arXiv subjects

Thomas M. Stace

Publications and source records attributed to Thomas M. Stace.

52 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2013

Quantum nondemolition detection of a propagating microwave photon

The ability to nondestructively detect the presence of a single, traveling photon has been a long-standing goal in optics, with applications in quantum information and measurement. Realising such a detector is complicated by the fact that photon-photon interactions are typically very weak. At microwave frequencies, very strong effective photon-photon interactions in a waveguide have recently been demonstrated. Here we show how this type of interaction can be used to realize a quantum nondemolition measurement of a single propagating microwave photon. The scheme we propose uses a chain of solid-state 3-level systems (transmons), cascaded through circulators which suppress photon backscattering. Our theoretical analysis shows that microwave-photon detection with fidelity around 90% can be realized with existing technologies.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2013

Minimum requirements for feedback enhanced force sensing

The problem of estimating an unknown force driving a linear oscillator is revisited. When using linear measurement, feedback is often cited as a mechanism to enhance bandwidth or sensitivity. We show that as long as the oscillator dynamics are known, there exists a real-time estimation strategy that reproduces the same measurement record as any arbitrary feedback protocol. Consequently some form of nonlinearity is required to gain any advantage beyond estimation alone. This result holds true in both quantum and classical systems, with non-stationary forces and feedback, and in the general case of non-Gaussian and correlated noise. Recently, feedback enhanced incoherent force sensing has been demonstrated [Nat. Nano. \textbf{7}, 509 (2012)], with the enhancement attributed to a feedback induced modification of the mechanical susceptibility. As a proof-of-principle we experimentally reproduce this result through straightforward filtering.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2012

Breakdown of the cross-Kerr scheme for Photon Counting

We show, in the context of single photon detection, that an atomic three-level model for a transmon in a transmission line does not support the predictions of the nonlinear polarisability model known as the cross-Kerr effect. We show that the induced displacement of a probe in the presence or absence of a single photon in the signal field, cannot be resolved above the quantum noise in the probe. This strongly suggests that cross-Kerr media are not suitable for photon counting or related single photon applications. Our results are presented in the context of a transmon in a one dimensional microwave waveguide, but the conclusions also apply to optical systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2012

Long range failure-tolerant entanglement distribution

We introduce a protocol to distribute entanglement between remote parties. Our protocol is based on a chain of repeater stations, and exploits topological encoding to tolerate very high levels of defects and errors. The repeater stations may employ probabilistic entanglement operations which usually fail; ours is the first protocol to explicitly allow for technologies of this kind. Given an error rate between stations in excess of 10%, arbitrarily long range high fidelity entanglement distribution is possible even if the heralded failure rate within the stations is as high as 99%, providing that unheralded errors are low (order 0.01%).

quant-ph↗

arXiv2012

Giant Cross Kerr Effect for Propagating Microwaves Induced by an Artificial Atom

We have investigated the cross Kerr phase shift of propagating microwave fields strongly coupled to an artificial atom. The artificial atom is a superconducting transmon qubit in an open transmission line. We demonstrate average phase shifts of 11 degrees per photon between two coherent microwave fields both at the single-photon level. At high control power, we observe phase shifts up to 30 degrees. Our results provide an important step towards quantum gates with propagating photons in the microwave regime.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2012

Saturation Spectroscopy of Iodine in Hollow-core Optical Fibre

We present high-resolution spectroscopy of Iodine vapour that is loaded and trapped within the core of a hollow-core photonic crystal fibre (HC-PCF). We compare the observed spectroscopic features to those seen in a conventional iodine cell and show that the saturation characteristics differ significantly. Despite the confined geometry it was still possible to obtain sub-Doppler features with a spectral width of ~6 MHz with very high contrast. We provide a simple theory which closely reproduces all the key observations of the experiment.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2012

Spectral Lineshape Measurements with Shot-Noise Limited Accuracy

Spectroscopy has played the key role in revealing, and thereby understanding, the structure of atoms and molecules. A central drive in this field is the pursuit of higher precision and accuracy so that ever more subtle effects might be discovered. Here, we report on laser absorption spectroscopy that operates at the conventional quantum limit imposed by photon shot-noise. Furthermore, we achieve this limit without compromising the accuracy of the measurement. We demonstrate these properties by recording an absorption profile of cesium vapor at the 2 parts-per-million level. The extremely high signal-to-noise ratio allows us to directly observe the homogeneous lineshape component of the spectral profile, even while in the presence of Doppler broadening that is a factor of 100 times wider. We can do this because we can precisely measure the spectral profile at a frequency detuning more than 200 natural linewidths from the line center. We use the power of this tool to demonstrate direct measurements of a low-intensity optically-induced broadening process that is quite distinct from the well-known power broadening phenomenon.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2012

Power Dependent Lineshape Corrections for Quantitative Spectroscopy

The Voigt profile - a convolution of a Gaussian and a Lorentzian - accurately describes the absorption lines of atomic and molecular gases at low probe powers. Fitting such to experimental spectra yields both the Lorentzian natural linewidth and the Gaussian Doppler broadening. However, as the probe power increases saturation effects introduce spurious power dependence into the fitted Doppler width. Using a simple atomic model, we calculate power-dependent corrections to the Voigt profile, which are parametrized by the Gaussian Doppler width, the Lorentzian natural linewidth, and the optical depth. We show numerically and experimentally that including the correction term substantially reduces the spurious power dependence in the fitted Gaussian width.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2011

Quantitative atomic spectroscopy for primary thermometry

Quantitative spectroscopy has been used to measure accurately the Doppler-broadening of atomic transitions in $^{85}$Rb vapor. By using a conventional platinum resistance thermometer and the Doppler thermometry technique, we were able to determine $k_B$ with a relative uncertainty of $4.1\times 10^{-4}$, and with a deviation of $2.7\times 10^{-4}$ from the expected value. Our experiment, using an effusive vapour, departs significantly from other Doppler-broadened thermometry (DBT) techniques, which rely on weakly absorbing molecules in a diffusive regime. In these circumstances, very different systematic effects such as magnetic sensitivity and optical pumping are dominant. Using the model developed recently by Stace and Luiten, we estimate the perturbation due to optical pumping of the measured $k_B$ value was less than $4\times 10^{-6}$. The effects of optical pumping on atomic and molecular DBT experiments is mapped over a wide range of beam size and saturation intensity, indicating possible avenues for improvement. We also compare the line-broadening mechanisms, windows of operation and detection limits of some recent DBT experiments.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2010

Fault tolerant quantum computation with very high threshold for loss errors

Many proposals for fault tolerant quantum computation (FTQC) suffer detectable loss processes. Here we show that topological FTQC schemes, which are known to have high error thresholds, are also extremely robust against losses. We demonstrate that these schemes tolerate loss rates up to 24.9%, determined by bond percolation on a cubic lattice. Our numerical results show that these schemes retain good performance when loss and computational errors are simultaneously present.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2010

Fully fault tolerant quantum computation with non-deterministic gates

In certain approaches to quantum computing the operations between qubits are non-deterministic and likely to fail. For example, a distributed quantum processor would achieve scalability by networking together many small components; operations between components should assumed to be failure prone. In the logical limit of this architecture each component contains only one qubit. Here we derive thresholds for fault tolerant quantum computation under such extreme paradigms. We find that computation is supported for remarkably high failure rates (exceeding 90%) providing that failures are heralded, meanwhile the rate of unknown errors should not exceed 2 in 10^4 operations.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2010

Quantum Limits of Thermometry

The precision of typical thermometers consisting of $N$ particles is shot noise limited, improving as $\sim1/\sqrt{N}$. For high precision thermometry and thermometric standards this presents an important theoretical noise floor. Here it is demonstrated that thermometry may be mapped onto the problem of phase estimation, and using techniques from optimal phase estimation, it follows that the scaling of the precision of a thermometer may in principle be improved to $\sim1/N$, representing a Heisenberg limit to thermometry.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2009

Thresholds for topological codes in the presence of loss

Many proposals for quantum information processing are subject to detectable loss errors. In this paper, we show that topological error correcting codes, which protect against computational errors, are also extremely robust against losses. We present analytical results showing the maximum tolerable loss rate is 50 %, which is determined by the square-lattice bond percolation threshold. This saturates the bound set by the no-cloning theorem. Our numerical results support this, and show a graceful trade-off between computational and loss errors.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2008

Robust adiabatic approach to optical spin entangling in coupled quantum dots

Excitonic transitions offer a possible route to ultrafast optical spin manipulation in coupled nanostructures. We perform here a detailed study of the three principal exciton-mediated decoherence channels for optically-controlled electron spin qubits in coupled quantum dots: radiative decay of the excitonic state, exciton-phonon interactions, and Landau-Zener transitions between laser-dressed states. We consider a scheme to produce an entangling controlled-phase gate on a pair of coupled spins which, in its simplest dynamic form, renders the system subject to fast decoherence rates associated with exciton creation during the gating operation. In contrast, we show that an adiabatic approach employing off-resonant laser excitation allows us to suppress all sources of decoherence simultaneously, significantly increasing the fidelity of operations at only a relatively small gating time cost. We find that controlled-phase gates accurate to one part in 10^2 can realistically be achieved with the adiabatic approach, whereas the conventional dynamic approach does not appear to support a fidelity suitable for scalable quantum computation. Our predictions could be demonstrated experimentally in the near future.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2008

Measurement-based approach to entanglement generation in coupled quantum dots

Measurements provide a novel mechanism for generating the entanglement resource necessary for performing scalable quantum computation. Recently, we proposed a method for performing parity measurements in a coupled quantum dot system. In this paper we generalise this scheme and perform a comprehensive analytic and numerical study of environmental factors. We calculate the effects of possible error sources including non-ideal photon detectors, ineffective spin-selective excitation and dot distinguishability (both spatial and spectral). Furthermore, we present an experimental approach for verifying the success of the parity measurement.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2006

All-Optical Measurement Based QIP in Quantum Dots

Parity measurements on qubits can generate the entanglement resource necessary for scalable quantum computation. Here we describe a method for fast optical parity measurements on electron spin qubits within coupled quantum dots. The measurement scheme, which can be realised with existing technology, consists of the optical excitation of excitonic states followed by monitored relaxation. Conditional on the observation of a photon, the system is projected into the odd/even parity subspaces. Our model incorporates all the primary sources of error, including detector inefficiency, effects of spatial separation and non-resonance of the dots, and also unwanted excitations. Through an analytical treatment we establish that the scheme is robust to such effects. Two applications are presented: a realisation of a CNOT gate, and a technique for growing large scale graph states.

quant-ph↗