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At least 253 records · Page 14

Entanglement engineering of optomechanical systems by reinforcement learning

Entanglement is fundamental to quantum information science and technology, yet controlling and manipulating entanglement—so-called entanglement engineering—for arbitrary quantum systems remains a formidable challenge. There are two difficulties: the fragility of quantum entanglement and its experimental characterization. We develop a model-free deep reinforcement-learning (RL) approach to entanglement engineering, in which feedback control together with weak continuous measurement and partial state observation is exploited to generate and maintain desired entanglement. We employ quantum optomechanical systems with linear or nonlinear photon–phonon interactions to demonstrate the workings of our machine-learning-based entanglement engineering protocol. In particular, the RL agent sequentially interacts with one or multiple parallel quantum optomechanical environments, collects trajectories, and updates the policy to maximize the accumulated reward to create and stabilize quantum entanglement over an arbitrary amount of time. The machine-learning-based model-free control principle is applicable to the entanglement engineering of experimental quantum systems in general.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Effect of surface disorder on the chiral surface states of a three-dimensional quantum Hall system

We investigate the effect of surface disorder on the chiral surface states of a three-dimensional quantum Hall system. Utilizing a transfer-matrix method, we find that the localization length of the surface state along the magnetic field decreases with the surface disorder strength in the weak disorder regime but increases anomalously in the strong disorder regime. In the strong disorder regime, the surface states mainly locate at the first inward layer to avoid the strong disorder in the outmost layer. The anomalous increase of the localization length can be explained by an effective model, which maps the strong disorder on the surface layer to the weak disorder on the first inward layer. Our work demonstrates that surface disorder can be an effective way to control the transport behavior of the surface states along the magnetic field. We also investigate the effect of surface disorder on the full distribution of conductances P(g) of the surface states in the quasi-one-dimensional (1D) regime for various surface disorder strengths. In particular, we find that P(g) is Gaussian in the quasi-1D metal regime and log-normal in the quasi-1D insulator regime. In the crossover regime, P(g) exhibits highly nontrivial forms, whose shapes coincide with the results obtained from the Dorokhov-Mello-Pereyra-Kumar equation of a weakly disordered quasi-1D wire in the absence of time-reversal symmetry. Our results suggest that P(g) is fully determined by the average conductance, independent of the details of the system, in agreement with the single-parameter scaling hypothesis.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Estimating time in quantum chaotic systems and black holes

We characterize new universal features of the dynamics of chaotic quantum many-body systems, by considering a hypothetical task of "time estimation". Most macroscopic observables in a chaotic system equilibrate to nearly constant late-time values. Intuitively, it should become increasingly difficult to estimate the precise value of time by making measurements on the state. We use a quantity called the Fisher information from quantum metrology to quantify the minimum uncertainty in estimating time. Due to unitarity, the uncertainty in the time estimate does not grow with time if we have access to optimal measurements on the full system. Restricting the measurements to act on a small subsystem or to have low computational complexity leads to results expected from equilibration, where the time uncertainty becomes large at late times. With optimal measurements on a subsystem larger than half of the system, we regain the ability to estimate the time very precisely, even at late times. Hawking's calculation for the reduced density matrix of the black hole radiation in semiclassical gravity contradicts our general predictions for unitary quantum chaotic systems. Hawking's state always has a large uncertainty for attempts to estimate the time using the radiation, whereas our general results imply that the uncertainty should become small after the Page time. This gives a new version of the black hole information loss paradox in terms of the time estimation task. By restricting to simple measurements on the radiation, the time uncertainty becomes large. This indicates from a new perspective that the observations of computationally bounded agents are consistent with the semiclassical effective description of gravity.

Black holes↗

Floquet operator as integral of motion

Nonstationary quantum systems have no energy levels. However, for time-dependent periodical quantum systems, the notion of quasi-energy levels has been introduced. The main point of the quasi-energy concept is to relate quasi-energies to eigenvalues of the Floquet operator or monodromy operators which is equal to the evolution operator of a quantum system taken at the moment coinciding with the period of the system. The purpose of this article is to relate the Floquet operator to integrals of the motion and to introduce a new operator which is the integral of motion and has the same quasi-energy spectrum that the Floquet operator has. We wish to discuss an explicit formula for this new integral of motion.

Manko, V. I.↗

Mesoscale system feedback-induced dissipation and noise suppression

A high-gain and low-noise negative feedback control (“feedback control”) system can detect charge transfer in quantum systems at room temperatures. The feedback control system can attenuate dissipative coupling between a quantum system and its thermodynamic environment. The feedback control system can be integrated with standard commercial voltage-impedance measurement system, for example, a potentiostat. In one aspect, the feedback control system includes a plurality of electrodes that are configured to electrically couple to a sample, and a feedback mechanism coupled to a first electrode of the plurality of electrodes. The feedback mechanism is configured to detect a potential associated with the sample via the first electrode. The feedback mechanism provides a feedback signal to the sample via a second electrode of the plurality of electrodes, the feedback signal is configured to provide excitation control of the sample at a third electrode of the plurality of electrode.

Gupta, Chaitanya↗

In-situ mid-circuit qubit measurement and reset in a single-species trapped-ion quantum computing system

We implement in-situ mid-circuit measurement and reset (MCMR) operations on a trapped-ion quantum computing system by using metastable qubit states in $^{171}\textrm{Yb}^+$ ions. We introduce and compare two methods for isolating data qubits from measured qubits: one shelves the data qubit into the metastable state and the other drives the measured qubit to the metastable state without disturbing the other qubits. We experimentally demonstrate both methods on a crystal of two $^{171}\textrm{Yb}^+$ ions using both the $S_{1/2}$ ground state hyperfine clock qubit and the $S_{1/2}$-$D_{3/2}$ optical qubit. These MCMR methods result in errors on the data qubit of about $2\%$ without degrading the measurement fidelity. With straightforward reductions in laser noise, these errors can be suppressed to less than $0.1\%$. The demonstrated method allows MCMR to be performed in a single-species ion chain without shuttling or additional qubit-addressing optics, greatly simplifying the architecture.

Atomic Physics (physics.atom-ph)↗

Computing partition functions in the one-clean-qubit model

We present a method to approximate partition functions of quantum systems using mixed-state quantum computation. For positive-semidefinite Hamiltonians, our method has an expected running-time that is almost linear in [M/( ε rel Z )] 2 , where M is the dimension of the quantum system, Z is the partition function, and ε rel is the relative precision. It is based on approximations of the exponential operator as linear combinations of certain operators related to block-encoding of Hamiltonians or Hamiltonian evolutions. The trace of each operator is estimated using a standard algorithm in the one-clean-qubit model. For large values of Z , our method may run faster than exact classical methods, whose complexities are polynomial in M . We also prove that a version of the partition function estimation problem within additive error is complete for the so-called DQC1 complexity class, suggesting that our method provides a superpolynomial speedup for certain parameter values. Overall, to attain a desired relative precision, we develop a classical procedure based on a sequence of approximations within predetermined additive errors that may be of independent interest.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Juqbox.jl

The Juqbox.jl package implements functionality for solving the quantum optimal control problem for realizing logical gates in closed quantum systems. The dynamics of the quantum system is modeled by Schroedinger's equation, which takes to form of a linear system of ordinary differential equations (ODE). Juqbox.jl solves this ODE by numerical time stepping and applies a gradient-based optimization technique to determine control pulses for driving an initial state to a final state, according to the desired logical gate transformation. To evaluate the gradient, Juqbox.jl applies the ``first discretize, then optimize'' approach based on a discrete adjoint time stepping technique. The actual optimization is performed by the open source Ipopt libaray. Juqbox.jl is written in the Julia programming language which, among many other features, provides a convenient interface to the Ipopt library.

PETERSSON, NILSA.↗

Quantum computing and quantum information storage

Quantum storage, transmission, and processing is the future of information technology. Here, the promise of quantum hardware stems from the inherent complexity of an entangled quantum system—the size of the wave-function scales exponentially with the number of particles, whether represented in real space or in a parameter space. In contrast, a classical N-body system can be completely represented by only 6N variables (positions and momenta of all particles). This complexity of quantum systems creates a yet-unsolved challenge of modeling quantum systems by means of classical computing—the curse of dimensionality. Indeed, although we can easily write the Schrödinger equation for any system of interacting nuclei and electrons, we can only solve it exactly on classical computers for very small systems.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Standard model physics and the digital quantum revolution: thoughts about the interface

Advances in isolating, controlling and entangling quantum systems are transforming what was once a curious feature of quantum mechanics into a vehicle for disruptive scientific and technological progress. Pursuing the vision articulated by Feynman, a concerted effort across many areas of research and development is introducing prototypical digital quantum devices into the computing ecosystem available to domain scientists. Through interactions with these early quantum devices, the abstract vision of exploring classically-intractable quantum systems is evolving toward becoming a tangible reality. Beyond catalyzing these technological advances, entanglement is enabling parallel progress as a diagnostic for quantum correlations and as an organizational tool, both guiding improved understanding of quantum many-body systems and quantum field theories defining and emerging from the standard model. Here, from the perspective of three domain science theorists, this article compiles thoughts about the interface on entanglement, complexity, and quantum simulation in an effort to contextualize recent NISQ-era progress with the scientific objectives of nuclear and high-energy physics.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Combining molecular beam epitaxy and low-energy electron microscopy with in situ magnetic susceptibility measurements within an integrated ultrahigh vacuum system

Quantum two-dimensional materials, including ultrathin superconducting films, are of great current research interest. These films are typically fabricated under ultra-high vacuum (UHV) conditions and are sensitive to the environment—prone to oxidation and contamination when exposed to the atmosphere. This hampers the study of their intrinsic properties by standard ex situ techniques. Here, we present a variable-temperature mutual inductance probe system integrated under UHV with molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) synthesis and low-energy electron microscopy, enabling nondestructive in situ characterization of superconducting thin films. The system employs a reflection-type configuration and reaches a low temperature (∼4 K) using a high-cooling-power, vibration-isolated cryocooler. In conclusion, we demonstrate the system performance by measuring the superconducting critical temperature in a copper-oxide thin film.

2D materials↗

TEAM Project Review, Year 2

This report summarizes our research activities within the TEAM project between December 2020 and December 2021, funded by the ASCR Advanced Research in Quantum Computing program. During the reporting period the LLNL-MSU team has made progress on several fronts. An overarching goal of the team is to provide a comprehensive suite of software tools that can be used for the Characterize-Optimize-Compute loop needed to implement and execute algorithms on quantum devices. We are concurrently developing lightweight solvers that can be used on desktop computers to find optimal control pulses and to characterize small quantum systems (consisting of a few transmons and cavities). However, desktop computers are insufficient for simulating and characterizing larger quantum systems. We have therefore also developed parallel, distributed memory, simulators and optimization solvers, both for open and closed quantum systems. These parallel solvers have, for example, been used to study quantum optimal control for pure-state preparation, utilizing 1000’s of cores on a modern high-performance computing (HPC) platform.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

TEAM project review, year 1

This note summarizes our research activities within the TEAM project between October 2019 and November 2020, funded by the ASCR Advanced Research in Quantum Computing program. Three research efforts have begun during the review period. The first effort, resulting in the JuQBox software, implemented a novel algorithm for optimal control in closed quantum systems based on symplectic time integration and exact calculations of the gradient of the discretized objective function. In our second effort, resulting in a code called Quandary, we consider the optimal control problem for open quantum systems. Here the evolution of the quantum system is modeled by the Lindblad master equation. In this code, we are considering both the realization of quantum gates as well as the optimal reset problem in which a general mixed quantum state is driven towards its ground state. In our third research effort we have begun the development of computational software for what we call Lindblad learning, i.e. the process of characterizing the equations governing our quantum computing hardware.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Superconducting metamaterials - the first step toward a microwave quantum bus

Coherent manipulation of quantum states is at the core of quantum information science (QIS). Many state-of-the-art quantum systems rely on microwave fields for quantum operations. As such, the microwave electromagnetic fields serve as the ideal "quantum bus" to integrate different types of QIS systems into a hybrid quantum system. Superconducting metamaterials are artificial materials consisting of arrays of superconducting resonant microstructures with sizes much smaller than the microwave wavelengths of interest. Superconducting metamaterials are a strong candidate medium for the microwave quantum bus, because the effective impedance, field distributions, and frequency response can all be controlled by engineering the microstructures, electrical bias, and magnetic flux while maintaining extremely low loss. In this project, we investigate the fundamental unit of a superconducting metamaterial - a resonator with physical dimensions much smaller than the microwave wavelengths - using NbTiN as the working superconductor, whose high operating temperatures and magnetic fields are desirable attributes for compatibility with a wide variety of quantum systems. We first studied the properties of sputtered NbTiN thin films by correlating the film thickness with the normal state resistivity, superconducting transition temperature, and resonances of transmission line resonators made from these films. We developed a process flow and designed a coplanar waveguide platform for studying small resonators. The platform significantly shortens the turnaround times of the resonator fabrication and testing cycles. Several resonators with different designs were fabricated and tested at 4 Kelvin. Resonances were observed in some resonator testers. Potential paths for improvements and future directions are discussed.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Large-scale simulations of Floquet physics on near-term quantum computers

Abstract Periodically driven quantum systems exhibit a diverse set of phenomena but are more challenging to simulate than their equilibrium counterparts. Here, we introduce the Quantum High-Frequency Floquet Simulation (QHiFFS) algorithm as a method to simulate fast-driven quantum systems on quantum hardware. Central to QHiFFS is the concept of a kick operator which transforms the system into a basis where the dynamics is governed by a time-independent effective Hamiltonian. This allows prior methods for time-independent simulation to be lifted to simulate Floquet systems. We use the periodically driven biaxial next-nearest neighbor Ising (BNNNI) model, a natural test bed for quantum frustrated magnetism and criticality, as a case study to illustrate our algorithm. We implemented a 20-qubit simulation of the driven two-dimensional BNNNI model on Quantinuum’s trapped ion quantum computer. Our error analysis shows that QHiFFS exhibits not only a cubic advantage in driving frequency ω but also a linear advantage in simulation time t compared to Trotterization.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Emergent viscous hydrodynamics from a single quantum particle

We investigate an explicit example of how spatial decoherence can lead to hydrodynamic behavior in the late-time, long-wavelength regime of open quantum systems. We focus on the case of a single nonrelativistic quantum particle linearly coupled to a thermal bath of noninteracting harmonic oscillators at temperature T , a la Caldeira and Leggett. Taking advantage of decoherence in the position representation, we expand the reduced density matrix in powers of the off-diagonal spatial components, so that high-order terms are suppressed at late times. Truncating the resulting power series at second order leads to a set of dissipative transient hydrodynamic equations similar to the nonrelativistic limit of equations widely used in simulations of the quark-gluon plasma formed in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. Transport coefficients are directly determined by the damping constant γ , which quantifies the influence of the environment. The asymptotic limit of our hydrodynamic equations reduces to the celebrated Navier-Stokes equations for a compressible fluid in the presence of a drag force. Furthermore, our results shed new light on the onset of hydrodynamic behavior in open quantum systems where a system with few degrees of freedom is coupled to a large thermal environment.

Hydrodynamics↗

Quantum algorithms from fluctuation theorems: Thermal-state preparation

Fluctuation theorems provide a correspondence between properties of quantum systems in thermal equilibrium and a work distribution arising in a non-equilibrium process that connects two quantum systems with Hamiltonians H 0 and H 1 = H 0 + V. Building upon these theorems, we present a quantum algorithm to prepare a purification of the thermal state of H 1 at inverse temperature β ≥ 0 starting from a purification of the thermal state of H 0 . The complexity of the quantum algorithm, given by the number of uses of certain unitaries, is $\mathcal{O}$ (e β(ΔA - w l )/2 ), where ΔA is the free-energy difference between H 1 and H 0 , and w l is a work cutoff that depends on the properties of the work distribution and the approximation error ϵ > 0. If the non-equilibrium process is trivial, this complexity is exponential i β∥V∥, where ∥V∥ is the spectral norm of V. This represents a significant improvement of prior quantum algorithms that have complexity exponential in β∥H 1 ∥ in the regime where ∥V∥$\ll$ ∥H 1 ∥. The dependence of the complexity in ϵ varies according to the structure of the quantum systems. It can be exponential in 1/ϵ in general, but we show it to be sublinear in 1/ϵ if H 0 and H 1 commute, or polynomial in 1/ϵ if H 0 and H 1 are local spin systems. The possibility of applying a unitary that drives the system out of equilibrium allows one to increase the value of w l and improve the complexity even further. To this end, we analyze the complexity for preparing the thermal state of the transverse field Ising model using different non-equilibrium unitary processes and see significant complexity improvements.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗