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At least 271 records · Page 15

Square Root Statistics of Density Matrices and Their Applications

To estimate the degree of quantum entanglement of random pure states, it is crucial to understand the statistical behavior of entanglement indicators such as the von Neumann entropy, quantum purity, and entanglement capacity. These entanglement metrics are functions of the spectrum of density matrices, and their statistical behavior over different generic state ensembles have been intensively studied in the literature. As an alternative metric, in this work, we study the sum of the square root spectrum of density matrices, which is relevant to negativity and fidelity in quantum information processing. In particular, we derive the finite-size mean and variance formulas of the sum of the square root spectrum over the Bures–Hall ensemble, extending known results obtained recently over the Hilbert–Schmidt ensemble.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Hierarchy of multipartite correlations based on concentratable entanglement

Multipartite entanglement is one of the hallmarks of quantum mechanics and is central to quantum information processing. In this work we show that concentratable entanglement (CE), an operationally motivated entanglement measure, induces a hierarchy upon pure states from which different entanglement structures can be experimentally certified. In particular, we find that nearly all genuine multipartite entangled states can be verified through the CE. Interestingly, GHZ states prove to be far from maximally entangled according to this measure. Instead we find the exact maximal value and corresponding states for up to 18 qubits and show that these correspond to extremal quantum error correcting codes. The latter allows us to unravel a deep connection between CE and coding theory. Finally, our results also offer an alternative proof, on up to 31 qubits, that absolutely maximally entangled states do not exist. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Schatzki, Louis (ORCID:0000000217129148)↗

Photon-mediated interactions between quantum emitters in a diamond nanocavity

Photon-mediated interactions between quantum systems are essential for realizing quantum networks and scalable quantum information processing. We demonstrate such interactions between pairs of silicon-vacancy (SiV) color centers coupled to a diamond nanophotonic cavity. When the optical transitions of the two color centers are tuned into resonance, the coupling to the common cavity mode results in a coherent interaction between them, leading to spectrally-resolved superradiant and subradiant states. We use the electronic spin degrees of freedom of the SiV centers to control these optically-mediated interactions. Such controlled interactions will be crucial in developing cavity-mediated quantum gates between spin qubits and for realizing scalable quantum network nodes.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Systems for Transducing Entanglement Between Photons and Electron Spins

The transfer of quantum properties and entanglement between photons and matter (transduction) is a major challenge in QIS, especially with regard to networking quantum information processing. In order to overcome this challenge, it is important to know how non-classical light (single or entangled photons) interacts with matter. This project specifically addresses fundamental questions about the interaction of single and entangled photons with molecules and nanostructures to produce electrons with prescribed spin polarizations and pairs of electrons with entangled spins, thus resulting in transduction by addressing two major objectives: (2) In Objective 1, we will investigate the formation of polarization-encoded radical (spin qubit) pairs and molecular triplet states photoexcited by single quantum emitter light sources. (2) In Objective 2, we will demonstrate the use of two entangled photons, generated by spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) or by the coherent biexcitonic states of perovskite NPLs, to produce two entangled radical (spin qubit) pairs or molecular triplet states.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

A controlled-NOT gate for frequency-bin qubits

The realization of strong photon–photon interactions has presented an enduring challenge across photonics, particularly in quantum computing, where two-photon gates form essential components for scalable quantum information processing (QIP). While linear-optic schemes have enabled probabilistic entangling gates in spatio-polarization encoding, solutions for many other useful degrees of freedom remain missing. In particular, no two-photon gate for the important platform of frequency encoding has been experimentally demonstrated, due in large part to the additional challenges imparted by the mismatched wavelengths of the interacting photons. In this article, we design and implement an entangling gate for frequency-bin qubits, a coincidence-basis controlled-NOT (CNOT), using line-by-line pulse shaping and electro-optic modulation. With this being said, we extract a quantum unitary fidelity of 0.91 ± 0.01 via a parameter inference approach based on Bayesian machine learning, which enables accurate gate reconstruction from measurements in the two-photon computational basis alone. Thus, our CNOT imparts a single-photon frequency shift controlled by the frequency of another photon—an important capability in itself—and should enable new directions in fiber-compatible QIP.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Ablation loading of barium ions into a surface-electrode trap

Trapped-ion quantum information processing may benefit from qubits encoded in isotopes that are practically available in only small quantities, e.g., due to low natural abundance or radioactivity. Laser ablation provides a method of controllably liberating neutral atoms or ions from low-volume targets, but energetic ablation products can be difficult to confine in the small ion-electrode distance, micron-scale microfabricated traps amenable to high-speed, high-fidelity manipulation of ion arrays. Here, we investigate ablation-based ion loading into surface-electrode traps of different sizes to test a model describing ion loading probability as a function of effective trap volume and other trap parameters. We characterize loading of ablated barium from a metallic source in two cryogenic surface-electrode traps with 730 and 50 μm ion-electrode distances. Furthermore, our loading rate agrees with a predictive analytical model, providing insight for the confinement of limited-quantity species of interest for quantum computing, simulation, and sensing.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

Imaging Electrons in Two Dimensional Materials (Final report)

Two-dimensional (2D) materials have extraordinary characteristics that offer promising new approaches for science and technology. Electrons in graphene can move ballistically through a sheet, even though it is only a single atom thick. And transition metal dichalcogenide materials can be cleaved into 2D flakes of all types – metals, semiconductors, insulators, magnetic materials, and superconductors. To benefit from these discoveries, the science needs to be understood to transform 2D materials into useful new devices and systems. The evolution in time of atomic scale graphene structures has been studied in time with a transmission electron microscope (TEM), and ballistic transport of electrons in graphene was been imaged using a cooled scanning probe microscope (SPM), as well as electron motion in MoS 2 . Graphene is only one atom thick but is extremely strong, creating the opportunity to fabricate atomic scale structures in the lateral direction. Using an atomic resolution TEM, a suspended sheet of graphene can be shaped by a Si impurity atom on its surface that acts like a chisel to open up apertures, one atom at a time. The electrons in the TEM provide both the chiseling energy and the ability to image the results. Electrons and holes in graphene form a new type of electronic system with conical conduction and valence bands that meet at the Dirac point, with no energy gap. For moderate densities, the carriers form a Fermi liquid with ballistic transport over micron-scale distances. Using a cooled SPM the cyclotron orbit of electrons in graphene has been imaged. In the magnetic focusing regime, electrons leaving a point contact circle around and leave from a second point contact when the cyclotron diameter is equal to the contact spacing. The paths of electrons are focused - they enter at different angles but converge again at the exiting contact. When the SPM tip knocks an electron out of its orbit, an imaging signal is created. The ballistic motion of carriers in graphene opens the way for ballistic devices that manipulate beams of electrons and holes. Our collaborator Gil-Ho Lee, in Philip Kim's group, created a collimating contact by placing zig-zag absorbers on either side of entering electrons. Our cooled SPM was used to image the electron beam and determine its 9-degree halfwidth. By changing the gate voltage, a collimated beam of holes was also created, opening the way for colliding beam experiments. Coherent beams of carriers are desirable for quantum information processing. Via Andreev reflection, superconducting contacts can covert Cooper pairs in a superconductor to an ingoing and outgoing electrons and holes. Using our cooled SPM, Andreev reflection was imaged from a superconducting contact on a graphene device. Magnetic focusing was used to create an incoming beam of electrons and an outgoing beam of holes, detected by a third point contact. The images show a clear transition from normal reflection above the superconducting transition temperature to Andreev reflection as the device is cooled. Transition metal dichalcogenides offer a wide array of materials that can be exfoliated into ultrathin 2D sheets. A cooled SPM can be used to detect quantum dots as well as to image electron flow. The tip charge capacitively couples to electrons on the dot, acting as a gate to tune the dot conductance. Coulomb blockade peaks appear as a bullseye pattern in an SPM image as the tip is raster scanned above the dot. This approach was used to detect quantum dots in a MoS 2 channel as the carrier density was reduced and electrons pooled in low energy points. Through our DOE supported research, cooled SPM imaging has proven to be a very useful tool to uncover the motion of electrons and holes in the new quantum materials graphene and MoS 2 .

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Quantum nondemolition photon counting with a hybrid electromechanical probe

Quantum nondemolition (QND) measurements of photons is a much pursued endeavor in the field of quantum optics and quantum information processing. Here, we propose a hybrid optoelectromechanical platform that integrates a cavity system with a hybrid electromechanical probe for QND photon counting. Building upon a mechanical-mode-mediated nonperturbative electro-optical dispersive coupling, our protocol performs the QND photon counting measurement by means of the current-voltage characteristics of the probe. In particular, we show that the peak voltage shift of the differential conductance is linearly dependent on the photon occupation number, thus providing a sensitive measure of the photon number, especially in the strong optomechanical coupling regime. Here, given that our proposed hybrid system is compatible with state-of-the-art experimental techniques, we discuss its implementations and anticipate applications in quantum optics and polariton physics.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Mode Multiplexing for Scalable Cavity-Enhanced Operations in Neutral-Atom Arrays

Neutral-atom arrays provide a versatile platform for quantum information processing. However, in large-scale arrays, efficient photon collection remains a bottleneck for key tasks such as fast, nondestructive qubit readout and remote entanglement distribution. We propose a cavity-based approach that enables fast, parallel operations over many atoms using multiple modes of a single optical cavity. By selectively shifting the relevant atomic transitions, each atom can be coupled to a distinct cavity mode, allowing independent simultaneous processing. We present practical system designs that support cavity-mode multiplexing with up to 50 modes, enabling rapid mid-circuit syndrome extraction and significantly enhancing entanglement distribution rates between remote atom arrays. This approach offers a scalable solution to core challenges in neutral-atom arrays, advancing the development of practical quantum technologies.

Aqua, Ziv [Massachusetts Institute of Technology (↗

Ultranarrow bright single-photon emitters in diamond with strong broadband phonon decoupling

Single-photon emitters are fundamental building blocks for quantum information processing, communication and sensing. However, unwanted interactions with bulk phonons in their host environment strongly limit their coherence and controllability. We report single color centers in nanodiamonds that are strongly and comprehensively decoupled from the bulk phononic environment. The color centers feature record-narrow linewidths down to 0.3 nm at room temperature and stable, bright emission, exceeding 10 Mcps in saturation. Notably, the bulk phonon sideband is almost entirely suppressed, revealing the presence of a single localized vibrational mode outside the diamond phonon band. Our observations and simulations point towards a unique mechanism for phonon decoupling in common wide-gap materials, based on a strongly radiative orbital transition coupled to a localized vibrational mode. The new color center enables qualitatively higher performance for applications in quantum networks and nanoscale sensing, and the exploration of new physical resources associated with vibrational states.

Sahoo, Swetapadma [ORNL]↗

Delocalized Excitation Transfer in Open Quantum Systems with Long-Range Interactions

The interplay between coherence and system-environment interactions is at the basis of a wide range of phenomena, from quantum information processing to charge and energy transfer in molecular systems, biomolecules, and photochemical materials. In this work, we use a Frenkel exciton model with long-range interacting qubits coupled to a damped collective bosonic mode to investigate vibrationally assisted transfer processes in donor-acceptor systems featuring internal substructures analogous to light-harvesting complexes. We find that certain delocalized excitonic states maximize the transfer rate and that the entanglement is preserved during the dissipative transfer over a wide range of parameters. We investigate the reduction in transfer caused by static disorder, white noise, and finite temperature and study how transfer efficiency scales as a function of the number of dimerized monomers and the component number of each monomer, finding which excitonic states lead to optimal transfer. Finally, we provide a realistic experimental setting to realize this model in analog trapped-ion quantum simulators. Analog quantum simulation of systems comprising many and increasingly complex monomers could offer valuable insights into the design of light-harvesting materials, particularly in the nonperturbative intermediate parameter regime examined in this study, where classical simulation methods are resource intensive.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Engineering Spin-Orbit Interaction in Silicon

There has been much interest in leveraging the topological order of materials for quantum information processing. Among the various solid-state systems, one-dimensional topological superconductors made out of strongly spin-orbit-coupled nanowires have been shown to be the most promising material platform. In this project, we investigated the feasibility of turning silicon, which is a non-topological semiconductor and has weak spin-orbit coupling, into a one-dimensional topological superconductor. Our theoretical analysis showed that it is indeed possible to create a sizable effective spin-orbit gap in the energy spectrum of a ballistic one-dimensional electron channel in silicon with the help of nano-magnet arrays. Experimentally, we developed magnetic materials needed for fabricating such nano-magnets, characterized the magnetic behavior at low temperatures, and successfully demonstrated the required magnetization configuration for opening the spin-orbit gap. Our results pave the way toward a practical topological quantum computing platform using silicon, one of the most technologically mature electronic materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Room-temperature valley-selective emission in Si-MoSe 2 heterostructures enabled by high-quality-factor chiroptical cavities

Transition metal dichalcogenides possess valley pseudospin, enabling coupling between photon spin and electron spin for classical and quantum information processing. However, rapid valley-dephasing processes have impeded the development of scalable, high-performance valleytronic devices operating at room temperature. Here we demonstrate that a chiral resonant metasurface can enable room-temperature valley-selective emission in MoSe 2 monolayers independent of excitation polarization. This platform provides circular eigen-polarization states with a high quality factor (Q-factor) and strong chiral near-field enhancement. The fabricated Si chiral metasurfaces exhibit chiroptical resonances with Q-factors up to 450 at visible wavelengths. We reveal degrees of circular polarization (DOP) reaching a record high of 0.5 at room temperature. Our measurements show that the high DOP can be attributed to the significantly increased chiroptical local density of states, which enhances valley-specific radiative transition rates by a factor of ~13. Our work could facilitate the development of ultracompact chiral classical and quantum light sources.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Noise Decoherence and Errors from Entanglement-function Theory for Quantum Computing

A significant problem in quantum computing is the development of physical realizations of algorithms that are robust against noise. One way to examine and mitigate noise would be to simulate large sets of qubits coupling to the external environment on classical computers. This is extremely challenging as quantum information processing is in some sense tied to computing resources that scale exponentially with the number of computing elements (qubits). In this LDRD, we set the foundation for a computational framework potentially allowing simulations of 1000s of qubits vs. 10s now possible. Exact wave-function-based methods demand exponentially increasing resources with system size. The method proposed, entanglement-functional theory (EFT), requires vastly fewer resources. The crucial step is to map the information contained in the wave-functions into a simpler object with associated 1.) auxiliary gate operations and 2.) entanglement functionals of this object. This is similar to the Time-dependent Density Functional Theory (TDDFT) approach that has revolutionized chemistry and materials science. Instead of dealing with the exponentially large wave-function, EFT works with a polynomially large set of projections (the density) that are easily manipulated through unitary operations. For a given set of quantum gates, an isomorphism exists that relates the sequence of events to the time-dependent density. A system of entangled qubits can be simulated at drastically reduced cost relative to existing state-of-the-art vector-state simulation codes.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Magnetometry of micro-magnets with electrostatically defined Hall bars

Micro-magnets are key components for quantum information processing with individual spins, enabling arbitrary rotations and addressability. In this work, characterization of sub-micrometer sized CoFe ferromagnets is performed with Hall bars electrostatically defined in a two-dimensional electron gas. Due to the ballistic nature of electron transport in the cross junction of the Hall bar, anomalies such as the quenched Hall effect appear near zero external magnetic field, thus hindering the sensitivity of the magnetometer to small magnetic fields. However, it is shown that the sensitivity of the diffusive limit can be almost completely restored at low temperatures using a large current density in the Hall bar of about 10 A/m. Overcoming the size limitation of conventional etched Hall bars with electrostatic gating enables the measurement of magnetization curves of 440 nm wide micro-magnets with a signal-to-noise ratio above 10{sup 3}. Furthermore, the inhomogeneity of the stray magnetic field created by the micro-magnets is directly measured using the gate-voltage-dependent width of the sensitive area of the Hall bar.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Indistinguishability and correlations of photons generated by quantum emitters undergoing spectral diffusion

Photon-based quantum information processing is based on manipulating multi photon interference. We focus on the Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) dip in the photon coincidence rate which provides a direct measure of interference of indistinguishable photons linked to their Bose statistics. The effect has been first observed with entangled photons generated by parametric down conversion and then extended to independent emitters. Fluctuations caused by coupling between emitters and a bath can erode the interference which causes the dip. Here we show how the magnitude and shape of the HOM dip is affected by spectral diffusion induced by coupling to a brownian oscillator bath. Conditions for maintaining and controlling the interference are specified.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

On the Schmidt-rank-three bipartite and multipartite unitary operator

Unitary operations are physically implementable. We further the understanding of such operators by studying the possible forms of nonlocal unitary operators, which are bipartite or multipartite unitary operators that are not tensor product operators. They are of broad relevance in quantum information processing. We prove that any nonlocal unitary operator of Schmidt rank three on a d{sub A}×d{sub B} bipartite system is locally equivalent to a controlled unitary. This operator can be locally implemented assisted by a maximally entangled state of Schmidt rank min(d{sub A}{sup 2},d{sub B}) when d{sub A}≤d{sub B}. We further show that any multipartite unitary operator U of Schmidt rank three can be controlled by one system or collectively controlled by two systems, regardless of the number of systems of U. In the scenario of n-qubit, we construct non-controlled U for any odd n≥5, and prove that U is a controlled unitary for any even n≥4.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Synchronous detection of cosmic rays and correlated errors in superconducting qubit arrays

Quantum information processing at scale will require sufficiently stable and long-lived qubits, likely enabled by error-correction codes. Several recent superconducting-qubit experiments, however, reported observing intermittent spatiotemporally correlated errors that would be problematic for conventional codes, with ionizing radiation being a likely cause. Here, we directly measured the cosmic-ray contribution to spatiotemporally correlated qubit errors. We accomplished this by synchronously monitoring cosmic-ray detectors and qubit energy-relaxation dynamics of 10 transmon qubits distributed across a 5 × 5 × 0.35 mm 3 silicon chip. Cosmic rays caused correlated errors at a rate of $1/\left(592\begin{array}{c}+48\\ -41\end{array}\,{\rm{s}}\right)$, accounting for 17.1 ± 1.3% of all such events. Our qubits responded to essentially all of the cosmic rays and their secondary particles incident on the chip, consistent with the independently measured arrival flux. Moreover, we observed that the landscape of the superconducting gap in proximity to the Josephson junctions dramatically impacts the qubit response to cosmic rays. Given the practical difficulties associated with shielding cosmic rays, our results indicate the importance of radiation hardening—for example, superconducting gap engineering—to the realization of robust quantum error correction.

Science & Technology - Other Topics↗