Nonplanar qubit with tunable gauge symmetry
Circuit quantum electrodynamics embeds Josephson junction qubits within superconducting cavities, and has emerged as a leading approach to quantum computing and quantum simulation. Despite the many permutations of circuit geometry that have been explored, Josephson connectivities have so far been planar, making them effectively low-dimensional. Here we show that a non-planar qubit -- a $3\times3$ crossbar Josephson array -- gives rise to flux-tunable $\mathbb{Z}_3$ combinatorial gauge symmetry (CGS), potentially enabling spin-liquid behavior when networked into a lattice. The observed excitation spectrum shows excellent agreement with predictions from a neural network trained to generate variational quantum states, demonstrating that we have predictive power over our high-dimensional quantum system. Fine-structure splittings near the CGS point are compatible with weak tunneling or symmetry breaking due to experimental imperfections. We additionally use the superconducting cavity to externally induce symmetry breaking, observing a restoration of symmetry at the CGS point where ground states differ only by a $\mathbb{Z}_3$ phase. This work initiates a general program exploring lattice gauge theories using the toolbox of circuit quantum electrodynamics. More broadly, introducing non-planar Josephson connectivities opens a vast space for experimental and theoretical exploration of structures in almost any imaginable dimensionality and geometry.