arXiv subjects

Sophia E. Economou

Publications and source records attributed to Sophia E. Economou.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2023

Protocol for nearly deterministic parity projection on two photonic qubits

Photonic parity projection plays a significant role in photonic quantum information processing. Non-destructive parity projections normally require high-fidelity Controlled-Z gates between photonic and matter qubits, which can be experimentally demanding. In this paper, we propose a nearly deterministic parity projection protocol on two photonic qubits which only requires stable matter-photon Controlled-Phase gates. The fact that our protocol does not require perfect Controlled-Z gates makes it more amenable to experimental implementation.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Long-distance photon-mediated and short-distance entangling gates in three-qubit quantum dot spin systems

Superconducting microwave resonator couplers will likely become an essential component in modular semiconductor quantum dot (QD) spin qubit processors, as they help alleviate cross-talk and wiring issues as the number of qubits increases. Here, we focus on a three-qubit system composed of two modules: a two-electron triple QD resonator-coupled to a single-electron double QD. Using a combination of analytical techniques and numerical results, we derive an effective Hamiltonian that describes the three-qubit logical subspace and show that it accurately captures the dynamics of the system. We examine the performance of short-range and long-range entangling gates, revealing the effect of a spectator qubit in reducing the gate fidelities in both cases. We further study the competition between non-adiabatic errors and spectator-associated errors in short-range operations and quantify their relative importance across practical parameter ranges for short and long gate times. We also analyze the impact of charge noise together with residual coupling to the spectator qubit on inter-module entangling gates and find that for current experimental settings, leakage errors are the main source of infidelities in these operations. Our results help pave the way toward identifying optimal modular QD architectures for quantum information processing on semiconductor chips.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Quantum repeaters: From quantum networks to the quantum internet

A quantum internet is the holy grail of quantum information processing, enabling the deployment of a broad range of quantum technologies and protocols on a global scale. However, numerous challenges exist before the quantum internet can become a reality. Perhaps the most crucial of these is the realization of a quantum repeater, an essential component in the long-distance transmission of quantum information. As the analog of a classical repeater, extender, or booster, the quantum repeater works to overcome loss and noise in the quantum channels comprising a quantum network. Here, we review the conceptual frameworks and architectures for quantum repeaters, as well as the experimental progress towards their realization. We also discuss the various near-term proposals to overcome the limits to the communication rates set by point-to-point quantum communication. Finally, we overview how quantum repeaters fit within the broader challenge of designing and implementing a quantum internet.

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arXiv2023

How Much Entanglement Do Quantum Optimization Algorithms Require?

Many classical optimization problems can be mapped to finding the ground states of diagonal Ising Hamiltonians, for which variational quantum algorithms such as the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) provide heuristic methods. Because the solutions of such classical optimization problems are necessarily product states, it is unclear how entanglement affects their performance. An Adaptive Derivative-Assembled Problem-Tailored (ADAPT) variation of QAOA improves the convergence rate by allowing entangling operations in the mixer layers whereas it requires fewer CNOT gates in the entire circuit. In this work, we study the entanglement generated during the execution of ADAPT-QAOA. Through simulations of the weighted Max-Cut problem, we show that ADAPT-QAOA exhibits substantial flexibility in entangling and disentangling qubits. By incrementally restricting this flexibility, we find that a larger amount of entanglement entropy at earlier stages coincides with faster convergence at later stages. In contrast, while the standard QAOA quickly generates entanglement within a few layers, it cannot remove excess entanglement efficiently. Our results demonstrate that the role of entanglement in quantum optimization is subtle and provide guidance for building favorable features into quantum optimization algorithms.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Avoiding symmetry roadblocks and minimizing the measurement overhead of adaptive variational quantum eigensolvers

Quantum simulation of strongly correlated systems is potentially the most feasible useful application of near-term quantum computers. Minimizing quantum computational resources is crucial to achieving this goal. A promising class of algorithms for this purpose consists of variational quantum eigensolvers (VQEs). Among these, problem-tailored versions such as ADAPT-VQE that build variational ansätze step by step from a predefined operator pool perform particularly well in terms of circuit depths and variational parameter counts. However, this improved performance comes at the expense of an additional measurement overhead compared to standard VQEs. Here, we show that this overhead can be reduced to an amount that grows only linearly with the number $n$ of qubits, instead of quartically as in the original ADAPT-VQE. We do this by proving that operator pools of size $2n-2$ can represent any state in Hilbert space if chosen appropriately. We prove that this is the minimal size of such "complete" pools, discuss their algebraic properties, and present necessary and sufficient conditions for their completeness that allow us to find such pools efficiently. We further show that, if the simulated problem possesses symmetries, then complete pools can fail to yield convergent results, unless the pool is chosen to obey certain symmetry rules. We demonstrate the performance of such symmetry-adapted complete pools by using them in classical simulations of ADAPT-VQE for several strongly correlated molecules. Our findings are relevant for any VQE that uses an ansatz based on Pauli strings.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Linear optical logical Bell state measurements with optimal loss-tolerance threshold

Quantum threshold theorems impose hard limits on the hardware capabilities to process quantum information. We derive tight and fundamental upper bounds to loss-tolerance thresholds in different linear-optical quantum information processing settings through an adversarial framework, taking into account the intrinsically probabilistic nature of linear optical Bell measurements. For logical Bell state measurements - ubiquitous operations in photonic quantum information - we demonstrate analytically that linear optics can achieve the fundamental loss threshold imposed by the no-cloning theorem even though, following the work of Lee et al., (Phys. Rev. A 100, 052303 (2019)), the constraint was widely assumed to be stricter. We spotlight the assumptions of the latter publication and find their bound holds for a logical Bell measurement built from adaptive physical linear-optical Bell measurements. We also give an explicit even stricter bound for non-adaptive Bell measurements.

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arXiv2023

Near-deterministic hybrid generation of arbitrary photonic graph states using a single quantum emitter and linear optics

Since linear-optical two-photon gates are inherently probabilistic, measurement-based implementations are particularly well suited for photonic platforms: a large highly-entangled photonic resource state, called a graph state, is consumed through measurements to perform a computation. The challenge is thus to produce these graph states. Several generation procedures, which use either interacting quantum emitters or efficient spin-photon interface, have been proposed to create these photonic graph states deterministically. Yet, these solutions are still out of reach experimentally since the state-of-the-art is the generation of a linear graph state. Here, we introduce near-deterministic solutions for the generation of graph states using the current quantum emitter capabilities. We propose hybridizing quantum-emitter-based graph state generation with all-photonic fusion gates to produce graph states of complex topology near-deterministically. Our results should pave the way towards the practical implementation of resource-efficient quantum information processing, including measurement-based quantum communication and quantum computing.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Quantum self-consistent equation-of-motion method for computing molecular excitation energies, ionization potentials, and electron affinities on a quantum computer

Near-term quantum computers are expected to facilitate material and chemical research through accurate molecular simulations. Several developments have already shown that accurate ground-state energies for small molecules can be evaluated on present-day quantum devices. Although electronically excited states play a vital role in chemical processes and applications, the search for a reliable and practical approach for routine excited-state calculations on near-term quantum devices is ongoing. Inspired by excited-state methods developed for the unitary coupled-cluster theory in quantum chemistry, we present an equation-of-motion-based method to compute excitation energies following the variational quantum eigensolver algorithm for ground-state calculations on a quantum computer. We perform numerical simulations on H$_2$, H$_4$, H$_2$O, and LiH molecules to test our quantum self-consistent equation-of-motion (q-sc-EOM) method and compare it to other current state-of-the-art methods. q-sc-EOM makes use of self-consistent operators to satisfy the vacuum annihilation condition, a critical property for accurate calculations. It provides real and size-intensive energy differences corresponding to vertical excitation energies, ionization potentials and electron affinities. We also find that q-sc-EOM is more suitable for implementation on NISQ devices as it is expected to be more resilient to noise compared with the currently available methods.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Performance analysis of quantum repeaters enabled by deterministically generated photonic graph states

By encoding logical qubits into specific types of photonic graph states, one can realize quantum repeaters that enable fast entanglement distribution rates approaching classical communication. However, the generation of these photonic graph states requires a formidable resource overhead using traditional approaches based on linear optics. Overcoming this challenge, a number of new schemes have been proposed that employ quantum emitters to deterministically generate photonic graph states. Although these schemes have the potential to significantly reduce the resource cost, a systematic comparison of the repeater performance among different encodings and different generation schemes is lacking. Here, we quantitatively analyze the performance of quantum repeaters based on two different graph states, i.e. the tree graph states and the repeater graph states. For both states, we compare the performance between two generation schemes, one based on a single quantum emitter coupled to ancillary matter qubits, and one based on a single quantum emitter coupled to a delayed feedback. We identify the numerically optimal scheme at different system parameters. Our analysis provides a clear guideline on the selection of the generation scheme for graph-state-based quantum repeaters, and lays out the parameter requirements for future experimental realizations of different schemes.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Extracting perfect GHZ states from imperfect weighted graph states via entanglement concentration

Photonic GHZ states serve as the central resource for a number of important applications in quantum information science, including secret sharing, sensing, and fusion-based quantum computing. The use of photon-emitter entangling gates is a promising approach to creating these states that sidesteps many of the difficulties associated with intrinsically probabilistic methods based on linear optics. However, the efficient creation of high-fidelity GHZ states of many photons remains an outstanding challenge due to both coherent and incoherent errors during the generation process. Here, we propose an entanglement concentration protocol that is capable of generating perfect GHZ states using only local gates and measurements on imperfect weighted graph states. We show that our protocol is both efficient and robust to incoherent noise errors.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Architectures for Multinode Superconducting Quantum Computers

Many proposals to scale quantum technology rely on modular or distributed designs where individual quantum processors, called nodes, are linked together to form one large multinode quantum computer (MNQC). One scalable method to construct an MNQC is using superconducting quantum systems with optical interconnects. However, a limiting factor of these machines will be internode gates, which may be two to three orders of magnitude noisier and slower than local operations. Surmounting the limitations of internode gates will require a range of techniques, including improvements in entanglement generation, the use of entanglement distillation, and optimized software and compilers, and it remains unclear how improvements to these components interact to affect overall system performance, what performance from each is required, or even how to quantify the performance of each. In this paper, we employ a `co-design' inspired approach to quantify overall MNQC performance in terms of hardware models of internode links, entanglement distillation, and local architecture. In the case of superconducting MNQCs with microwave-to-optical links, we uncover a tradeoff between entanglement generation and distillation that threatens to degrade performance. We show how to navigate this tradeoff, lay out how compilers should optimize between local and internode gates, and discuss when noisy quantum links have an advantage over purely classical links. Using these results, we introduce a roadmap for the realization of early MNQCs which illustrates potential improvements to the hardware and software of MNQCs and outlines criteria for evaluating the landscape, from progress in entanglement generation and quantum memory to dedicated algorithms such as distributed quantum phase estimation. While we focus on superconducting devices with optical interconnects, our approach is general across MNQC implementations.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Hello Quantum World! A rigorous but accessible first-year university course in quantum information science

Addressing workforce shortages within the Quantum Information Science and Engineering (QISE) community requires attracting and retaining students from diverse backgrounds early on in their undergraduate education. Here, we describe a course we developed called Hello Quantum World! that introduces a broad range of fundamental quantum information and computation concepts in a rigorous way but without requiring any knowledge of mathematics beyond high-school algebra nor any prior knowledge of quantum mechanics. Some of the topics covered include superposition, entanglement, quantum gates, teleportation, quantum algorithms, and quantum error correction. The course is designed for first-year undergraduate students, both those pursuing a degree in QISE and those who are seeking to be `quantum-aware'.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2022

Fast high-fidelity single-qubit gates for flip-flop qubits in silicon

The flip-flop qubit, encoded in the states with antiparallel donor-bound electron and donor nuclear spins in silicon, showcases long coherence times, good controllability, and, in contrast to other donor-spin-based schemes, long-distance coupling. Electron spin control near the interface, however, is likely to shorten the relaxation time by many orders of magnitude, reducing the overall qubit quality factor. Here, we theoretically study the multilevel system that is formed by the interacting electron and nuclear spins and derive analytical effective two-level Hamiltonians with and without periodic driving. We then propose an optimal control scheme that produces fast and robust single-qubit gates in the presence of low-frequency noise without relying on parametrically restrictive sweet spots. This scheme increases considerably both the relaxation time and the qubit quality factor.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

TETRIS-ADAPT-VQE: An adaptive algorithm that yields shallower, denser circuit ansätze

Adaptive quantum variational algorithms are particularly promising for simulating strongly correlated systems on near-term quantum hardware, but they are not yet viable due, in large part, to the severe coherence time limitations on current devices. In this work, we introduce an algorithm called TETRIS-ADAPT-VQE, which iteratively builds up variational ansätze a few operators at a time in a way dictated by the problem being simulated. This algorithm is a modified version of the ADAPT-VQE algorithm in which the one-operator-at-a-time rule is lifted to allow for the addition of multiple operators with disjoint supports in each iteration. TETRIS-ADAPT-VQE results in denser but significantly shallower circuits, without increasing the number of CNOT gates or variational parameters. Its advantage over the original algorithm in terms of circuit depths increases with the system size. Moreover, the expensive step of measuring the energy gradient with respect to each candidate unitary at each iteration is performed only a fraction of the time compared to ADAPT-VQE. These improvements bring us closer to the goal of demonstrating a practical quantum advantage on quantum hardware.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

An entanglement-based volumetric benchmark for near-term quantum hardware

We introduce a volumetric benchmark for near-term quantum platforms based on the generation and verification of genuine entanglement across n-qubits using graph states and direct stabilizer measurements. Our benchmark evaluates the robustness of multipartite and bipartite n-qubit entanglement with respect to many sources of hardware noise: qubit decoherence, CNOT and swap gate noise, and readout error. We demonstrate our benchmark on multiple superconducting qubit platforms available from IBM (ibmq_belem, ibmq_toronto, ibmq_guadalupe and ibmq_jakarta). Subsets of $n<10$ qubits are used for graph state preparation and stabilizer measurement. Evaluation of genuine and biseparable entanglement witnesses we report observations of $5$ qubit genuine entanglement, but robust multipartite entanglement is difficult to generate for $n>4$ qubits and identify two-qubit gate noise as strongly correlated with the quality of genuine multipartite entanglement.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Photonic resource state generation from a minimal number of quantum emitters

Multi-photon entangled graph states are a fundamental resource in quantum communication networks, distributed quantum computing, and sensing. These states can in principle be created deterministically from quantum emitters such as optically active quantum dots or defects, atomic systems, or superconducting qubits. However, finding efficient schemes to produce such states has been a long-standing challenge. Here, we present an algorithm that, given a desired multi-photon graph state, determines the minimum number of quantum emitters and precise operation sequences that can produce it. The algorithm itself and the resulting operation sequence both scale polynomially in the size of the photonic graph state, allowing one to obtain efficient schemes to generate graph states containing hundreds or thousands of photons.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

An adaptive quantum approximate optimization algorithm for solving combinatorial problems on a quantum computer

The quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) is a hybrid variational quantum-classical algorithm that solves combinatorial optimization problems. While there is evidence suggesting that the fixed form of the standard QAOA ansatz is not optimal, there is no systematic approach for finding better ansätze. We address this problem by developing an iterative version of QAOA that is problem-tailored, and which can also be adapted to specific hardware constraints. We simulate the algorithm on a class of Max-Cut graph problems and show that it converges much faster than the standard QAOA, while simultaneously reducing the required number of CNOT gates and optimization parameters. We provide evidence that this speedup is connected to the concept of shortcuts to adiabaticity.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Symmetry breaking slows convergence of the ADAPT Variational Quantum Eigensolver

Because quantum simulation of molecular systems is expected to provide the strongest advantage over classical computing methods for systems exhibiting strong electron correlation, it is critical that the performance of VQEs be assessed for strongly correlated systems. For classical simulation, strong correlation often results in symmetry-breaking of the Hartree-Fock reference, leading to Löwdin's well-known ``symmetry dilemma'' whereby accuracy in the energy can be increased by breaking spin or spatial symmetries. Here, we explore the impact of symmetry breaking on the performance of ADAPT-VQE using two strongly correlated systems: (i) the ``fermionized" anisotropic Heisenberg model, where the anisotropy parameter controls the correlation in the system, and (ii) symmetrically-stretched linear \ce{H4}, where correlation increases with increasing H-H separation. In both of these cases, increasing the level of correlation of the system leads to spontaneous symmetry breaking (parity and $\hat{S}^{2}$, respectively) of the mean-field solutions. We analyze the role that symmetry breaking in the reference states and orbital mappings of the fermionic Hamiltonians have on the compactness and performance of ADAPT-VQE. We observe that improving the energy of the reference states by breaking symmetry has a deleterious effect on ADAPT-VQE by increasing the length of the ansatz necessary for energy convergence and exacerbating the problem of ``gradient troughs".

quant-ph↗