We introduce homological measurement, a framework for measuring the logical Pauli operators encoded in CSS stabilizer codes. The framework is based on the algebraic description of such codes as chain complexes. Protocols such as lattice surgery some of its recent generalizations are shown to be special cases of homological measurement. Using this framework, we develop a specific protocol called edge expanded homological measurement for fault-tolerant measurement of arbitrary logical Pauli operators of general qLDPC codes, requiring a number of ancillary qubits growing only linearly with the weight of the logical operator measured, and guaranteed that the distance of the code is preserved. We further benchmark our protocol numerically in a photonic architecture based on GKP qubits, showing that the logical error rate of various codes are on par with other methods requiring more ancilla qubits.
A quantum switch is a superoperator that, in general, creates a superposition of various causal orders of two or more quantum dynamics that are all divisible in the complete positivity (CP) sense. We introduce a process that we term as the universal quantum switch (UQS), which unlike conventional quantum switches, allows for the construction of a quantum switch that can superpose different causal orders of any set of quantum dynamics, regardless of their CP-divisibility. Our approach also enables the construction of a quantum switch while considering a single environment connected with the system, in contrast to the traditional one. Moreover, we show the UQS provides more advantages in performance for a certain state discrimination task compared to traditional quantum switches. The next question that we address is the following: What is the CP-divisibility characteristic of a dynamics built by acting a quantum switch on CP-divisible or -indivisible dynamics? In this regard, an example is presented where the dynamics created by the action of the UQS on two CP-indivisible dynamics is CP-indivisible. Additionally, we prove a necessary and sufficient condition for the channel created by acting the traditional quantum switch on two CP-divisible dynamics to be CP-divisible. Furthermore, we present some examples of CP-divisible dynamics on which, when the usual quantum switch is operated, the resulting dynamics not only becomes CP-indivisible but also turns into P-indivisible. Our findings demonstrate that quantum switches can build CP-divisible, CP-indivisible, and even P-indivisible dynamics from CP-divisible dynamics, underscoring the versatility of this technique.
Open quantum dynamics can be categorized in several ways, including according to their divisibility. For any quantum channel acting for any finite time period, we propose measures of P-indivisibility and CP-indivisibility, where P and CP stand for positivity and complete positivity respectively. Subsequently, we also propose two quantities to measure the resourcefulness - with respect to an arbitrary quantum resource - of any quantum channel within any finite time interval. Moreover, we find a bridge between these two classes of metrics, viz. those quantifying divisibilities of quantum channels and those gauging their resourcefulness, by identifying two separate relations between elements of one class with those of the other. Lastly, we verify the two relations using quantum non-Markovianity as a channel resource.
In practice, it is quite challenging to detect a quantum property, a microscopic property, in a macroscopic system. In our work, we construct general proxy witnesses of quantum properties to detect their presence in quantum systems and we do so for quantum systems which may possibly be large. In particular, we discuss proxy witnesses for quantum properties like unextendibility, quantum coherence, activation, steerability, and entanglement. We apply these proxy witnesses in some widely considered examples of many-body systems, viz., the quantum Heisenberg models, the quantum J1-J2 model.
We provide a brief review of the fundamentals of quantum computation and quantum error correction for the participants of the first Quantum Information Knowledge (QuIK) workshop at the 2024 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT 2024). While this is not a comprehensive review, we provide many references for the reader to delve deeper into the concepts and research directions.
Classical and quantum machine learning are being increasingly applied to various tasks in quantum information technologies. Here, we present an experimental demonstration of quantum control using a physics-informed neural network (PINN). PINN's salient feature is how it encodes the entire control sequence in terms of its network parameters. This feature enables the control sequence to be later adopted to any hardware with optimal time discretization, which contrasts with conventional methods involving a priory time discretization. Here, we discuss two important quantum information tasks: gate synthesis and state preparation. First, we demonstrate quantum gate synthesis by designing a two-qubit CNOT gate and experimentally implementing it on a heteronuclear two-spin NMR register. Second, we demonstrate quantum state preparation by designing a control sequence to efficiently transfer the thermal state into the long-lived singlet state and experimentally implement it on a homonuclear two-spin NMR register. We present a detailed numerical analysis of the PINN control sequences regarding bandwidth, discretization levels, control field errors, and external noise.
Transversal gates are logical gate operations on encoded quantum information that are efficient in gate count and depth, and are designed to minimize error propagation. Efficient encoding circuits for quantum codes that admit transversal gates are thus crucial to reduce noise and realize useful quantum computers. The class of punctured Quantum Reed-Muller codes admit transversal gates. We construct resource efficient recursive encoders for the class of quantum codes constructed from Reed-Muller and punctured Reed-Muller codes. These encoders on $n$ qubits have circuit depth of $O(\log n)$ and lower gate counts compared to previous works. The number of CNOT gates in the encoder across bi-partitions of the qubits is found to be equal to the entanglement entropy across these partitions, demonstrating that the encoder is optimal in terms of CNOT gates across these partitions. Finally, connecting these ideas, we explicitly show that entanglement can be extracted from QRM codewords.
Certain quantum sensing protocols rely on qubits that are initialized, coherently driven in the presence of a stimulus to be measured, then read out. Most widely employed pulse sequences used to drive sensing qubits act locally in either the time or frequency domain. We introduce a generalized set of sequences that effect a measurement in any fractional Fourier domain, i.e. along a linear trajectory of arbitrary angle through the time-frequency plane. Using an ensemble of nitrogen-vacancy centers we experimentally demonstrate advantages in sensing signals with time-varying spectra.
Alexander J Healey, Priya Singh, Islay O Robertson, Christopher Gavin, Sam C Scholten, David A Broadway, Philipp Reineck, Hiroshi Abe, Takeshi Ohshima, Mehran Kianinia, Igor Aharonovich, Jean-Philippe Tetienne Boron vacancy centre ($V_{\rm B}^-$) ensembles in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) have attracted recent interest for their potential as two-dimensional solid-state quantum sensors. Irradiation is necessary for $V_{\rm B}^-$ creation, however, to date only limited attention has been given to optimising the defect production process, especially in the case of bulk irradiation with high-energy particles, which offers scalability through the potential for creating ensembles in large volumes of material. Here we systematically investigate the effect of electron irradiation by varying the dose delivered to a range of hBN samples, which differ in their purity, and search for an optimum in measurement sensitivity. We find that moderate electron irradiation doses ($\approx 5\times 10^{18}$~cm$^{-2}$) appear to offer the best sensitivity, and also observe a dependence on the initial crystal purity. These results pave the way for the scalable and cost-effective production of hBN quantum sensors, and provide insight into the mechanisms limiting $V_{\rm B}^-$ spin properties.
Quantum cryptography is now considered as a promising technology due to its promise of unconditional security. In recent years, rigorous work is being done for the experimental realization of quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols to realize secure networks. Among various QKD protocols, coherent one way and differential phase shift QKD protocols have undergone rapid experimental developments due to the ease of experimental implementations with the present available technology. In this work, we have experimentally realized optical fiber based coherent one way and differential phase shift QKD protocols at telecom wavelength. Both protocols belong to a class of protocols named as distributed phase reference protocol in which weak coherent pulses are used to encode the information. Further, we have analyzed the key rates with respect to different parameters such distance, disclose rate, compression ratio and detector dead time.
Two important ingredients necessary for obtaining Bell nonlocal correlations between two spatially separated parties are an entangled state shared between them and an incompatible set of measurements employed by each of them. We focus on the relation of Bell nonlocality with incompatibility of the set of measurements employed by both the parties, in the two-input and two-output scenario. We first observe that Bell nonlocality can always be established in case both parties employ any set of incompatible projective measurements. On the other hand, going beyond projective measurements, we present a class of incompatible positive operator-valued measures, employed by both the observers, which can never activate Bell nonlocality. Next, we optimize the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt Bell expression in the case where the parties share a fixed amount of pure two-qubit entanglement, with any incompatible set of projective measurements. This helps to find the minimum entanglement and degree of incompatibility of measurements that the parties should employ, in order to achieve Bell nonlocal correlations.
The quasiprobability distribution of the discrete Wigner function provides a complete description of a quantum state and is, therefore, a useful alternative to the usual density matrix description. Moreover, the experimental quantum state tomography in discrete Wigner phase space can also be implemented. We observe that for a certain class of states, such as harmonic states, the Wigner matrix is far more sparse compared to the density matrix in the computational basis. Additionally, reading only a small part of the Wigner matrix may suffice to infer certain behavior of quantum dynamics. In such cases, selective Wigner phase space tomography (SWPST) can be more efficient than the usual density matrix tomography (DMT). Employing nuclear magnetic resonance methods on a three-qubit nuclear spin register, we experimentally estimate Wigner matrices of various two-qubit quantum states. As a specific example application of SWPST, we study the evolution of spin coherent states under the quantum chaotic kicked top model and extract signatures of quantum-classical correspondence in the Wigner phase space.
In the present work, we report experimental realization of an optical fiber based COW protocol for QKD in the telecom wavelength (1550 nm) where the attenuation in the optical fiber is minimum. A laser of 1550 nm wavelength, attenuator and intensity modulator is used for the generation of pulses having average photon number 0.5 and repetition rate of 500 MHz. The experiment is performed over 40 km, 80 km and 120 km of optical fiber and several experimental parameters like disclose rate, compression ratio, dead time and excess bias voltage of the detector are varied for all the cases (i.e., for 40 km, 80 km and 120 km distances) to observe their impact on the final key rate. Specifically, It is observed that there is a linear increase in the key rate as we decrease compression ratio or disclose rate. The key rate obtains its maximum value for least permitted values of disclose rate, compression ratio and dead time. It seems to remain stable for various values of excess bias voltage. While changing various parameters, we have maintained the quantum bit error rate (QBER) below 6%. The key rate obtained is also found to remain stable over time. Experimental results obtained here are also compared with the earlier realizations of the COW QKD protocol. Further, to emulate key rate at intermediate distances and at a distance larger than 120 km, an attenuator of 5 dB loss is used which can be treated as equivalent to 25 km of the optical fiber used in the present implementation. This has made the present implementation equivalent to the realization of COW QKD upto 145 km.
We employ the technique of perturbative analytic null bootstrap to obtain the energy eigenvalues and ladder operators of the sextic anharmonic oscillator up to second order in the coupling. We confirm our results by deriving the same from traditional perturbation theory. We further perform the bootstrap approach on non-Hermitian PT symmetric Hamiltonians, focusing on the shifted harmonic oscillator and the celebrated cubic anharmonic oscillator.
The Bernstein-Vazirani (BV) algorithm offers exceptional accuracy in finding the hidden bit string of a function. We explore how the algorithm performs in real-world situations where noise can potentially interfere with its performance. In order to assess the impact of imperfect equipments, we introduce various forms of glassy disorders into the effect of the Hadamard gates used in the Bernstein-Vazirani circuit. We incorporated disorders of five different forms, viz., Haar-uniform with finite cutoff, spherical Gaussian, discrete circular, spherical Cauchy-Lorentz, and squeezed. We find that the effectiveness of the algorithm decreases with increasing disorder strength in all cases. Additionally, we demonstrate that as the number of bits in the secret string increases, the success probability of correctly guessing the string becomes increasingly insensitive to the type of disorder and instead depends only on the mean and spread of the disorder. We compare our results with the performance of the analogous classical algorithm in the presence of similar noise. When the length of the secret string is small or moderate, the quantum BV algorithm is found to be more efficient compared to the classical algorithm for almost all types of disorders under consideration, unless the strength of the disorder is very high and the disorder follows a discrete circular distribution. However, if we move to extremely large secret strings, the success probability of the disordered BV algorithm merges with the success probability of the disordered classical algorithm for all considered disorders having arbitrary strengths. The limit on the length of the string after which the efficiency of the quantum algorithm becomes equivalent to the classical algorithm depends on the amount of disorder and not on the type of disorder.
We question the role of entanglement in masking quantum information contained in a set of mixed quantum states. We first show that a masker that can mask any two single-qubit pure states, can mask the entire set of mixed states comprising of the classical mixtures of those two pure qubit states as well. We then try to find the part played by entanglement in masking two different sets: One, a set of mixed states formed by the classical mixtures of two single-qubit pure commuting states, and another, a set of mixed states obtained by mixing two single-qubit pure non-commuting states. For both cases, we show that the masked states remain entangled unless the input state is an equal mixture of the two pure states. This in turn reveals that entanglement is necessary for masking an arbitrary set of two single qubit states, regardless of their mixednesses and mutual commutativity.
The quantum adiabatic method, which maintains populations in their instantaneous eigenstates throughout the state evolution, is an established and often a preferred choice for state preparation and manipulation. Though it minimizes the driving cost significantly, its slow speed is a severe limitation in noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) era technologies. Since adiabatic paths are extensive in many physical processes, it is of broader interest to achieve adiabaticity at a much faster rate. Shortcuts to adiabaticity techniques which overcome the slow adiabatic process by driving the system faster through non-adiabatic paths, have seen increased attention recently. The extraordinarily long lifetime of the long-lived singlet states (LLS) in nuclear magnetic resonance, established over the past decade, has opened several important applications ranging from spectroscopy to biomedical imaging. Various methods, including adiabatic methods, are already being used to prepare LLS. In this article, we report the use of counterdiabatic driving (CD) to speed up LLS preparation with faster drives. Using NMR experiments, we show that CD can give stronger LLS order in shorter durations than conventional adiabatic driving.
Coherences in mutually unbiased bases of states of an isolated quantum system follow a complementarity relation. The nonlocal advantage of quantum coherence (NAQC), defined in a bipartite scenario, is a situation in which the average quantum coherences of the ensembles of one subsystem, effected by a measurement performed on the other subsystem, violates the complementarity relation. We analyze two criteria to detect NAQC for bipartite quantum states. We construct a more generalized version of the criterion to detect NAQC that is better than the standard criterion as it can capture more states exhibiting NAQC. We prove the local unitary invariance of these NAQC criteria. Further on, we focus on investigating the monogamy properties of NAQC in the tripartite scenario. We check for monogamy of NAQC from two perspectives, differentiated by whether or not the nodal observer in the monogamy relation performs the measurement for the nonlocal advantage. We find in particular that in the case where the nodal observer does not perform the measurement, a strong monogamy relation - an exclusion principle - is exhibited by NAQC.
We present the construction of standard entanglement-assisted (EA) qubit Reed-Muller (RM) codes and their tensor product variants from classical RM codes. We show that the EA RM codes obtained using the CSS construction have zero coding rate and negative catalytic rate. We further show that EA codes constructed from these same classical RM codes using the tensor product code (TPC) construction have positive coding rate and provide a subclass of EA RM TPCs that have positive catalytic rate, thus establishing the coding analog of superadditivity for this family of codes, useful towards quantum communications. We also generalize this analysis to obtain conditions for EA TPCs from classical codes to have positive catalytic rate when their corresponding EA CSS codes have zero rate.
Nanomechanics, nanoacoustics, and nanophononics refer to the engineering of acoustic phonons and elastic waves at the nanoscale and their interactions with other excitations such as magnons, electrons, and photons. This engineering enables the manipulation and control of solid-state properties that depend on the relative positions of atoms in a lattice. The access to advanced nanofabrication and novel characterization techniques enabled a fast development of the fields over the last decade. The applications of nanophononics include thermal management, ultrafast data processing, simulation, sensing, and the development of quantum technologies. In this review, we cover some of the milestones and breakthroughs, and identify promising pathways of these emerging fields.
Entanglement subject to noise can not be shielded against decaying. But, in case of many noisy channels, the degradation can be partially prevented by using local unitary operations. We consider the effect of local noise on shared quantum states and evaluate the amount of entanglement that can be preserved from deterioration. The amount of saved entanglement not only depends on the strength of the channel but also on the type of the channel, and in particular, it always vanishes for the depolarizing channel. The main motive of this work is to analyze the reason behind this dependency of saved entanglement by inspecting properties of the corresponding channels. In this context, we quantify and explore the biasnesses of channels towards the different states on which they act. We postulate that all biasness measures must vanish for depolarizing channels, and subsequently introduce a few measures of biasness. We also consider the entanglement capacities of channels. We observe that the joint behaviour of the biasness quantifiers and the entanglement capacity explains the nature of saved entanglement. Furthermore, we find a pair of upper bounds on saved entanglement which are noticed to imitate the graphical nature of the latter.
The quest for an approximate yet accurate kinetic energy density functional is central to the development of orbital-free density functional theory. While a recipe for closed-shell systems has been proposed earlier, we have shown that it cannot be naïvely extended to open-shell atoms. In this present work, we investigated the efficacy of an ad-hoc recipe to compute the kinetic energy densities for open-shell atoms by extending the methodology used for closed-shell systems. We have also analyzed the spin-dependent features of Pauli potentials derived from two previously devised enhancement factors. Further, we have proposed an alternate but exact methodology to systematically compute the kinetic energy density for atoms of arbitrary spin multiplicity.
Widefield quantum microscopy based on nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centres in diamond has emerged as a powerful technique for quantitative mapping of magnetic fields with a sub-micron resolution. However, the accuracy of the technique has not been characterised in detail so far. Here we show that optical aberrations in the imaging system may cause large systematic errors in the measured quantity beyond trivial blurring. We introduce a simple theoretical framework to model these effects, which extends the concept of a point spread function to the domain of spectral imaging. Using this model, the magnetic field imaging of test magnetic samples is simulated under various scenarios, and the resulting errors quantified. We then apply the model to previously published data, show that apparent magnetic anomalies can be explained by the presence of optical aberrations, and demonstrate a post-processing technique to retrieve the source quantity with improved accuracy. This work presents a guide to predict and mitigate aberration induced artefacts in quantitative NV-based widefield imaging and in spectral imaging more generally.
Quantum controls realize the unitary or nonunitary operations employed in quantum computers, quantum simulators, quantum communications, and other quantum information devices. They implement the desired quantum dynamics with the help of electric, magnetic, or electromagnetic control fields. Quantum optimal control (QOC) deals with designing an optimal control field modulation that most precisely implements a desired quantum operation with minimum energy consumption and maximum robustness against hardware imperfections as well as external noise. Over the last two decades, numerous QOC methods have been proposed. They include asymptotic methods, direct search, gradient methods, variational methods, machine learning methods, etc. In this review, we shall introduce the basic ideas of QOC, discuss practical challenges, and then take an overview of the diverse QOC methods.
We probe the contraction from $2d$ relativistic CFTs to theories with Bondi-Metzner-Sachs (BMS) symmetries, or equivalently Conformal Carroll symmetries, using diagnostics of quantum chaos. Starting from an Ultrarelativistic limit on a relativistic scalar field theory and following through at the quantum level using an oscillator representation of states, one can show the CFT$_2$ vacuum evolves smoothly into a BMS$_3$ vacuum in the form of a squeezed state. Computing circuit complexity of this transmutation using the covariance matrix approach shows clear divergences when the BMS point is hit or equivalently when the target state becomes a boundary state. We also find similar behaviour of the circuit complexity calculated from methods of information geometry. Furthermore, we discuss the hamiltonian evolution of the system and investigate Out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs) and operator growth complexity, both of which turn out to scale polynomially with time at the BMS point.
Quantum control optimization algorithms are routinely used to generate optimal quantum gates or efficient quantum state transfers. However, there are two main challenges in designing efficient optimization algorithms, namely overcoming the sensitivity to local optima and improving the computational speed. The former challenge can be dealt with by designing hybrid algorithms, such as a combination of gradient and simulated annealing methods. Here, we propose and demonstrate the use of a machine learning method, specifically the recommender system (RS), to deal with the latter challenge of enhancing computational efficiency. We first describe ways to set up a rating matrix involving gradients or gate fidelities. We then establish that RS can rapidly and accurately predict elements of a sparse rating matrix. Using this approach, we expedite a gradient ascent based quantum control optimization, namely GRAPE and demonstrate the faster performance for up to 8 qubits. Finally, we describe and implement the enhancement of the computational speed of a hybrid algorithm, namely SAGRAPE.
The development of efficient algorithms that generate robust quantum controls is crucial for the realization of quantum technologies. The commonly used gradient-based optimization algorithms are limited by their sensitivity to the initial guess, which affects their performance. Here we propose combining the gradient method with the simulated annealing technique to formulate a hybrid algorithm. Our numerical analysis confirms its superior convergence rate. Using the hybrid algorithm, we generate spin-selective $\pi$ pulses and employ them for experimental measurement of local noise-spectra in a three-qubit NMR system. Moreover, here we describe a general method to construct noise-resilient quantum controls by incorporating noisy fields within the optimization routine of the hybrid algorithm. On experimental comparison with similar sequences obtained from standard algorithms, we find remarkable robustness of the hybrid sequences against dephasing errors.
The excitonic fine structure plays a key role for the quantum light generated by semiconductor quantum dots, both for entangled photon pairs and single photons. Controlling the excitonic fine structure has been demonstrated using electric, magnetic, or strain fields, but not for quantum dots in optical cavities, a key requirement to obtain high source efficiency and near-unity photon indistinguishability. Here, we demonstrate the control of the fine structure splitting for quantum dots embedded in micropillar cavities. We propose a scheme based on remote electrical contacts connected to the pillar cavity through narrow ridges. Numerical simulations show that such a geometry allows for a three-dimensional control of the electrical field. We experimentally demonstrate tuning and reproducible canceling of the fine structure, a crucial step for the reproducibility of quantum light source technology.
We analyze the response to incorporation of glassy disorder in the coin operation of a discrete-time quantum walk in one dimension. We find that the ballistic spread of the disorder-free quantum walker is inhibited by the insertion of disorder, for all the disorder distributions that we have chosen for our investigation, but remains faster than the dispersive spread of the classical random walker. Beyond this generic feature, there are significant differences between the responses to the different types of disorder. In particular, the falloff from ballistic spread can be slow (Gaussian) or fast (parabolic) for different disorders, when the strength of the disorder is still weak. The cases of slow response always pick up speed after a point of inflection at a mid-level disorder strength. The disorder distributions chosen for the study are Haar-uniform, spherical normal, circular, and two types of spherical Cauchy-Lorentz.
Non-Gaussian and nonclassical states and processes are already found to be important resources for performing various tasks related to quantum gravity and quantum information processing. The effect of non-Gaussianity inducing operators on the nonclassicality of quantum states has also been studied rigorously. Considering these facts, a quantitative analysis of the nonclassical and non-Gaussian features is performed here for photon added displaced Fock state, as a test case, using a set of measures like entanglement potential, Wigner Yanese skew information, Wigner logarithmic negativity and relative entropy of non-Gaussianity. It is observed that photon addition (Fock parameter) significantly increases the amount of nonclassicalty and non-Gaussianity for small (large) values of the displacement parameter, which decreases both the quantum features monotonically. In this respect, the role of Fock parameter is found to be more prominent and stronger compared to photon addition. Finally, the dynamics of Wigner function under the effect of photon loss channel is used to show that only highly efficient detectors are able to detect Wigner negativity.
Wen Chen, Philippe Roelli, Huatian Hu, Sachin Verlekar, Sakthi Priya Amirtharaj, Angela I. Barreda, Tobias J. Kippenberg, Miroslavna Kovylina, Ewold Verhagen, Alejandro Martínez, Christophe Galland Frequency upconversion is a cornerstone of electromagnetic signal processing, analysis and detection. It is used to transfer energy and information from one frequency domain to another where transmission, modulation or detection is technically easier or more efficient. Optomechanical transduction is emerging as a flexible approach to coherent frequency upconversion; it has been successfully demonstrated for conversion from radio- and microwaves (kHz to GHz) to optical fields. Nevertheless, optomechanical transduction of multi-THz and mid-infrared signals remains an open challenge. Here, we utilize molecular cavity optomechanics to demonstrate upconversion of sub-microwatt continuous-wave signals at $\sim$32~THz into the visible domain at ambient conditions. The device consists in a plasmonic nanocavity hosting a small number of molecules. The incoming field resonantly drives a collective molecular vibration, which imprints an optomechanical modulation on a visible pump laser and results in Stokes and anti-Stokes upconverted Raman sidebands with sub-natural linewidth, indicating a coherent process. The nanocavity offers 13 orders of magnitude enhancement of upconversion efficiency per molecule compared to free space, with a measured phonon-to-photon internal conversion efficiency larger than $10^{-4}$ per milliwatt of pump power. Our results establish a flexible paradigm for optomechanical frequency conversion using molecular oscillators coupled to plasmonic nanocavities, whose vibrational and electromagnetic properties can be tailored at will using chemical engineering and nanofabrication.
We report the discovery of electric-field-induced transition from a topologically trivial to a topologically nontrivial band structure in an atomically sharp heterostructure of bilayer graphene (BLG) and single-layer WSe2 per the theoretical predictions of Gmitra and Fabian [Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 146401 (2017)]. Through detailed studies of the quantum correction to the conductance in the BLG, we establish that the band-structure evolution arises from an interplay between proximity-induced strong spin-orbit interaction (SOI) and the layer polarizability in BLG. The low-energy carriers in the BLG experience an effective valley Zeeman SOI that is completely gate tunable to the extent that it can be switched on or off by applying a transverse displacement field or can be controllably transferred between the valence and the conduction band. We demonstrate that this results in the evolution from weak localization to weak antilocalization at a constant electronic density as the net displacement field is tuned from a positive to a negative value with a concomitant SOI-induced splitting of the low-energy bands of the BLG near the K (K') valley, which is a unique signature of the theoretically predicted spin-orbit valve effect. Our analysis shows that quantum correction to the Drude conductance in Dirac materials with strong induced SOI can only be explained satisfactorily by a theory that accounts for the SOI-induced spin splitting of the BLG low-energy bands. Our results demonstrate the potential for achieving highly tunable devices based on the valley Zeeman effect in dual-gated two-dimensional materials.
We present MISTIQS, a Multiplatform Software for Time-dependent Quantum Simulations. MISTIQS delivers end-to-end functionality for simulating the quantum many-body dynamics of systems governed by time-dependent Heisenberg Hamiltonians across multiple quantum computing platforms. It provides high-level programming functionality for generating intermediate representations of quantum circuits which can be translated into a variety of industry-standard representations. Furthermore, it offers a selection of circuit compilation and optimization methods and facilitates execution of the quantum circuits on currently available cloud-based quantum computing backends. MISTIQS serves as an accessible and highly flexible research and education platform, allowing a broader community of scientists and students to perform quantum many-body dynamics simulations on current quantum computers.
In quantum optics, nonclassical properties of various quantum states of radiation field are frequently studied. Some of those states are finite dimensional and referred to as qudits. These states are important because of their potential applications in quantum information processing. Further, nonclassical states are those which do not have any classical counterpart. Consequently, to establish quantum supremacy, we always require nonclassical state. Recently, Sivakumar and Meher have studied the nonclassical properties of the number state filtered coherent state, and shown that the number state filtering introduces nonclassical features into coherent state which is otherwise classical. This observation motivated us to investigate the role of hole burning (state filtering) on a state which is already nonclassical. Specifically, we have selected a Binomial state which is known to be nonclassical as our test bed and burnt a hole at vacuum (equivalently filtered the vacuum state). To check the nonclassical properties of vacuum filtered binomial state, we have used Vogel's criterion, criterion of higher- and lower-order antibunching, criterion of higher-order sub-Poissonian photon statistics, Linear entropy etc. The investigation results show that vacuum filtered binomial state studied here is highly nonclassical, and the hole burning process enhances the nonclassical depth.
The main focus of this thesis is to study the nonclassical and phase properties of a family of engineered quantum states, most of which show various nonclassical features. The beauty of these states is that these states can be used to establish quantum supremacy. Earlier, a considerable amount of works has been reported on various types of quantum states and their nonclassical properties. Here, complementing the earlier works, the effect of non-Gaussianity inducing operators on the nonclassical and phase properties of displaced Fock states have been studied. This thesis includes 6 chapters. In Chapter 1, motivation behind performing the present work is stated explicitly, also the basic concepts of quantum optics are discussed with a specific attention on the witnesses and measures of nonclassicality. In Chapter 2, nonclassical properties of photon added and subtracted displaced Fock states have been studied using various witnesses of lower- and higher-order nonclassicality which are introduced in Chapter 1. In Chapter 3, we have continued our investigation on photon added and subtracted displaced Fock states (and their limiting cases). In this chapter, quantum phase properties of these states are investigated from a number of perspectives, and it is shown that the quantum phase properties are dependent on the quantum state engineering operations performed. In Chapter 4, we have continued our investigation on the impact of non-Gaussianity inducing operators on the nonclassical and phase properties of the displaced Fock states. In Chapter 5, we have performed a comparison between to process that are used in quantum state engineering to induce nonclassical features. Finally, this thesis is concluded in Chapter 6, where we have summarized the findings of this thesis and have also described scope of the future works.
Non-Gaussianity inducing operations are studied in the recent past from different perspectives. Here, we study the role of photon addition, a non-Gaussianity inducing operation, in the enhancement of nonclassicality in a finite dimensional quantum state, namely hypergeometric state with the help of some quantifiers and measures of nonclassicality. We observed that measures to characterize the quality of single photon source and anticlassicality lead to the similar conclusion, i.e., to obtain the desired quantum features one has to choose all the state parameters such that average photon numbers remains low. Wigner logarithmic negativity of the photon added hypergeometric state and concurrence of the two-mode entangled state generated at the output of a beamsplitter from this state show that nonclassicality can be enhanced by increasing the state parameter and photon number addition but decreasing the dimension of the state. In principle, decreasing the dimension of the state is analogous to holeburning and is thus expected to increase nonclassicality. Further, the variation of Wigner function not only qualitatively illustrates the same features as observed quantitatively through concurrence potential and Wigner logarithimic negativity, but illustrate non-Gaussianity of the quantum state as well.
S. E. Thomas, M. Billard, N. Coste, S. C. Wein, Priya, H. Ollivier, O. Krebs, L. Tazaïrt, A. Harouri, A. Lemaitre, I. Sagnes, C. Anton, L. Lanco, N. Somaschi, J. C. Loredo, P. Senellart Semiconductor quantum dots in cavities are promising single-photon sources. Here, we present a path to deterministic operation, by harnessing the intrinsic linear dipole in a neutral quantum dot via phonon-assisted excitation. This enables emission of fully polarized single photons, with a measured degree of linear polarization up to 0.994 $\pm$ 0.007, and high population inversion -- 85\% as high as resonant excitation. We demonstrate a single-photon source with a polarized first lens brightness of 0.50 $\pm $ 0.01, a single-photon purity of 0.954 $\pm$ 0.001 and single-photon indistinguishability of 0.909 $\pm$ 0.004.
We demonstrate characterizing quantum evolutions via matrix factorization algorithm, a particular type of the recommender system (RS). A system undergoing a quantum evolution can be characterized in several ways. Here we choose (i) quantum correlations quantified by measures such as entropy, negativity, or discord, and (ii) state-fidelity. Using quantum registers with up to 10 qubits, we demonstrate that an RS can efficiently characterize both unitary and nonunitary evolutions. After carrying out a detailed performance analysis of the RS in two qubits, we show that it can be used to distinguish a clean database of quantum correlations from a noisy or a fake one. Moreover, we find that the RS brings about a significant computational advantage for building a large database of quantum discord, for which no simple closed-form expression exists. Also, RS can efficiently characterize systems undergoing nonunitary evolutions in terms of quantum discord reduction as well as state-fidelity. Finally, we utilize RS for the construction of discord phase space in a nonlinear quantum system.
The advent of a new kind of entangled state known as hybrid entangled state, i.e., entanglement between different degrees of freedom, makes it possible to perform various quantum computational and communication tasks with lesser amount of resources. Here, we aim to exploit the advantage of these entangled states in communication over quantum networks. Unfortunately, the entanglement shared over the network deteriorates due to its unavoidable interaction with surroundings. Thus, an entanglement concentration protocol is proposed to obtain a maximally entangled hybrid Omega-type state from the corresponding non-maximally entangled states. The advantage of the proposed entanglement concentration protocol is that it is feasible to implement this protocol with linear optical components and present technology. The corresponding linear optical quantum circuit is provided for experimental realizations, while the success probability of the concentration protocol is also reported. Thereafter, we propose an application of maximally entangled hybrid state in the hierarchical quantum teleportation network by performing information splitting using Omega-type state, which is also the first hierarchical quantum communication scheme in the hybrid domain so far. The present hybrid entangled state has advantage in circumventing Pauli operations on the coherent state by polarization rotation of single qubit, which can be performed with lesser errors.
Simulation of the dynamics of quantum materials is emerging as a promising scientific application for noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) computers. Due to their high gate-error rates and short decoherence times, however, NISQ computers can only produce high-fidelity results for those quantum circuits smaller than some given circuit size. Dynamic simulations, therefore, pose a challenge as current algorithms produce circuits that grow in size with each subsequent time-step of the simulation. This underscores the crucial role of quantum circuit compilers to produce executable quantum circuits of minimal size, thereby maximizing the range of physical phenomena that can be studied within the NISQ fidelity budget. Here, we present two domain-specific quantum circuit compilers for the Rigetti and IBM quantum computers, specifically designed to compile circuits simulating dynamics under a special class of time-dependent Hamiltonians. The compilers outperform state-of-the-art general-purpose compilers in terms of circuit size reduction by around 25-30% as well as wall-clock compilation time by around 40% (dependent on system size and simulation time-step). Drawing on heuristic techniques commonly used in artificial intelligence, both compilers scale well with simulation time-step and system size. Code for both compilers is included to enhance the results of dynamic simulations for future researchers. We anticipate that our domain-specific compilers will enable dynamic simulations of quantum materials on near-future NISQ computers that would not otherwise be possible with general-purpose compilers.
Lindsay Bassman, Kuang Liu, Aravind Krishnamoorthy, Thomas Linker, Yifan Geng, Daniel Shebib, Shogo Fukushima, Fuyuki Shimojo, Rajiv K. Kalia, Aiichiro Nakano, Priya Vashishta A highly anticipated application for quantum computers is as a universal simulator of quantum many-body systems, as was conjectured by Richard Feynman in the 1980s. The last decade has witnessed the growing success of quantum computing for simulating static properties of quantum systems, i.e., the ground state energy of small molecules. However, it remains a challenge to simulate quantum many-body dynamics on current-to-near-future noisy intermediate-scale quantum computers. Here, we demonstrate successful simulation of nontrivial quantum dynamics on IBM's Q16 Melbourne quantum processor and Rigetti's Aspen quantum processor; namely, ultrafast control of emergent magnetism by THz radiation in an atomically-thin two-dimensional material. The full code and step-by-step tutorials for performing such simulations are included to lower the barrier to access for future research on these two quantum computers. As such, this work lays a foundation for the promising study of a wide variety of quantum dynamics on near-future quantum computers, including dynamic localization of Floquet states and topological protection of qubits in noisy environments.
Topological insulators, along with Chern insulators and Quantum Hall insulator phases, are considered as paradigms for symmetry protected topological phases of matter. This article reports the experimental realization of the time-reversal invariant helical edge-modes in bilayer graphene/monolayer WSe$_2$-based heterostructures -- a phase generally considered as a precursor to the field of generic topological insulators. Our observation of this elusive phase depended crucially on our ability to create mesoscopic devices comprising both a moiré superlattice potential and strong spin-orbit coupling; this resulted in materials whose electronic band structure could be tuned from trivial to topological by an external displacement field. We find that the topological phase is characterized by a bulk bandgap and by helical edge-modes with electrical conductance quantized exactly to $2e^2/h$ in zero external magnetic field. We put the helical edge-modes on firm grounds through supporting experiments, including the verification of predictions of the Landauer-B$\mathrm{\ddot{u}}$ttiker model for quantum transport in multi-terminal mesoscopic devices. Our non-local transport properties measurements show that the helical edge-modes are dissipationless and equilibrate at the contact probes. We achieved the tunability of the different topological phases with electric and magnetic fields, which allowed us to achieve topological phase transitions between trivial and multiple, distinct topological phases. We also present results of a theoretical study of a realistic model which, in addition to replicating our experimental results, explains the origin of the topological insulating bulk and helical edge-modes. Our experimental and theoretical results establish a viable route to realizing the time-reversal invariant $\mathbb{Z}_2$ topological phase of matter.
Quantum entanglement is a form of correlation between quantum particles that cannot be increased via local operations and classical communication. It has therefore been proposed that an increment of quantum entanglement between probes that are interacting solely via a mediator implies non-classicality of the mediator. Indeed, under certain assumptions regarding the initial state, entanglement gain between the probes indicates quantum coherence in the mediator. Going beyond such assumptions, there exist other initial states which produce entanglement between the probes via only local interactions with a classical mediator. In this process the initial entanglement between any probe and the rest of the system "flows through" the classical mediator and gets localised between the probes. Here we theoretically characterise maximal entanglement gain via classical mediator and experimentally demonstrate, using liquid-state NMR spectroscopy, the optimal growth of quantum correlations between two nuclear spin qubits interacting through a mediator qubit in a classical state. We additionally monitor, i.e., dephase, the mediator in order to emphasise its classical character. Our results indicate the necessity of verifying features of the initial state if entanglement gain between the probes is used as a figure of merit for witnessing non-classical mediator. Such methods were proposed to have exemplary applications in quantum optomechanics, quantum biology and quantum gravity.
Quantum optimal control involves setting up an objective function that evaluates the quality of an operator representing the realized process w.r.t. the target process. Here we propose a stronger objective function which incorporates not only the target operator but also a set of its orthogonal operators. We find significantly superior convergence of optimization routines with the combined influences of all the operators. We refer to this method as the $\textit{push-pull}$ optimization. In particular, we describe adopting the push-pull optimization to a gradient based approach and a variational-principle based approach. We carry out extensive numerical simulations of the push-pull optimization of quantum controls on a pair of Ising coupled qubits. Finally, we demonstrate its experimental application by preparing a long-lived singlet-order in a two-qubit system using NMR techniques.
Various nonclassical and quantum phase properties of photon added then subtracted displaced Fock state have been examined systematically and rigorously. Higher-order moments of the relevant bosonic operators are computed to test the nonclassicality of the state of interest, which reduces to various quantum states (having applications in quantum optics, metrology and information processing) in different limits ranging from the coherent (classical) state to the Fock (most nonclassical) states. The nonclassical features are discussed using Klyshko's, Vogel's, and Agarwal-Tara's criteria as well as the criteria of lower- and higher-order antibunching, sub-Poissonian photon statistics and squeezing. In addition, phase distribution function and quantum phase fluctuation have been studied. These properties are examined for various combinations of number of photon addition and/or subtraction and Fock parameter. The examination has revealed that photon addition generally improves nonclassicality, and this advantage enhances for the large (small) values of displacement parameter using photon subtraction (Fock parameter). The higher-order sub-Poissonian photon statistics is only observed for the odd orders. In general, higher-order nonclassicality criteria are found to detect nonclassicality even in the cases when corresponding lower-order criteria failed to do so. Photon subtraction is observed to induce squeezing, but only large number of photon addition can be used to probe squeezing for large values of displacement parameter. Further, photon subtraction is found to alter the phase properties more than photon addition, while Fock parameter has an opposite effect of the photon addition/subtraction. Finally, nonclassicality and non-Gaussianity is also established using $Q$ function.
The effect of two quantum state engineering processes that can be used to burn hole at vacuum in the photon number distribution of quantum states of radiation field are compared using various witnesses of lower- and higher-order nonclassicality as well as a measure of nonclassicality. Specifically, the witnesses of nonclassical properties due to the effect of vacuum state filtration and a single photon addition on an even coherent state, binomial state and Kerr state are investigated using the criteria of lower- and higher-order antibunching, squeezing and sub-Poissonian photon statistics. Further, the amount of nonclassicality present in these engineered quantum states is quantified and analyzed by using an entanglement potential based on linear entropy. It is observed that all the quantum states studied here are highly nonclassical, and on many occasions the hole burning processes are found to introduce/enhance nonclassical features. However, it is not true in general. The investigation has further revealed that despite the fact that a hole at vacuum implies a maximally nonclassical state (as far as Lee's nonclassical depth is used as the quantitative measure of nonclassicality). However, any particular process of hole burning at vacuum does not ensure the existence of a particular nonclassical feature. Specifically,lower- and higher-order squeezing are not observed for photon added even coherent state and vacuum filtered even coherent state.
Quantum phase properties of photon added and subtracted displaced Fock states (and a set of quantum states which can be obtained as the limiting cases of these states) are investigated from a number of perspectives, and it is shown that the quantum phase properties are dependent on the quantum state engineering operations performed. Specifically, the analytic expressions for quantum phase distributions and angular $Q$ distribution as well as measures of quantum phase fluctuation and phase dispersion are obtained. The uniform phase distribution of the initial Fock states is observed to be transformed by the unitary operation (i.e., displacement operator) into non-Gaussian shape, except for the initial vacuum state. It is observed that the phase distribution is symmetric with respect to the phase of the displacement parameter and becomes progressively narrower as its amplitude increases. The non-unitary (photon addition/subtraction) operations make it even narrower in contrast to the Fock parameter, which leads to broadness. The photon subtraction is observed to be a more powerful quantum state engineering tool in comparison to the photon addition. Further, one of the quantum phase fluctuation parameters is found to reveal the existence of antibunching in both the engineered quantum states under consideration. Finally, the relevance of the engineered quantum states in the quantum phase estimation is also discussed, and photon added displaced Fock state is shown to be preferable for the task.
Nonclassical properties of photon added and subtracted displaced Fock states have been studied using various witnesses of lower- and higher-order nonclassicality. Compact analytic expressions are obtained for the nonclassicality witnesses. Using those expressions, it is established that these states and the states that can be obtained as their limiting cases (except coherent states) are highly nonclassical as they show the existence of lower- and higher-order antibunching and sub-Poissonian photon statistics, in addition to the nonclassical features revealed through the Mandel $Q_M$ parameter, zeros of Q function, Klyshko's criterion, and Agarwal-Tara criterion. Further, some comparison between the nonclassicality of photon added and subtracted displaced Fock states have been performed using witnesses of nonclassicality. This has established that between the two types of non-Gaussianity inducing operations (i.e., photon addition and subtraction) used here, photon addition influences the nonclassical properties more strongly. Further, optical designs for the generation of photon added and subtracted displaced Fock states from squeezed vacuum state have also been proposed.
Thomas Unden, Priya Balasubramanian, Daniel Louzon, Yuval Vinkler, Martin B. Plenio, Matthew Markham, Daniel Twitchen, Igor Lovchinsky, Alexander O. Sushkov, Mikhail D. Lukin, Alex Retzker, Boris Naydenov, Liam P. McGuinness, Fedor Jelezko The accumulation of quantum phase in response to a signal is the central mechanism of quantum sensing, as such, loss of phase information presents a fundamental limitation. For this reason approaches to extend quantum coherence in the presence of noise are actively being explored. Here we experimentally protect a room-temperature hybrid spin register against environmental decoherence by performing repeated quantum error correction whilst maintaining sensitivity to signal fields. We use a long-lived nuclear spin to correct multiple phase errors on a sensitive electron spin in diamond and realize magnetic field sensing beyond the timescales set by natural decoherence. The universal extension of sensing time, robust to noise at any frequency, demonstrates the definitive advantage entangled multi-qubit systems provide for quantum sensing and offers an important complement to quantum control techniques. In particular, our work opens the door for detecting minute signals in the presence of high frequency noise, where standard protocols reach their limits.