environment temperatures for the resonator. In this proof-of-concept experiment, the mode occupancy of a 10-GHz superconducting resonator thermally anchored at 1.02~K is reduced to $0.44\pm0.05$ by radiatively coupling to a 70-mK cold load. This radiative cooling scheme allows high-operation-power microwave experiments to work in the quantum regime, and opens possibilities for routing microwave quantum states to elevated temperatures.

quant-ph↗

Universal quantum computing with parafermions assisted by a half fluxon

Braiding of anyons such as Majoranas or parafermions provides only Clifford gates which do not form a universal set of quantum gates. We propose a robust and resource-efficient scheme to perform a non-Clifford gate on a logical qudit encoded in parafermionic zero modes via the Aharonov-Casher effect. This gate can be implemented by moving a half flux quantum around the pair of parafermionic zero modes. The parafermion modes can be realized in a two-dimensional set-up using existing proposals and a half fluxon carrying half flux quantum can be created as a part of a half fluxon/anti-half fluxon pair in a spin-triplet Josephson junction with a dipole defect. With an appropriate bias current pulse, the half fluxon can be braided around the parafermions. Supplementing this gate with the braiding of parafermions provides the avenue for universal quantum computing with parafermions without magic state distillation.

quant-ph↗

High-fidelity measurement of qubits encoded in multilevel superconducting circuits

Qubit measurements are central to quantum information processing. In the field of superconducting qubits, standard readout techniques are not only limited by the signal-to-noise ratio, but also by state relaxation during the measurement. In this work, we demonstrate that the limitation due to relaxation can be suppressed by using the many-level Hilbert space of superconducting circuits: in a multilevel encoding, the measurement is only corrupted when multiple errors occur. Employing this technique, we show that we can directly resolve transmon gate errors at the level of one part in $10^3.$ Extending this idea, we apply the same principles to the measurement of a logical qubit encoded in a bosonic mode and detected with a transmon ancilla, implementing a proposal by Hann et al. [Phys. Rev. A \textbf{98} 022305 (2018)]. Qubit state assignments are made based on a sequence of repeated readouts, further reducing the overall infidelity. This approach is quite general and several encodings are studied; the codewords are more distinguishable when the distance between them is increased with respect to photon loss. The tradeoff between multiple readouts and state relaxation is explored and shown to be consistent with the photon-loss model. We report a logical assignment infidelity of $5.8\times 10^{-5}$ for a Fock-based encoding and $4.2\times 10^{-3}$ for a QEC code (the $S=2,N=1$ binomial code). Our results will not only improve the fidelity of quantum information applications, but also enable more precise characterization of process or gate errors.

quant-ph↗

Error-corrected gates on an encoded qubit

To solve classically hard problems, quantum computers need to be resilient to the influence of noise and decoherence. In such a fault-tolerant quantum computer, noise-induced errors must be detected and corrected in real-time to prevent them from propagating between components. This requirement is especially pertinent while applying quantum gates, when the interaction between components can cause errors to quickly spread throughout the system. However, the large overhead involved in most fault-tolerant architectures makes implementing these systems a daunting task, which motivates the search for hardware-efficient alternatives. Here, we present a gate enacted by a multilevel ancilla transmon on a cavity-encoded logical qubit that is fault-tolerant with respect to decoherence in both the ancilla and the encoded qubit. We maintain the purity of the encoded qubit in the presence of ancilla errors by detecting those errors in real-time, and applying the appropriate corrections. We show a reduction of the logical gate error by a factor of two in the presence of naturally occurring decoherence, and demonstrate resilience against ancilla bit-flips and phase-flips by observing a sixfold suppression of the gate error with increased energy relaxation, and a fourfold suppression with increased dephasing noise. The results demonstrate that bosonic logical qubits can be controlled by error-prone ancilla qubits without inheriting the ancilla's inferior performance. As such, error-corrected ancilla-enabled gates are an important step towards fully fault-tolerant processing of bosonic qubits.

quant-ph↗

Photon pair condensation by engineered dissipation

Dissipation can usually induce detrimental decoherence in a quantum system. However, engineered dissipation can be used to prepare and stabilize coherent quantum many-body states. Here, we show that by engineering dissipators containing photon pair operators, one can stabilize an exotic dark state, which is a condensate of photon pairs with a phase-nematic order. In this system, the usual superfluid order parameter, i.e. single-photon correlation, is absent, while the photon pair correlation exhibits long-range order. Although the dark state is not unique due to multiple parity sectors, we devise an additional type of dissipators to stabilize the dark state in a particular parity sector via a diffusive annihilation process which obeys Glauber dynamics in an Ising model. Furthermore, we propose an implementation of these photon-pair dissipators in circuit-QED architecture.

quant-ph↗

Stochastic Estimation of Dynamical Variables

Estimating the parameters governing the dynamics of a system is a prerequisite for its optimal control. We present a simple but powerful method that we call STEADY, for STochastic Estimation algorithm for DYnamical variables, to estimate the Hamiltonian (or Lindbladian) governing a quantum system of a few qubits. STEADY makes efficient use of all measurements and its performance scales as the information-theoretic limits for such an estimator. Importantly, it is inherently robust to state preparation and measurement errors. It is not limited to evaluating only a fixed set of possible gates, rather it estimates the complete Hamiltonian of the system. The estimator is applicable to any Hamiltonian that can be written as a piecewise-differentiable function and it can easily include estimators for the non-unitary parameters as well. At the heart of our approach is a stochastic gradient descent over the difference between experimental measurement and model prediction.

quant-ph↗

Fault-tolerant detection of a quantum error

A critical component of any quantum error-correcting scheme is detection of errors by using an ancilla system. However, errors occurring in the ancilla can propagate onto the logical qubit, irreversibly corrupting the encoded information. We demonstrate a fault-tolerant error-detection scheme that suppresses spreading of ancilla errors by a factor of 5, while maintaining the assignment fidelity. The same method is used to prevent propagation of ancilla excitations, increasing the logical qubit dephasing time by an order of magnitude. Our approach is hardware-efficient, as it uses a single multilevel transmon ancilla and a cavity-encoded logical qubit, whose interaction is engineered in situ by using an off-resonant sideband drive. The results demonstrate that hardware-efficient approaches that exploit system-specific error models can yield advances toward fault-tolerant quantum computation.

quant-ph↗

Quantum repeaters based on two species trapped ions

We examine the viability of quantum repeaters based on two-species trapped ion modules for long distance quantum key distribution. Repeater nodes comprised of ion-trap modules of co-trapped ions of distinct species are considered. The species used for communication qubits has excellent optical properties while the other longer lived species serves as a memory qubit in the modules. Each module interacts with the network only via single photons emitted by the communication ions. Coherent Coulomb interaction between ions is utilized to transfer quantum information between the communication and memory ions and to achieve entanglement swapping between two memory ions. We describe simple modular quantum repeater architectures realizable with the ion-trap modules and numerically study the dependence of the quantum key distribution rate on various experimental parameters, including coupling efficiency, gate infidelity, operation time and length of the elementary links. Our analysis suggests crucial improvements necessary in a physical implementation for co-trapped two-species ions to be a competitive platform in long-distance quantum communication.

quant-ph↗

Bias-preserving gates with stabilized cat qubits

The code capacity threshold for error correction using qubits which exhibit asymmetric or biased noise channels is known to be much higher than with qubits without such structured noise. However, it is unclear how much this improvement persists when realistic circuit level noise is taken into account. This is because implementations of gates which do not commute with the dominant error un-bias the noise channel. In particular, a native bias-preserving controlled-NOT (CX) gate, which is an essential ingredient of stabilizer codes, is not possible in strictly two-level systems. Here we overcome the challenge of implementing a bias-preserving CX gate by using stabilized cat qubits in driven nonlinear oscillators. The physical noise channel of this qubit is biased towards phase-flips, which increase linearly with the size of the cat, while bit-flips are exponentially suppressed with cat size. Remarkably, the error channel of this native CX gate between two such cat qubits is also dominated by phase-flips, while bit-flips remain exponentially suppressed. This CX gate relies on the topological phase that arises from the rotation of the cat qubit in phase space. The availability of bias-preserving CX gates opens a path towards fault-tolerant codes tailored to biased-noise cat qubits with high threshold and low overhead. As an example, we analyze a scheme for concatenated error correction using cat qubits. We find that the availability of CX gates with moderately sized cat qubits, having mean photon number <10, improves a rigorous lower bound on the fault-tolerance threshold by a factor of two and decreases the overhead in logical Clifford operations by a factor of 5. We expect these estimates to improve significantly with further optimization and with direct use of other codes such as topological codes tailored to biased noise.

quant-ph↗

Quantum repeater architecture with hierarchically optimized memory buffer times

We propose a quantum repeater protocol and architecture that mitigates decoherence of the entangled states by optimizing the quantum memory buffer time. The protocol maximizes the rate of distillable entanglement in the average accessed state at all nesting levels. The achievable rate is higher by orders of magnitude in comparison to a canonical protocol that does not optimize the buffer time. The advantage of the proposed design is observed for all nesting levels of the repeater for technologically feasible memory quality, entanglement generation and swapping success probabilities.

quant-ph↗

Optimized Entanglement Purification

We investigate novel protocols for entanglement purification of qubit Bell pairs. Employing genetic algorithms for the design of the purification circuit, we obtain shorter circuits achieving higher success rates and better final fidelities than what is currently available in the literature. We provide a software tool for analytical and numerical study of the generated purification circuits, under customizable error models. These new purification protocols pave the way to practical implementations of modular quantum computers and quantum repeaters. Our approach is particularly attentive to the effects of finite resources and imperfect local operations - phenomena neglected in the usual asymptotic approach to the problem. The choice of the building blocks permitted in the construction of the circuits is based on a thorough enumeration of the local Clifford operations that act as permutations on the basis of Bell states.

quant-ph↗

Quantum Noise Theory of Exceptional Point Sensors

Distinct from closed quantum systems, non-Hermitian system can have exceptional points (EPs) where both eigenvalues and eigenvectors coalesce. Recently, it has been proposed and demonstrated that EPs can enhance the performance of sensors in terms of amplification of detected signal. Meanwhile, the noise might also be amplified at EPs and it is not obvious whether exceptional points will still improve the performance of sensors when both signal and noise are amplified. We develop quantum noise theory to systematically calculate the signal and noise associated with the EP sensors. We then compute quantum Fisher information to extract a lower bound of the sensitivity of EP sensors. Finally, we explicitly construct an EP sensing scheme based on heterodyne detection to achieve the same scaling of the ultimate sensitivity with enhanced performance. Our results can be generalized to higher order EPs for any bosonic non-Hermitian system with linear interactions.

quant-ph↗