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The control of light-matter interaction at the most elementary level has become an important resource for quantum technologies. Implementing such interfaces in the THz range remains an outstanding problem. Here, we couple a single electron trapped in a carbon nanotube quantum dot to a THz resonator. The resulting light-matter interaction reaches the deep strong coupling regime that induces a THz energy gap in the carbon nanotube solely by the vacuum fluctuations of the THz resonator. This is directly confirmed by transport measurements. Such a phenomenon which is the exact counterpart of inhibition of spontaneous emission in atomic physics opens the path to the readout of non-classical states of light using electrical current. This would be a particularly useful resource and perspective for THz quantum optics., Strong light-matter coupling has been realized at the level of single atoms and photons throughout most of the electromagnetic spectrum, except for the THz range. Here, the authors report a THz-scale transport gap, induced by vacuum fluctuations in carbon nanotube quantum dot through the deep strong coupling of a single electron to a THz resonator.

We use a quantum path integral approach to describe the behavior of a microwave cavity coupled to a dissipative mesoscopic circuit. We integrate out the mesoscopic electronic degrees of freedom to obtain a cavity effective action at fourth order in the light/matter coupling. By studying the structure of this action, we establish sufficient conditions in which the cavity dynamics can be described with a Lindblad equation. This equation depends on effective parameters set by electronic correlation functions. It reveals that the mesoscopic circuit induces an effective Kerr interaction and two-photon dissipative processes. We use our method to study the effective dynamics of a cavity coupled to a double quantum dot with normal metal reservoirs. If the cavity is driven at twice its frequency, the double dot circuit generates photonic squeezing and non-classicalities visible in the cavity Wigner function. In particular, we find a counterintuitive situation where mesoscopic dissipation enables the production of photonic Schr\"odinger cats. These effects can occur for realistic circuit parameters. Our method can be generalized straightforwardly to more complex circuit geometries with, for instance, multiple quantum dots, and other types of fermionic reservoirs such as superconductors and ferromagnets., Comment: 23 pages, 12 figures, submitted

Spins confined in quantum dots are considered as a promising platform for quantum information processing. While many advanced quantum operations have been demonstrated, experimental as well as theoretical efforts are now focusing on the development of scalable spin quantum bit architectures. One particularly promising method relies on the coupling of spin quantum bits to microwave cavity photons. This would enable the coupling of distant spins via the exchange of virtual photons for two qubit gate applications, which still remains to be demonstrated with spin qubits. Here, we use a circuit QED spin–photon interface to drive a single electronic spin in a carbon nanotube-based double quantum dot using cavity photons. The microwave spectroscopy allows us to identify an electrically controlled spin transition with a decoherence rate which can be tuned to be as low as 250 kHz. We show that this value is consistent with the expected hyperfine coupling in carbon nanotubes. These coherence properties, which can be attributed to the use of pristine carbon nanotubes stapled inside the cavity, should enable coherent spin–spin interaction via cavity photons and compare favorably to the ones recently demonstrated in Si-based circuit QED experiments. Our clean and controlled nano-assembly technique of carbon nanotubes in the cavity could be further improved by purified 12C growth to get rid of the nuclear spins resulting in an even higher spin coherence.

The choice of the physical system that represents a qubit can help reduce errors. Encoding them in the quadrature space of a superconducting resonator leads to exponentially reduced bit-flip rates, while phase-flip errors increase only linearly. A quantum system interacts with its environment-if ever so slightly-no matter how much care is put into isolating it(1). Therefore, quantum bits undergo errors, putting dauntingly difficult constraints on the hardware suitable for quantum computation(2). New strategies are emerging to circumvent this problem by encoding a quantum bit non-locally across the phase space of a physical system. Because most sources of decoherence result from local fluctuations, the foundational promise is to exponentially suppress errors by increasing a measure of this non-locality(3,4). Prominent examples are topological quantum bits, which delocalize information over real space and where spatial extent measures non-locality. Here, we encode a quantum bit in the field quadrature space of a superconducting resonator endowed with a special mechanism that dissipates photons in pairs(5,6). This process pins down two computational states to separate locations in phase space. By increasing this separation, we measure an exponential decrease of the bit-flip rate while only linearly increasing the phase-flip rate(7). Because bit-flips are autonomously corrected, only phase-flips remain to be corrected via a one-dimensional quantum error correction code. This exponential scaling demonstrates that resonators with nonlinear dissipation are promising building blocks for quantum computation with drastically reduced hardware overhead(8).

Superconducting circuits are a versatile platform to implement a multitude of Hamiltonians which perform quantum computation, simulation and sensing tasks. A key ingredient for realizing a desired Hamiltonian is the irradiation of the circuit by a strong drive. These strong drives provide an in-situ control of couplings, which cannot be obtained by near-equilibrium Hamiltonians. However, as shown in this paper, out-of-equilibrium systems are easily plagued by complex dynamics leading to instabilities. Predicting and preventing these instabilities is crucial, both from a fundamental and application perspective. We propose an inductively shunted transmon as the elementary circuit optimized for strong parametric drives. Developing a novel numerical approach that avoids the built-in limitations of perturbative analysis, we demonstrate that adding the inductive shunt significantly extends the range of pump powers over which the circuit behaves in a stable manner., Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures

International audience; Josephson circuits have been ideal systems with which to study complex nonlinear dynamics that can lead to chaotic behavior and instabilities. More recently, Josephson circuits in the quantum regime, particularly in the presence of microwave drives, have demonstrated their ability to emulate a variety of Hamiltonians that are useful for the processing of quantum information. In this paper, we show that these drives lead to an instability that results in the escape of the circuit mode into states that are not confined by the Josephson cosine potential. We observe this escape in a ubiquitous circuit: a transmon embedded in a 3D cavity. When the transmon occupies these free-particle-like states, the circuit behaves as though the junction had been removed and all nonlinearities are lost. This work deepens our understanding of strongly driven Josephson circuits, which is important for fundamental and application perspectives, such as the engineering of Hamiltonians by parametric pumping.

International audience; When the coupling rate between two quantum systems becomes as large as their characteristic frequencies, it induces dramatic effects on their dynamics and even on the nature of their ground state. The case of a qubit coupled to a harmonic oscillator in this ultrastrong coupling regime has been investigated theoretically and experimentally. Here, we explore the case of two harmonic oscillators in the ultrastrong coupling regime. Probing the properties of their ground state remains out of reach in natural implementations. Therefore, we have realized an analog quantum simulation of this coupled system by dual frequency pumping a nonlinear superconducting circuit. The pump amplitudes directly tune the effective coupling rate. We observe spectroscopic signature of a mode hybridization that is characteristic of the ultrastrong coupling. We experimentally demonstrate a key property of the ground state of this simulated ultrastrong coupling between modes by observing simultaneous single- and two-mode squeezing of the radiated field below vacuum fluctuations.

The Schrodinger's cat thought experiment highlights the counterintuitive concept of entanglement in macroscopically distinguishable systems. The hallmark of entanglement is the detection of strong correlations between systems, most starkly demonstrated by the violation of a Bell inequality. No violation of a Bell inequality has been observed for a system entangled with a superposition of coherent states, known as a cat state. Here we use the Clauser–Horne–Shimony–Holt formulation of a Bell test to characterize entanglement between an artificial atom and a cat state, or a Bell-cat. Using superconducting circuits with high-fidelity measurements and real-time feedback, we detect correlations that surpass the classical maximum of the Bell inequality. We investigate the influence of decoherence with states up to 16 photons in size and characterize the system by introducing joint Wigner tomography. Such techniques demonstrate that information stored in superpositions of coherent states can be extracted efficiently, a crucial requirement for quantum computing with resonators., Qubit-cavity entanglement can be used for quantum information processing and for investigating the quantum-to-classical transition with high control. Here, the authors characterize the entanglement between an artificial atom and a cat state and its susceptibility to decoherence through Bell test witnesses.

While dissipation is widely considered as being harmful for quantum coherence, it can, when properly engineered, lead to the stabilization of non-trivial pure quantum states. We propose a scheme for continuous generation and stabilization of Schr\"{o}dinger cat states in a cavity using dissipation engineering. We first generate non-classical photon states with definite parity by means of a two-photon drive and dissipation, and then stabilize these transient states against single-photon decay. The single-photon stabilization is autonomous, and is implemented through a second engineered bath, which exploits the photon number dependent frequency-splitting due to Kerr interactions in the strongly dispersive regime of circuit QED. Starting with the Hamiltonian of the baths plus cavity, we derive an effective model of only the cavity photon states along with analytic expressions for relevant physical quantities, such as the stabilization rate. The deterministic generation of such cat states is one of the key ingredients in performing universal quantum computation., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures

Quantum error correction (QEC) is required for a practical quantum computer because of the fragile nature of quantum information. In QEC, information is redundantly stored in a large Hilbert space and one or more observables must be monitored to reveal the occurrence of an error, without disturbing the information encoded in an unknown quantum state. Such observables, typically multi-qubit parities such as , must correspond to a special symmetry property inherent to the encoding scheme. Measurements of these observables, or error syndromes, must also be performed in a quantum non-demolition (QND) way and faster than the rate at which errors occur. Previously, QND measurements of quantum jumps between energy eigenstates have been performed in systems such as trapped ions, electrons, cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED), nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers, and superconducting qubits. So far, however, no fast and repeated monitoring of an error syndrome has been realized. Here, we track the quantum jumps of a possible error syndrome, the photon number parity of a microwave cavity, by mapping this property onto an ancilla qubit. This quantity is just the error syndrome required in a recently proposed scheme for a hardware-efficient protected quantum memory using Schr\"{o}dinger cat states in a harmonic oscillator. We demonstrate the projective nature of this measurement onto a parity eigenspace by observing the collapse of a coherent state onto even or odd cat states. The measurement is fast compared to the cavity lifetime, has a high single-shot fidelity, and has a 99.8% probability per single measurement of leaving the parity unchanged. In combination with the deterministic encoding of quantum information in cat states realized earlier, our demonstrated QND parity tracking represents a significant step towards implementing an active system that extends the lifetime of a quantum bit., Comment: 6 pages with 4 figures for the main text, 14 pages with 9 figures for supplementary material

We present a new hardware-efficient paradigm for universal quantum computation which is based on encoding, protecting and manipulating quantum information in a quantum harmonic oscillator. This proposal exploits multi-photon driven dissipative processes to encode quantum information in logical bases composed of Schr\"odinger cat states. More precisely, we consider two schemes. In a first scheme, a two-photon driven dissipative process is used to stabilize a logical qubit basis of two-component Schr\"odinger cat states. While such a scheme ensures a protection of the logical qubit against the photon dephasing errors, the prominent error channel of single-photon loss induces bit-flip type errors that cannot be corrected. Therefore, we consider a second scheme based on a four-photon driven dissipative process which leads to the choice of four-component Schr\"odinger cat states as the logical qubit. Such a logical qubit can be protected against single-photon loss by continuous photon number parity measurements. Next, applying some specific Hamiltonians, we provide a set of universal quantum gates on the encoded qubits of each of the two schemes. In particular, we illustrate how these operations can be rendered fault-tolerant with respect to various decoherence channels of participating quantum systems. Finally, we also propose experimental schemes based on quantum superconducting circuits and inspired by methods used in Josephson parametric amplification, which should allow to achieve these driven dissipative processes along with the Hamiltonians ensuring the universal operations in an efficient manner., Comment: 28 pages, 11 figures

International audience; Stabilizing a quantum system in a desired state has important implications in quantum information science. In control engineering, stabilization is usually achieved by the use of feedback. The closed-loop control paradigm consists of measuring the system in a non-destructive manner, analyzing in real-time the measurement output to estimate the dynamical state and finally, calculating a feedback law to stabilize the desired state. However, the rather short dynamical time-scales of most quantum systems impose important limitations on the complexity of real-time output signal analysis and retroaction. An alternative control approach for quantum state stabilization, bypassing a real-time analysis of output signal, is called reservoir engineering. In this paper, we start with a general description of quantum reservoir engineering. We then apply this method to stabilize the ground state (lowest energy state) of a single two-level quantum system. Applying the averaging theorem and some simple Lyapunov techniques, we prove the convergence of our proposed scheme. This scheme has recently been successfully implemented on a superconducting qubit and has led to a fast and reliable reset protocol for these qubits

International audience; We introduce a new gate that transfers an arbitrary state of a qubit into a superposition of two quasi-orthogonal coherent states of a cavity mode, with opposite phases. This qcMAP gate is based on conditional qubit and cavity operations exploiting the energy level dispersive shifts, in the regime where they are much stronger than the cavity and qubit linewidths. The generation of multi-component superpositions of quasi-orthogonal coherent states, non-local entangled states of two resonators and multi-qubit GHZ states can be efficiently achieved by this gate.

International audience; We propose to encode a quantum bit of information in a superposition of coherent states of an oscillator, with four different phases. Our encoding in a single cavity mode, together with a protection protocol, significantly reduces the error rate due to photon loss. This protection is ensured by an efficient quantum error correction scheme employing the nonlinearity provided by a single physical qubit coupled to the cavity. We describe in detail how to implement these operations in a circuit quantum electrodynamics system. This proposal directly addresses the task of building a hardware-efficient quantum memory and can lead to important shortcuts in quantum computing architectures.

An entangled Bell state of two superconducting quantum bits can be stabilized for an arbitrary time using an autonomous feedback scheme, that is, one that does not require a complicated external error-correcting feedback loop. Entangled states are a key resource in fundamental quantum physics, quantum cryptography and quantum computation. It has been generally assumed that the creation of such states requires the avoidance of contact with a dissipative environment, and minimization of decoherence. Some studies have shown, however, that dissipative interactions can be used to preserve coherence, and in this issue of Nature two groups demonstrate this principle for continuously driven physical systems. Lin et al. use engineered dissipation to deterministically produce and stabilize entanglement between two trapped-ion qubits, independent of their initial state. Shankar et al. use an autonomous feedback scheme to counteract decoherence and demonstrate the stabilization of an entangled Bell state of a quantum register of two superconducting qubits for an arbitrary time. This approach may be applied to a broad range of experimental systems to achieve desired quantum dynamics or steady states. Quantum error correction codes are designed to protect an arbitrary state of a multi-qubit register from decoherence-induced errors1, but their implementation is an outstanding challenge in the development of large-scale quantum computers. The first step is to stabilize a non-equilibrium state of a simple quantum system, such as a quantum bit (qubit) or a cavity mode, in the presence of decoherence. This has recently been accomplished using measurement-based feedback schemes2,3,4,5. The next step is to prepare and stabilize a state of a composite system6,7,8. Here we demonstrate the stabilization of an entangled Bell state of a quantum register of two superconducting qubits for an arbitrary time. Our result is achieved using an autonomous feedback scheme that combines continuous drives along with a specifically engineered coupling between the two-qubit register and a dissipative reservoir. Similar autonomous feedback techniques have been used for qubit reset9, single-qubit state stabilization10, and the creation11 and stabilization6 of states of multipartite quantum systems. Unlike conventional, measurement-based schemes, the autonomous approach uses engineered dissipation to counteract decoherence12,13,14,15, obviating the need for a complicated external feedback loop to correct errors. Instead, the feedback loop is built into the Hamiltonian such that the steady state of the system in the presence of drives and dissipation is a Bell state, an essential building block for quantum information processing. Such autonomous schemes, which are broadly applicable to a variety of physical systems, as demonstrated by the accompanying paper on trapped ion qubits16, will be an essential tool for the implementation of quantum error correction.

Photons are ideal carriers for quantum information as they can have a long coherence time and can be transmitted over long distances. These properties are a consequence of their weak interactions within a nearly linear medium. To create and manipulate nonclassical states of light, however, one requires a strong, nonlinear interaction at the single photon level. One approach to generate suitable interactions is to couple photons to atoms, as in the strong coupling regime of cavity QED systems. In these systems, however, one only indirectly controls the quantum state of the light by manipulating the atoms. A direct photon-photon interaction occurs in so-called Kerr media, which typically induce only weak nonlinearity at the cost of significant loss. So far, it has not been possible to reach the single-photon Kerr regime, where the interaction strength between individual photons exceeds the loss rate. Here, using a 3D circuit QED architecture, we engineer an artificial Kerr medium which enters this regime and allows the observation of new quantum effects. We realize a Gedankenexperiment proposed by Yurke and Stoler, in which the collapse and revival of a coherent state can be observed. This time evolution is a consequence of the quantization of the light field in the cavity and the nonlinear interaction between individual photons. During this evolution non-classical superpositions of coherent states, i.e. multi-component Schroedinger cat states, are formed. We visualize this evolution by measuring the Husimi Q-function and confirm the non-classical properties of these transient states by Wigner tomography. The single-photon Kerr effect could be employed in QND measurement of photons, single photon generation, autonomous quantum feedback schemes and quantum logic operations., 6 pages, 4 figures, 5 pages supplementary Material, 3 figures

Coherently Controlling Large Cats The control and manipulation of quantum information based on superconducting circuits is an attractive route because of the possibility of scale-up. Vlastakis et al. (p. 607 , published online 26 September; see the Perspective by Leek ) were able to generate and control quantum entanglement between a superconducting qubit and hundreds of photons stored in a cavity resonator by using deterministic methods for on-demand generation of large Schrödinger cat states in a microwave cavity with arbitrary size and phase. The ability to map the state of a qubit to large Schrödinger cat states should provide a robust quantum resource in future quantum-based technologies.

This paper considers Hamiltonian identification for a controllable quantum system with non-degenerate transitions and a known initial state. We assume to have at our disposal a single scalar control input and the population measure of only one state at an (arbitrarily large) final time T. We prove that the quantum dipole moment matrix is locally observable in the following sense: for any two close but distinct dipole moment matrices, we construct discriminating controls giving two different measurements. Such discriminating controls are constructed to have three well defined temporal components, as inspired by Ramsey interferometry. This result suggests that what may appear at first to be very restrictive measurements are actually rich for identification, when combined with well designed discriminating controls, to uniquely identify the complete dipole moment of such systems. The assessment supports the employment of quantum control as a promising means to achieve high quality identification of a Hamiltonian., Submitted to IEEE TAC special issue on quantum control

We analyze a quantum reservoir engineering method, originally introduced by [Sarlette et al. in Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 010402 (2011) -- arXiv 1011.5057], for the stabilization of non-classical field states in high quality cavities. We generalize the method to the protection of mesoscopic entangled field states shared by two non-degenerate field modes. The reservoir is made up of a stream of atoms undergoing successive composite interactions with the cavity, each combining resonant with non-resonant parts. We get a detailed insight into the competition between the engineered reservoir and decoherence. We show that the operation is quite insensitive to experimental imperfections and that it could thus be implemented in the near future, either in the context of microwave Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics or in that of circuit-QED., Comment: submitted to Physical Review A

Experimental multi-objective Quantum Control is an emerging topic within the broad physics and chemistry applications domain of controlling quantum phenomena. This realm offers cutting edge ultrafast laser laboratory applications, which pose multiple objectives, noise, and possibly constraints on the high-dimensional search. In this study we introduce the topic of multi-observable quantum control (MOQC), and consider specific systems to be Pareto optimized subject to uncertainty, either experimentally or by means of simulated systems. The latter include a family of mathematical test-functions with a practical link to MOQC experiments, which are introduced here for the first time. We investigate the behavior of the multi-objective version of the covariance aatrix adaptation evolution strategy (MO-CMA-ES) and assess its performance on computer simulations as well as on laboratory closed-loop experiments. Overall, we propose a comprehensive study on experimental evolutionary Pareto optimization in high-dimensional continuous domains, draw some practical conclusions concerning the impact of fitness disturbance on algorithmic behavior, and raise several theoretical issues in the broad evolutionary multi-objective context.

This paper considers population transfer between eigenstates of a finite quantum ladder controlled by a classical electric field. Using an appropriate change of variables, we show that this setting can be set in the framework of adiabatic passage, which is known to facilitate ensemble control of quantum systems. Building on this insight, we present a mathematical proof of robustness for a control protocol -- chirped pulse -- practiced by experimentalists to drive an ensemble of quantum systems from the ground state to the most excited state. We then propose new adiabatic control protocols using a single chirped and amplitude shaped pulse, to robustly perform any permutation of eigenstate populations, on an ensemble of systems with badly known coupling strengths. Such adiabatic control protocols are illustrated by simulations achieving all 24 permutations for a 4-level ladder.

International audience; We propose to apply the Back and Forth Nudging (BFN) method used for geophysical data assimilations [1] to estimate the initial state of a quantum system. We consider a cloud of atoms interacting with a magnetic field while a single observable is being continuously measured over time using homodyne detection. The BFN method relies on designing an observer forward and backwards in time. The state of the BFN observer is continuously updated by the measured data and tends to converge to the system's state. The proposed estimator seems to be globally asymptotically convergent when the system is observable. A detailed convergence proof and simulations are given in the 2-level case. An extension of the algorithm to the multilevel case is also presented.

An observer-based Hamiltonian identification algorithm for quantum systems has been proposed recently by Bonnabel et al. The later paper provided a method to estimate the dipole moment matrix of a quantum system requiring the measurement of the populations on all states, which could be experimentally difficult to achieve. We propose here an extension to a 3-level quantum system, having access to the population of the ground state only. By more adapted choice of the control field, we will show that a continuous measurement of this observable, alone, is enough to identify the field coupling parameters (dipole moment)., submitted

Quantum systems can occupy peculiar states, such as superposition or entangled states. These states are intrinsically fragile and eventually get wiped out by inevitable interactions with the environment. Protecting quantum states against decoherence is a fundamental problem in physics and is pivotal for the future of quantum computing. In this thesis, we discuss experiments on superconducting circuits that investigate a new kind of qubit: the Schrödinger cat qubit. It belongs to the class of bosonic codes that store quantum information in the infinite dimensional Hilbert space of a microwave resonator. By carefully tailoring the dissipation of the resonator, we are able to stabilize the two basis states of the cat-qubit without affecting their superposition. In terms of errors, this translates into a reduced bit-flip rate while keeping a native phase-flip rate. This approach challenges the intuition that a qubit must be isolated from its environment. Instead, the dissipation acts as a feedback loop which continuously and autonomously corrects against errors. This enabling dissipation is known as two-photon dissipation and was engineered by the general method of parametric pumping. In our case, it is used to selectively intensify a two-to-one photon exchange interaction between the cat-qubit resonator and a dissipative resonator. To demonstrate error correction with cat-qubits, experimental efforts have been made during this thesis to cross the demanding threshold where the correction is faster than the occurrence of all errors, including those induced by the correcting mechanism itself. This has led us to question the current limitations of parametric pumping to better design our superconducting circuits. Mastering the dissipation engineering toolbox also brought us to other applications such as itinerant microwave photon detection for which an experimental proof of principle was realised during this thesis., Les états quantiques peuvent occuper des états particuliers tels que les états de superposition ou intriqués. Ces états sont fragiles et finissent toujours par être détruits par d’inévitables interactions avec l’environnement. La protection d’états quantiques contre la décohérence est un problème fondamental en physique, mais aussi un point crucial pour l’avenir de l’informatique quantique. Dans cette thèse, nous discutons d’expériences conduites sur des circuits supraconducteurs qui cherchent à mettre en évidence un nouveau qubit : le qubit de chat de Schrödinger. Ce qubit appartient à la classe des codes bosoniques qui encodent l’information quantique dans l’espace de Hilbert de dimension infinie d’un résonateur microonde. En modelant avec soin la dissipation de ce résonateur, nous parvenons à stabiliser les états de base du qubit de chat sans affecter leurs superpositions. En terme d’erreurs, cela se traduit en un taux de bit-flip réduit sans augmenter le taux de phase-flip initial. Cette approche vient défier l’intuition selon laquelle un qubit doit être isolé de son environnement. Au lieu de cela, cette dissipation bien choisie agit comme une boucle de rétroaction qui corrige les erreurs de manière continue et autonome. Cette dissipation décisive est connue sous le nom de dissipation à deux photons et est générée grâce à la méthode du pompage paramétrique. Dans notre cas, il est utilisé pour intensifier sélectivement une interaction d’échange de photons deux-pour-un entre le résonateur du qubit de chat et un autre résonateur dissipatif. Pour démontrer la correction d’erreur avec les qubits de chats, des efforts expérimentaux ont été fournis pendant cette thèse pour franchir le seuil au delà duquel la correction est plus rapide que l’apparition de nouvelles erreurs, notamment celles induites par le mécanisme de correction lui-même. Ceci nous a conduit à questionner les limites actuelles du pompage paramétrique afin de mieux concevoir nos circuits supraconducteurs. Maitriser ces dissipations exotiques nous a aussi amené à d’autres applications telles que la détection de photon microondes itinérants pour laquelle une preuve de principe expérimentale a été réalisée au cours de cette thèse.

In this thesis, we investigate the behavior of Josephson circuits under the action of strong microwave drives. Josephson circuits in the quantum regime are a building block to emulate a variety of Hamiltonians, useful to process quantum information. We are here considering a transmon device, made of a Josephson junction and a capacitor in parallel. Through numerical simulations and comparison with experimental results, we show that these drives lead to an instability which results in the escape of the circuit state into states which are no longer confined by the Josephson cosine potential. When the transmon occupies such states, the circuit behaves as if the junction had been removed and all non-linearities are lost, which translates into limitations on the emulated Hamiltonian strengths. In a second part, we propose and study an alternative circuit consisting of a transmon device with an extra inductive shunt, providing a harmonic confinement. This circuit is found to be stable for all pump powers. The dynamics of this circuit is also well captured by a time-averaged model, providing a useful tool for analytical investigation and fast numerical simulations. We developed a novel numerical approach that avoids the built-in limitations of perturbative analysis to investigate the dynamical behavior of both of these circuits. This approach, based on the Floquet-Markov theory, resulted in a modular simulation framework which can be used to study other Josephson-based circuits. Last, we study the properties of an asymmetric version of the Josephson Ring Modulator, a circuit currently used for amplification and conversion, as a more robust source of non-linearity to engineer two-photon and four-photon interaction Hamiltonians required for the catstate encoding of quantum information.; Dans cette thèse, nous étudions le comportement de circuits Josephson sous l'action de champs microondes forts. Les circuits Josephson dans le régime quantique sont une brique pour émuler une variété d'hamiltoniens, utiles pour traiter l'information quantique. Nous étudions ici le transmon, constitué d'une jonction Josephson et d'un condensateur en parallèle. À travers des simulations numériques et en comparant aux résultats expérimentaux, nous montrons que ces champs conduisent à une instabilité qui envoie le circuit sur des états qui ne sont plus confinés par le potentiel Josephson en cosinus. Quand le transmon occupe de tels états, le circuit se comporte comme si la jonction avait été remplacée par un interrupteur ouvert et toute non-linéarité est perdue, ce qui se traduit par des limitations sur les amplitudes maximales des hamiltoniens émulés. Dans une deuxième partie, nous proposons et étudions un circuit alternatif basé sur un transmon avec une inductance en parallèle, qui fournit un confinement harmonique. La dynamique de ce circuit est stable et bien capturée par un modèle moyennisé qui fournit alors un outil pratique pour l'analyse analytique ou les simulations rapides. Nous avons développé un nouvel outil de simulations modulaire et basé sur la théorie de FloquetMarkov pour permettre de simuler facilement d'autres circuits Josephson en évitant les limitations des analyses perturbatives. Enfin, nous étudions les propriétés d'une version asymétrique du Josephson Ring Modulator, un circuit actuellement utilisé pour l'amplification et la conversion, comme source de non-linéarité pour émuler les hamiltoniens d'interaction à deux et quatre photons requis pour l'encodage de l'information quantique sur des états de chats de Schrödinger.

In this thesis, we investigate the behavior of Josephson circuits under the action of strong microwave drives. Josephson circuits in the quantum regime are a building block to emulate a variety of Hamiltonians, useful to process quantum information. We are here considering a transmon device, made of a Josephson junction and a capacitor in parallel. Through numerical simulations and comparison with experimental results, we show that these drives lead to an instability which results in the escape of the circuit state into states which are no longer confined by the Josephson cosine potential. When the transmon occupies such states, the circuit behaves as if the junction had been removed and all non-linearities are lost, which translates into limitations on the emulated Hamiltonian strengths. In a second part, we propose and study an alternative circuit consisting of a transmon device with an extra inductive shunt, providing a harmonic confinement. This circuit is found to be stable for all pump powers. The dynamics of this circuit is also well captured by a time-averaged model, providing a useful tool for analytical investigation and fast numerical simulations. We developed a novel numerical approach that avoids the built-in limitations of perturbative analysis to investigate the dynamical behavior of both of these circuits. This approach, based on the Floquet-Markov theory, resulted in a modular simulation framework which can be used to study other Josephson-based circuits. Last, we study the properties of an asymmetric version of the Josephson Ring Modulator, a circuit currently used for amplification and conversion, as a more robust source of non-linearity to engineer two-photon and four-photon interaction Hamiltonians required for the catstate encoding of quantum information.; Dans cette thèse, nous étudions le comportement de circuits Josephson sous l'action de champs microondes forts. Les circuits Josephson dans le régime quantique sont une brique pour émuler une variété d'hamiltoniens, utiles pour traiter l'information quantique. Nous étudions ici le transmon, constitué d'une jonction Josephson et d'un condensateur en parallèle. À travers des simulations numériques et en comparant aux résultats expérimentaux, nous montrons que ces champs conduisent à une instabilité qui envoie le circuit sur des états qui ne sont plus confinés par le potentiel Josephson en cosinus. Quand le transmon occupe de tels états, le circuit se comporte comme si la jonction avait été remplacée par un interrupteur ouvert et toute non-linéarité est perdue, ce qui se traduit par des limitations sur les amplitudes maximales des hamiltoniens émulés. Dans une deuxième partie, nous proposons et étudions un circuit alternatif basé sur un transmon avec une inductance en parallèle, qui fournit un confinement harmonique. La dynamique de ce circuit est stable et bien capturée par un modèle moyennisé qui fournit alors un outil pratique pour l'analyse analytique ou les simulations rapides. Nous avons développé un nouvel outil de simulations modulaire et basé sur la théorie de FloquetMarkov pour permettre de simuler facilement d'autres circuits Josephson en évitant les limitations des analyses perturbatives. Enfin, nous étudions les propriétés d'une version asymétrique du Josephson Ring Modulator, un circuit actuellement utilisé pour l'amplification et la conversion, comme source de non-linéarité pour émuler les hamiltoniens d'interaction à deux et quatre photons requis pour l'encodage de l'information quantique sur des états de chats de Schrödinger.

In contrast with its classical version, a quantum measurement necessarily disturbs the state of the system. The projective measurement of a spin-1/2 in one direction maximally randomizes the outcome of a following measurement along a perpendicular direction. In this thesis, we discuss experiments on superconducting circuits that allow us to investigate this measurement back-action. In particular, we measure the dynamics of a superconducting qubit whose three Bloch x, y and z components are simultaneously recorded. Two recent techniques are used to make these simultaneous recordings. The x and y components are obtained by measuring the two quadratures of the fluorescence field emitted by the qubit. Conversely, the z component is accessed by probing an off-resonant cavity dispersively coupled to the qubit. The frequency of the cavity depends on the energy of the qubit and the strength of this last measurement can be tuned from weak to strong in situ by varying the power of the probe. These observations are enabled by recent advances in ultra-low noise microwave amplification using Josephson circuits. This thesis details all these techniques, both theoretically and experimentally, and presents various unpublished additional results. In the presence of the simultaneous measurements, we show that the state of the system diffuses inside the sphere of Bloch by following a random walk whose steps obey the laws of the back-action of incompatible measurements. The associated quantum trajectories follow a variety of dynamics ranging from diffusion to Zeno blockade. Their peculiar dynamics highlights the non-trivial interplay between the back-action of the two incompatible measurements. By conditioning the records to the outcome of a final projective measurement, we also measure the weak values of the components of the qubit state and demonstrate that they exceed the mean extremal values. The thesis discusses in detail the statistics of the obtained trajectories.; Au contraire de sa version classique, une mesure quantique perturbe nécessairement l’état du système. Ainsi, la mesure projective d’un spin-1/2 selon une direction rend parfaitement aléatoire le résultat d’une mesure successive de la composante du même spin le long d’un axe orthogonal. Dans cette thèse, nous discutons des expériences basées sur les circuits supraconducteurs qui permettent de mettre en évidence cette action en retour de la mesure. Nous mesurons en particulier la dynamique d’un qubit supraconducteur dont on révèle simultanément les trois composantes de Bloch x, y et z. Deux techniques récentes sont utilisées pour réaliser ces enregistrements simultanés. Les composantes x et y sont obtenues par la mesure des deux quadratures du champ de fluorescence émis par le qubit. La composante z est quant à elle obtenue en sondant une cavité non résonante couplée de manière dispersive au qubit. La fréquence de la cavité dépend de l’énergie du qubit et la force de cette dernière mesure peut être ajustée in situ en faisant varier la puissance de la sonde. Ces observations sont rendues possibles grâce aux avancées récentes dans l’amplification ultrabas bruit des signaux micro-onde grâce aux circuits Josephson. Cette thèse détaille toutes ces techniques à la fois théoriquement et expérimentalement et présente différents résultats annexes inédits. En présence des mesures simultanées, nous montrons que l’état du système diffuse à l’intérieur de la sphère de Bloch en suivant une marche aléatoire dont les pas obéissent aux lois de l’action en retour de mesures incompatibles. Les trajectoires quantiques associées ont des dynamiques allant du régime diffusif au régime de blocage de Zénon soulignant l’interaction non-triviale des actions en retours des deux mesures incompatibles effectuées. En conditionnant les enregistrements aux résultats d’une mesure projective finale, nous mesurons également les valeurs faibles des composantes de notre qubit et démontrons qu’elles dépassent les valeurs extrémales moyennes. La thèse discute en détail de la statistique des trajectoires obtenues.