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Readout of the final states of qubits is a crucial step towards implementing quantum computation in experiment. Although not scalable to large numbers of qubits per molecule, computational studies show that molecular vibrations could provide a significant (factor 2-5 in the literature) increase in the number of qubits compared to two-level systems. In this theoretical work, we explore the process of readout from vibrational qubits in thiophosgene molecule, SCCl2, using quantum beat oscillations. The quantum beats are measured by first exciting the superposition of the qubit-encoding vibrational states to the electronically excited readout state with variable time-delay pulses. The resulting oscillation of population of the readout state is then detected as a function of time delay. In principle, fitting the quantum beat signal by an analytical expression should allow extracting the values of probability amplitudes and the relative phases of the vibrational qubit states. However, we found that if this procedure is implemented using the standard analytic expression for quantum beats, a non-negligible phase error is obtained. We discuss the origin and properties of this phase error, and propose a new analytical expression to correct the phase error. The corrected expression fits the quantum beat signal very accurately, which may permit reading out the final state of vibrational qubits in experiments by combining the analytic fitting expression with numerical modelling of the readout process. The new expression is also useful as a simple model for fitting any quantum beat experiments where more accurate phase information is desired.

We constructed new global potential energy surface for O + O2 → O3 reaction. It is based on high level electronic structure theory calculations and employs fitting by permutationally invariant polynomial functions. This method of surface construction takes full advantage of permutation symmetry of three O nuclei and allows reducing dramatically the number of ab initio data points needed for accurate surface representation. New potential energy surface offers dramatic improvement over older surface of ozone in terms of dissociation energy and behavior along the minimum energy path. It can be used to refine the existing theories of ozone formation.

The theory of two seemingly different quantum∕classical approaches to collisional energy transfer and ro-vibrational energy flow is reviewed: a heuristic fluid-rotor method, introduced earlier to treat recombination reactions [M. Ivanov and D. Babikov, J. Chem. Phys. 134, 144107 (2011)], and a more rigorous method based on the Ehrenfest theorem. It is shown analytically that for the case of a diatomic molecule + quencher these two methods are entirely equivalent. Notably, they both make use of the average moment of inertia computed as inverse of average of inverse of the distributed moment of inertia. Despite this equivalence, each of the two formulations has its own advantages, and is interesting on its own. Numerical results presented here illustrate energy and momentum conservation in the mixed quantum∕classical approach and open opportunities for computationally affordable treatment of collisional energy transfer.

Physical implementation of quantum gates acting on qubits does not achieve a perfect fidelity of 1. The actual output qubit may not match the targeted output of the desired gate. According to theoretical estimates, intrinsic gate fidelities >99.99% are necessary so that error correction codes can be used to achieve perfect fidelity. Here we test what fidelity can be accomplished for a CNOT gate executed by a shaped ultrafast laser pulse interacting with vibrational states of the molecule SCCl(2). This molecule has been used as a test system for low-fidelity calculations before. To make our test more stringent, we include vibrational levels that do not encode the desired qubits but are close enough in energy to interfere with population transfer by the laser pulse. We use two complementary approaches: optimal control theory determines what the best possible pulse can do; a more constrained physical model calculates what an experiment likely can do. Optimal control theory finds pulses with fidelity >0.9999, in excess of the quantum error correction threshold with 8 × 10(4) iterations. On the other hand, the physical model achieves only 0.9992 after 8 × 10(4) iterations. Both calculations converge as an inverse power law toward unit fidelity after >10(2) iterations/generations. In principle, the fidelities necessary for quantum error correction are reachable with qubits encoded by molecular vibrations. In practice, it will be challenging with current laboratory instrumentation because of slow convergence past fidelities of 0.99.

For the first time Feshbach-type resonances important in recombination reactions are characterized using the semiclassical wave packet method. This approximation allows us to determine the energies, lifetimes, and wave functions of the resonances and also to observe a very interesting correlation between them. Most important is that this approach permits description of a quantum delta-zero-point energy effect in recombination reactions and reproduces the anomalous rates of ozone formation.

Accurate quantum mechanical calculations of the (J=0) energies and lifetimes of the metastable states of ozone on a new, accurate potential energy surface are reported. These are very relevant to a famous anomalous isotope effect in the reaction that forms ozone because of their role in the energy transfer mechanism, in which metastable ro-vibrational states of ozone are formed and then stabilized by collisions with a third body. The resulting spectrum of metastable states is very dense below the delta zero-point energy threshold and sparse above it. This gives a clear qualitative explanation of why the effect occurs. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]