arXiv subjects

Yaozu Wu

Publications and source records attributed to Yaozu Wu.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2025

Demonstrating quantum error mitigation on logical qubits

A long-standing challenge in quantum computing is developing technologies to overcome the inevitable noise in qubits. To enable meaningful applications in the early stages of fault-tolerant quantum computing, devising methods to suppress post-correction logical failures is becoming increasingly crucial. In this work, we propose and experimentally demonstrate the application of zero-noise extrapolation, a practical quantum error mitigation technique, to error correction circuits on state-of-the-art superconducting processors. By amplifying the noise on physical qubits, the circuits yield outcomes that exhibit a predictable dependence on noise strength, following a polynomial function determined by the code distance. This property enables the effective application of polynomial extrapolation to mitigate logical errors. Our experiments demonstrate a universal reduction in logical errors across various quantum circuits, including fault-tolerant circuits of repetition and surface codes. We observe a favorable performance in multi-round error correction circuits, indicating that this method remains effective when the circuit depth increases. These results advance the frontier of quantum error suppression technologies, opening a practical way to achieve reliable quantum computing in the early fault-tolerant era.

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arXiv2025

Observation of topological prethermal strong zero modes

Symmetry-protected topological phases cannot be described by any local order parameter and are beyond the conventional symmetry-breaking paradigm for understanding quantum matter. They are characterized by topological boundary states robust against perturbations that respect the protecting symmetry. In a clean system without disorder, these edge modes typically only occur for the ground states of systems with a bulk energy gap and would not survive at finite temperatures due to mobile thermal excitations. Here, we report the observation of a distinct type of topological edge modes, which are protected by emergent symmetries and persist even up to infinite temperature, with an array of 100 programmable superconducting qubits. In particular, through digital quantum simulation of the dynamics of a one-dimensional disorder-free "cluster" Hamiltonian, we observe robust long-lived topological edge modes over up to 30 cycles at a wide range of temperatures. By monitoring the propagation of thermal excitations, we show that despite the free mobility of these excitations, their interactions with the edge modes are substantially suppressed in the dimerized regime due to an emergent U(1)$\times$U(1) symmetry, resulting in an unusually prolonged lifetime of the topological edge modes even at infinite temperature. In addition, we exploit these topological edge modes as logical qubits and prepare a logical Bell state, which exhibits persistent coherence in the dimerized and off-resonant regime, despite the system being disorder-free and far from its ground state. Our results establish a viable digital simulation approach to experimentally exploring a variety of finite-temperature topological phases and demonstrate a potential route to construct long-lived robust boundary qubits that survive to infinite temperature in disorder-free systems.

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arXiv2025

Exploring nontrivial topology at quantum criticality in a superconducting processor

The discovery of nontrivial topology in quantum critical states has introduced a new paradigm for classifying quantum phase transitions and challenges the conventional belief that topological phases are typically associated with a bulk energy gap. However, realizing and characterizing such topologically nontrivial quantum critical states with large particle numbers remains an outstanding experimental challenge in statistical and condensed matter physics. Programmable quantum processors can directly prepare and manipulate exotic quantum many-body states, offering a powerful path for exploring the physics behind these states. Here, we present an experimental exploration of the critical cluster Ising model by preparing its low-lying critical states on a superconducting processor with up to $100$ qubits. We develop an efficient method to probe the boundary $g$-function based on prepared low-energy states, which allows us to uniquely identify the nontrivial topology of the critical systems under study. Furthermore, by adapting the entanglement Hamiltonian tomography technique, we recognize two-fold topological degeneracy in the entanglement spectrum under periodic boundary condition, experimentally verifying the universal bulk-boundary correspondence in topological critical systems. Our results demonstrate the low-lying critical states as useful quantum resources for investigating the interplay between topology and quantum criticality.

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arXiv2024

Emergence of steady quantum transport in a superconducting processor

Non-equilibrium quantum transport is crucial to technological advances ranging from nanoelectronics to thermal management. In essence, it deals with the coherent transfer of energy and (quasi-)particles through quantum channels between thermodynamic baths. A complete understanding of quantum transport thus requires the ability to simulate and probe macroscopic and microscopic physics on equal footing. Using a superconducting quantum processor, we demonstrate the emergence of non-equilibrium steady quantum transport by emulating the baths with qubit ladders and realising steady particle currents between the baths. We experimentally show that the currents are independent of the microscopic details of bath initialisation, and their temporal fluctuations decrease rapidly with the size of the baths, emulating those predicted by thermodynamic baths. The above characteristics are experimental evidence of pure-state statistical mechanics and prethermalisation in non-equilibrium many-body quantum systems. Furthermore, by utilising precise controls and measurements with single-site resolution, we demonstrate the capability to tune steady currents by manipulating the macroscopic properties of the baths, including filling and spectral properties. Our investigation paves the way for a new generation of experimental exploration of non-equilibrium quantum transport in strongly correlated quantum matter.

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arXiv2024

Creating and controlling global Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger entanglement on quantum processors

Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states, also known as two-component Schrödinger cats, play vital roles in the foundation of quantum physics and, more attractively, in future quantum technologies such as fault-tolerant quantum computation. Enlargement in size and coherent control of GHZ states are both crucial for harnessing entanglement in advanced computational tasks with practical advantages, which unfortunately pose tremendous challenges as GHZ states are vulnerable to noise. Here we propose a general strategy for creating, preserving, and manipulating large-scale GHZ entanglement, and demonstrate a series of experiments underlined by high-fidelity digital quantum circuits. For initialization, we employ a scalable protocol to create genuinely entangled GHZ states with up to 60 qubits, almost doubling the previous size record. For protection, we take a new perspective on discrete time crystals (DTCs), originally for exploring exotic nonequilibrium quantum matters, and embed a GHZ state into the eigenstates of a tailor-made cat scar DTC to extend its lifetime. For manipulation, we switch the DTC eigenstates with in-situ quantum gates to modify the effectiveness of the GHZ protection. Our findings establish a viable path towards coherent operations on large-scale entanglement, and further highlight superconducting processors as a promising platform to explore nonequilibrium quantum matters and emerging applications.

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arXiv2024

Quantum continual learning on a programmable superconducting processor

Quantum computers may outperform classical computers on machine learning tasks. In recent years, a variety of quantum algorithms promising unparalleled potential to enhance, speed up, or innovate machine learning have been proposed. Yet, quantum learning systems, similar to their classical counterparts, may likewise suffer from the catastrophic forgetting problem, where training a model with new tasks would result in a dramatic performance drop for the previously learned ones. This problem is widely believed to be a crucial obstacle to achieving continual learning of multiple sequential tasks. Here, we report an experimental demonstration of quantum continual learning on a fully programmable superconducting processor. In particular, we sequentially train a quantum classifier with three tasks, two about identifying real-life images and the other on classifying quantum states, and demonstrate its catastrophic forgetting through experimentally observed rapid performance drops for prior tasks. To overcome this dilemma, we exploit the elastic weight consolidation strategy and show that the quantum classifier can incrementally learn and retain knowledge across the three distinct tasks, with an average prediction accuracy exceeding 92.3%. In addition, for sequential tasks involving quantum-engineered data, we demonstrate that the quantum classifier can achieve a better continual learning performance than a commonly used classical feedforward network with a comparable number of variational parameters. Our results establish a viable strategy for empowering quantum learning systems with desirable adaptability to multiple sequential tasks, marking an important primary experimental step towards the long-term goal of achieving quantum artificial general intelligence.

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arXiv2024

Quantum highway: Observation of minimal and maximal speed limits for few and many-body states

Tracking the time evolution of a quantum state allows one to verify the thermalization rate or the propagation speed of correlations in generic quantum systems. Inspired by the energy-time uncertainty principle, bounds have been demonstrated on the maximal speed at which a quantum state can change, resulting in immediate and practical tasks. Based on a programmable superconducting quantum processor, we test the dynamics of various emulated quantum mechanical systems encompassing single- and many-body states. We show that one can test the known quantum speed limits and that modifying a single Hamiltonian parameter allows the observation of the crossover of the different bounds on the dynamics. We also unveil the observation of minimal quantum speed limits in addition to more common maximal ones, i.e., the lowest rate of change of a unitarily evolved quantum state. Our results establish a comprehensive experimental characterization of quantum speed limits and pave the way for their subsequent study in engineered non-unitary conditions.

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arXiv2024

Improved Nonlocality Certification via Bouncing between Bell Operators and Inequalities

Bell nonlocality is an intrinsic feature of quantum mechanics, which can be certified via the violation of Bell inequalities. It is therefore a fundamental question to certify Bell nonlocality from experimental data. Here, we present an optimization scheme to improve nonlocality certification by exploring flexible mappings between Bell inequalities and Hamiltonians corresponding to the Bell operators. We show that several Hamiltonian models can be mapped to new inequalities with improved classical bounds than the original one, enabling a more robust detection of nonlocality. From the other direction, we investigate the mapping from fixed Bell inequalities to Hamiltonians, aiming to maximize quantum violations while considering experimental imperfections. As a practical demonstration, we apply this method to an XXZ-like honeycomb-lattice model utilizing over 70 superconducting qubits. The successful application of this technique, as well as combining the two directions to form an optimization loop, may open new avenues for developing more practical and noise-resilient nonlocality certification techniques and enable broader experimental explorations.

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arXiv2024

Probing many-body Bell correlation depth with superconducting qubits

Quantum nonlocality describes a stronger form of quantum correlation than that of entanglement. It refutes Einstein's belief of local realism and is among the most distinctive and enigmatic features of quantum mechanics. It is a crucial resource for achieving quantum advantages in a variety of practical applications, ranging from cryptography and certified random number generation via self-testing to machine learning. Nevertheless, the detection of nonlocality, especially in quantum many-body systems, is notoriously challenging. Here, we report an experimental certification of genuine multipartite Bell correlations, which signal nonlocality in quantum many-body systems, up to 24 qubits with a fully programmable superconducting quantum processor. In particular, we employ energy as a Bell correlation witness and variationally decrease the energy of a many-body system across a hierarchy of thresholds, below which an increasing Bell correlation depth can be certified from experimental data. As an illustrating example, we variationally prepare the low-energy state of a two-dimensional honeycomb model with 73 qubits and certify its Bell correlations by measuring an energy that surpasses the corresponding classical bound with up to 48 standard deviations. In addition, we variationally prepare a sequence of low-energy states and certify their genuine multipartite Bell correlations up to 24 qubits via energies measured efficiently by parity oscillation and multiple quantum coherence techniques. Our results establish a viable approach for preparing and certifying multipartite Bell correlations, which provide not only a finer benchmark beyond entanglement for quantum devices, but also a valuable guide towards exploiting multipartite Bell correlation in a wide spectrum of practical applications.

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arXiv2024

Simulating unsteady fluid flows on a superconducting quantum processor

Recent advancements of intermediate-scale quantum processors have triggered tremendous interest in the exploration of practical quantum advantage. The simulation of fluid dynamics, a highly challenging problem in classical physics but vital for practical applications, emerges as a good candidate for showing quantum utility. Here, we report an experiment on the digital simulation of unsteady flows, which consists of quantum encoding, evolution, and detection of flow states, with a superconducting quantum processor. The quantum algorithm is based on the Hamiltonian simulation using the hydrodynamic formulation of the Schrödinger equation. With the median fidelities of 99.97% and 99.67% for parallel single- and two-qubit gates respectively, we simulate the dynamics of a two-dimensional (2D) compressible diverging flow and a 2D decaying vortex with ten qubits. The experimental results well capture the temporal evolution of averaged density and momentum profiles, and qualitatively reproduce spatial flow fields with moderate noises. This work demonstrates the potential of quantum computing in simulating more complex flows, such as turbulence, for practical applications.

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arXiv2024

Non-Abelian braiding of Fibonacci anyons with a superconducting processor

Non-Abelian topological orders offer an intriguing path towards fault-tolerant quantum computation, where information can be encoded and manipulated in a topologically protected manner immune to arbitrary local noises and perturbations. However, realizing non-Abelian topologically ordered states is notoriously challenging in both condensed matter and programmable quantum systems, and it was not until recently that signatures of non-Abelian statistics were observed through digital quantum simulation approaches. Despite these exciting progresses, none of them has demonstrated the appropriate type of topological orders and associated non-Abelian anyons whose braidings alone support universal quantum computation. Here, we report the realization of non-Abelian topologically ordered states of the Fibonacci string-net model and demonstrate braidings of Fibonacci anyons featuring universal computational power, with a superconducting quantum processor. We exploit efficient quantum circuits to prepare the desired states and verify their nontrivial topological nature by measuring the topological entanglement entropy. In addition, we create two pairs of Fibonacci anyons and demonstrate their fusion rule and non-Abelian braiding statistics by applying unitary gates on the underlying physical qubits. Our results establish a versatile digital approach to exploring exotic non-Abelian topological states and their associated braiding statistics with current noisy intermediate-scale quantum processors.

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arXiv2024

Measuring Spectral Form Factor in Many-Body Chaotic and Localized Phases of Quantum Processors

The spectral form factor (SFF) captures universal spectral fluctuations as signatures of quantum chaos, and has been instrumental in advancing multiple frontiers of physics including the studies of black holes and quantum many-body systems. However, the measurement of SFF in many-body systems is challenging due to the difficulty in resolving level spacings that become exponentially small with increasing system size. Here we experimentally measure the SFF to probe the presence or absence of chaos in quantum many-body systems using a superconducting quantum processor with a randomized measurement protocol. For a Floquet chaotic system, we observe signatures of spectral rigidity of random matrix theory in SFF given by the ramp-plateau behavior. For a Hamiltonian system, we utilize SFF to distinguish the quantum many-body chaotic phase and the prethermal many-body localization. We observe the dip-ramp-plateau behavior of random matrix theory in the chaotic phase, and contrast the scaling of the plateau time in system size between the many-body chaotic and localized phases. Furthermore, we probe the eigenstate statistics by measuring a generalization of the SFF, known as the partial SFF, and observe distinct behaviors in the purities of the reduced density matrix in the two phases. This work unveils a new way of extracting the universal signatures of many-body quantum chaos in quantum devices by probing the correlations in eigenenergies and eigenstates.

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arXiv2024

Testing the unified bounds of quantum speed limit

Quantum speed limits (QSLs) impose fundamental constraints on the evolution speed of quantum systems. Traditionally, the Mandelstam-Tamm (MT) and Margolus-Levitin (ML) bounds have been widely employed, relying on the standard deviation and mean of energy distribution to define the QSLs. However, these universal bounds only offer loose restrictions on the quantum evolution. Here we introduce the generalized ML bounds, which prove to be more stringent in constraining dynamic evolution, by utilizing moments of energy spectra of arbitrary orders, even noninteger orders. To validate our findings, we conduct experiments in a superconducting circuit, where we have the capability to prepare a wide range of quantum photonic states and rigorously test these bounds by measuring the evolution of the system and its photon statistics using quantum state tomography. While, in general, the MT bound is effective for short-time evolution, we identify specific parameter regimes where either the MT or the generalized ML bounds suffice to constrain the entire evolution. Our findings not only establish new criteria for estimating QSLs but also substantially enhance our comprehension of the dynamic evolution of quantum systems.

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arXiv2024

Long-lived topological time-crystalline order on a quantum processor

Topologically ordered phases of matter elude Landau's symmetry-breaking theory, featuring a variety of intriguing properties such as long-range entanglement and intrinsic robustness against local perturbations. Their extension to periodically driven systems gives rise to exotic new phenomena that are forbidden in thermal equilibrium. Here, we report the observation of signatures of such a phenomenon -- a prethermal topologically ordered time crystal -- with programmable superconducting qubits arranged on a square lattice. By periodically driving the superconducting qubits with a surface-code Hamiltonian, we observe discrete time-translation symmetry breaking dynamics that is only manifested in the subharmonic temporal response of nonlocal logical operators. We further connect the observed dynamics to the underlying topological order by measuring a nonzero topological entanglement entropy and studying its subsequent dynamics. Our results demonstrate the potential to explore exotic topologically ordered nonequilibrium phases of matter with noisy intermediate-scale quantum processors.

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arXiv2023

Digital simulation of non-Abelian anyons with 68 programmable superconducting qubits

Non-Abelian anyons are exotic quasiparticle excitations hosted by certain topological phases of matter. They break the fermion-boson dichotomy and obey non-Abelian braiding statistics: their interchanges yield unitary operations, rather than merely a phase factor, in a space spanned by topologically degenerate wavefunctions. They are the building blocks of topological quantum computing. However, experimental observation of non-Abelian anyons and their characterizing braiding statistics is notoriously challenging and has remained elusive hitherto, in spite of various theoretical proposals. Here, we report an experimental quantum digital simulation of projective non-Abelian anyons and their braiding statistics with up to 68 programmable superconducting qubits arranged on a two-dimensional lattice. By implementing the ground states of the toric-code model with twists through quantum circuits, we demonstrate that twists exchange electric and magnetic charges and behave as a particular type of non-Abelian anyons, i.e., the Ising anyons. In particular, we show experimentally that these twists follow the fusion rules and non-Abelian braiding statistics of the Ising type, and can be explored to encode topological logical qubits. Furthermore, we demonstrate how to implement both single- and two-qubit logic gates through applying a sequence of elementary Pauli gates on the underlying physical qubits. Our results demonstrate a versatile quantum digital approach for simulating non-Abelian anyons, offering a new lens into the study of such peculiar quasiparticles.

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arXiv2022

Observation of many-body Fock space dynamics in two dimensions

Quantum many-body simulation provides a straightforward way to understand fundamental physics and connect with quantum information applications. However, suffering from exponentially growing Hilbert space size, characterization in terms of few-body probes in real space is often insufficient to tackle challenging problems such as quantum critical behavior and many-body localization (MBL) in higher dimensions. Here, we experimentally employ a new paradigm on a superconducting quantum processor, exploring such elusive questions from a Fock space view: mapping the many-body system onto an unconventional Anderson model on a complex Fock space network of many-body states. By observing the wave packet propagating in Fock space and the emergence of a statistical ergodic ensemble, we reveal a fresh picture for characterizing representative many-body dynamics: thermalization, localization, and scarring. In addition, we observe a quantum critical regime of anomalously enhanced wave packet width and deduce a critical point from the maximum wave packet fluctuations, which lend support for the two-dimensional MBL transition in finite-sized systems. Our work unveils a new perspective of exploring many-body physics in Fock space, demonstrating its practical applications on contentious MBL aspects such as criticality and dimensionality. Moreover, the entire protocol is universal and scalable, paving the way to finally solve a broader range of controversial many-body problems on future larger quantum devices.

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arXiv2022

Coherent control of quantum topological states of light in Fock-state lattices

Topological photonics provides a novel platform to explore topological physics beyond traditional electronic materials and stimulates promising applications in topologically protected light transport and lasers. Classical degrees of freedom such as polarizations and wavevectors are routinely used to synthesize topological light modes. Beyond the classical regime, inherent quantum nature of light gives birth to a wealth of fundamentally distinct topological states, which offer topological protection in quantum information processing. Here we implement such experiments on topological states of quantized light in a superconducting circuit, on which three resonators are tunably coupled to a gmon qubit. We construct one and two-dimensional Fock-state lattices where topological transport of zero-energy states, strain induced pseudo-Landau levels, valley Hall effect and Haldane chiral edge currents are demonstrated. Our study extends the topological states of light to the quantum regime, bridges topological phases of condensed matter physics with circuit quantum electrodynamics, and offers a new freedom in controlling the quantum states of multiple resonators.

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arXiv2022

Experimental quantum adversarial learning with programmable superconducting qubits

Quantum computing promises to enhance machine learning and artificial intelligence. Different quantum algorithms have been proposed to improve a wide spectrum of machine learning tasks. Yet, recent theoretical works show that, similar to traditional classifiers based on deep classical neural networks, quantum classifiers would suffer from the vulnerability problem: adding tiny carefully-crafted perturbations to the legitimate original data samples would facilitate incorrect predictions at a notably high confidence level. This will pose serious problems for future quantum machine learning applications in safety and security-critical scenarios. Here, we report the first experimental demonstration of quantum adversarial learning with programmable superconducting qubits. We train quantum classifiers, which are built upon variational quantum circuits consisting of ten transmon qubits featuring average lifetimes of 150 $μ$s, and average fidelities of simultaneous single- and two-qubit gates above 99.94% and 99.4% respectively, with both real-life images (e.g., medical magnetic resonance imaging scans) and quantum data. We demonstrate that these well-trained classifiers (with testing accuracy up to 99%) can be practically deceived by small adversarial perturbations, whereas an adversarial training process would significantly enhance their robustness to such perturbations. Our results reveal experimentally a crucial vulnerability aspect of quantum learning systems under adversarial scenarios and demonstrate an effective defense strategy against adversarial attacks, which provide a valuable guide for quantum artificial intelligence applications with both near-term and future quantum devices.

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