Search

We consider a pair of quantum dot-based spin qubits that interact via microwave photons in a superconducting cavity, and that are also parametrically driven by separate external electric fields. For this system, we formulate a model for spin qubit entanglement in the presence of mutually off-resonant qubit and cavity frequencies. We show that the sidebands generated via the driving fields enable highly tunable qubit-qubit entanglement using only ac control and without requiring the qubit and cavity frequencies to be tuned into simultaneous resonance. The model we derive can be mapped to a variety of qubit types, including detuning-driven one-electron spin qubits in double quantum dots and three-electron resonant exchange qubits in triple quantum dots. The high degree of nonlinearity inherent in spin qubits renders these systems particularly favorable for parametric drive-activated entanglement. We determine multiple common resonance conditions for the two driven qubits and the cavity and identify experimentally relevant parameter regimes that enable the implementation of entangling gates with suppressed sensitivity to cavity photon occupation and decay. The parametrically driven sideband resonance approach we describe provides a promising route toward scalability and modularity in spin-based quantum information processing through drive-enabled tunability that can also be implemented in micromagnet-free electron and hole systems for spin-photon coupling., Comment: 21 pages, 3 figures

Rapidly improving gate fidelities for coherent operations mean that errors in state preparation and measurement (SPAM) may become a dominant source of error for fault-tolerant operation of quantum computers. This is particularly acute in superconducting systems, where tradeoffs in measurement fidelity and qubit lifetimes have limited overall performance. Fortunately, the essentially classical nature of preparation and measurement enables a wide variety of techniques for improving quality using auxiliary qubits combined with classical control and post-selection. In practice, however, post-selection greatly complicates the scheduling of processes such as syndrome extraction. Here we present a family of quantum circuits that prepare high-quality |0> states without post-selection, instead using CNOT and Toffoli gates to non-linearly permute the computational basis. We find meaningful performance enhancements when two-qubit gate fidelities errors go below 0.2%, and even better performance when native Toffoli gates are available., Comment: Source code and data behind this paper can be found at https://github.com/riverlane/purification-without-post-selection

The seminal theoretical works of Berezinskii, Kosterlitz, and Thouless presented a new paradigm for phase transitions in condensed matter that are driven by topological excitations. These transitions have been extensively studied in the context of two-dimensional XY models -- coupled compasses -- and have generated interest in the context of quantum simulation. Here, we use a circuit quantum-electrodynamics architecture to study the critical behavior of engineered XY models through their dynamical response. In particular, we examine not only the unfrustrated case but also the fully-frustrated case which leads to enhanced degeneracy associated with the spin rotational [U$(1)$] and discrete chiral ($Z_2$) symmetries. The nature of the transition in the frustrated case has posed a challenge for theoretical studies while direct experimental probes remain elusive. Here we identify the transition temperatures for both the unfrustrated and fully-frustrated XY models by probing a Josephson junction array close to equilibrium using weak microwave excitations and measuring the temperature dependence of the effective damping obtained from the complex reflection coefficient. We argue that our probing technique is primarily sensitive to the dynamics of the U$(1)$ part., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures

In the color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) of globular clusters, when the locus of stars on the horizontal branch (HB) extends to hot temperatures, discontinuities are observed at colors corresponding to ~12,000 K and ~18,000 K. The former is the "Grundahl jump" that is associated with the onset of radiative levitation in the atmospheres of hot subdwarfs. The latter is the "Momany jump" that has remained unexplained. Using the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope, we have obtained ultraviolet and blue spectroscopy of six hot subdwarfs straddling the Momany jump in the massive globular cluster omega Cen. By comparison to model atmospheres and synthetic spectra, we find that the feature is due primarily to a decrease in atmospheric Fe for stars hotter than the feature, amplified by the temperature dependence of the Fe absorption at these effective temperatures., Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. 9 pages, 1 table, 10 figures. Figure 2 is shown at low resolution due to file size limits

Electron-phonon coupling is known to play an important role in the charge dynamics of semiconductor quantum dots. Here we explore its role in the combined charge-photon dynamics of cavity-coupled double quantum dots. Previous work on these systems has shown that strong electron-phonon coupling leads to a large contribution to photoemission and gain from phonon-assisted emission and absorption processes. We compare the effects of this phonon sideband in three commonly investigated gate-defined quantum dot material systems: InAs nanowires and GaAs and Si two-dimensional electron gases (2DEGs). We compare our theory with existing experimental data from cavity-coupled InAs nanowire and GaAs 2DEG double quantum dots and find quantitative agreement only when the phonon sideband and photoemission processes during lead tunneling are taken into account. Finally we show that the phonon sideband also leads to a sizable renormalization of the cavity frequency, which allows for direct spectroscopic probes of the electron-phonon coupling in these systems.

Motivated by recent experiments of Zajac et al. [arXiv:1708.03530], we theoretically describe high-fidelity two-qubit gates using the exchange interaction between the spins in neighboring quantum dots subject to a magnetic field gradient. We use a combination of analytical calculations and numerical simulations to provide the optimal pulse sequences and parameter settings for the gate operation. We present a novel synchronization method which avoids detrimental spin flips during the gate operation and provide details about phase mismatches accumulated during the two-qubit gates which occur due to residual exchange interaction, non-adiabatic pulses, and off-resonant driving. By adjusting the gate times, synchronizing the resonant and off-resonant transitions, and compensating these phase mismatches by phase control, the overall gate fidelity can be increased significantly., Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures

Electron spins in silicon quantum dots are attractive systems for quantum computing due to their long coherence times and the promise of rapid scaling using semiconductor fabrication techniques. While nearest neighbor exchange coupling of two spins has been demonstrated, the interaction of spins via microwave frequency photons could enable long distance spin-spin coupling and "all-to-all" qubit connectivity. Here we demonstrate strong-coupling between a single spin in silicon and a microwave frequency photon with spin-photon coupling rates g_s/(2\pi) > 10 MHz. The mechanism enabling coherent spin-photon interactions is based on spin-charge hybridization in the presence of a magnetic field gradient. In addition to spin-photon coupling, we demonstrate coherent control of a single spin in the device and quantum non-demolition spin state readout using cavity photons. These results open a direct path toward entangling single spins using microwave frequency photons.

The interaction of qubits via microwave frequency photons enables long-distance qubit-qubit coupling and facilitates the realization of a large-scale quantum processor. However, qubits based on electron spins in semiconductor quantum dots have proven challenging to couple to microwave photons. In this theoretical work we show that a sizable coupling for a single electron spin is possible via spin-charge hybridization using a magnetic field gradient in a silicon double quantum dot. Based on parameters already shown in recent experiments, we predict optimal working points to achieve a coherent spin-photon coupling, an essential ingredient for the generation of long-range entanglement. Furthermore, we employ input-output theory to identify observable signatures of spin-photon coupling in the cavity output field, which may provide guidance to the experimental search for strong coupling in such spin-photon systems and opens the way to cavity-based readout of the spin qubit.

We demonstrate the emergence of universal Efimov physics for interacting photons in cold gases of Rydberg atoms. We consider the behavior of three photons injected into the gas in their propagating frame, where a paraxial approximation allows us to consider them as massive particles. In contrast to atoms and nuclei, the photons have a large anisotropy between their longitudinal mass, arising from dispersion, and their transverse mass, arising from diffraction. Nevertheless, we show that in suitably rescaled coordinates the effective interactions become dominated by s-wave scattering near threshold and, as a result, give rise to an Efimov effect near unitarity. We show that the three-body loss of these Efimov trimers can be strongly suppressed and determine conditions under which these states are observable in current experiments. These effects can be naturally extended to probe few-body universality beyond three bodies, as well as the role of Efimov physics in the non-equilbrium, many-body regime., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, main text, 3 pages, 3 figures, supplement

Single qubit rotations and two-qubit CNOT operations are crucial ingredients for universal quantum computing. While high fidelity single qubit operations have been achieved using the electron spin degree of freedom, realizing a robust CNOT gate has been a major challenge due to rapid nuclear spin dephasing and charge noise. We demonstrate an efficient resonantly-driven CNOT gate for electron spins in silicon. Our platform achieves single-qubit rotations with fidelities >99%, as verified by randomized benchmarking. Gate control of the exchange coupling allows a quantum CNOT gate to be implemented with resonant driving in ~200 ns. We use the CNOT gate to generate a Bell state with 75% fidelity, limited by quantum state readout. Our quantum dot device architecture opens the door to multi-qubit algorithms in silicon.

The simplest cosmology --- the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker-Lema\^{i}tre (FRW) model --- describes a spatially homogeneous and isotropic universe where the scale factor is the only dynamical parameter. Here we consider how quantized electromagnetic fields become entangled with the scale factor in a toy version of the FRW model. A system consisting of a photon, source, and detector is described in such a universe, and we find that the detection of a redshifted photon by the detector system constrains possible scale factor superpositions. Thus, measuring the redshift of the photon is equivalent to a weak measurement of the underlying cosmology. We also consider a potential optomechanical analogy system that would enable experimental exploration of these concepts. The analogy focuses on the effects of photon redshift measurement as a quantum back-action on metric variables, where the position of a movable mirror plays the role of the scale factor. By working in the rotating frame, an effective Hubble equation can be simulated with a simple free moving mirror., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures; updated figures to reduce confusion

We demonstrate a single-atom maser consisting of a semiconductor double quantum dot (DQD) that is embedded in a high quality factor microwave cavity. A finite bias drives the DQD out of equilibrium, resulting in sequential single electron tunneling and masing. We develop a dynamic tuning protocol that allows us to controllably increase the time-averaged repumping rate of the DQD at a fixed level detuning, and quantitatively study the transition through the masing threshold. We further examine the crossover from incoherent to coherent emission by measuring the photon statistics across the masing transition. The observed threshold behavior is in agreement with an existing single atom maser theory when small corrections from lead emission are taken into account.

Strongly driving a two-level quantum system with light leads to a ladder of Floquet states separated by the photon energy. Nanoscale quantum devices allow the interplay of confined electrons, phonons, and photons to be studied under strong driving conditions. Here we show that a single electron in a periodically driven DQD functions as a "Floquet gain medium," where population imbalances in the DQD Floquet quasi-energy levels lead to an intricate pattern of gain and loss features in the cavity response. We further measure a large intra-cavity photon number n_c in the absence of a cavity drive field, due to equilibration in the Floquet picture. Our device operates in the absence of a dc current -- one and the same electron is repeatedly driven to the excited state to generate population inversion. These results pave the way to future studies of non-classical light and thermalization of driven quantum systems.

Understanding the behavior of light in non-equilibrium scenarios underpins much of quantum optics and optical physics. While lasers provide a severe example of a non-equilibrium problem, recent interests in the near-equilibrium physics of so-called photon `gases', such as in Bose condensation of light or in attempts to make photonic quantum simulators, suggest one re-examine some near-equilibrium cases. Here we consider how a sinusoidal parametric coupling between two semi-infinite photonic transmission lines leads to the creation and flow of photons between the two lines. Our approach provides a photonic analog to the Landauer transport formula, and using non-equilbrium Green's functions, we can extend it to the case of an interacting region between two photonic `leads' where the sinusoid frequency plays the role of a voltage bias. Crucially, we identify both the mathematical framework and the physical regime in which photonic transport is directly analogous to electronic transport and regimes in which other behavior such as two-mode squeezing can emerge., Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures

By shining laser light through a nanomechanical beam, we measure the beam's thermally driven vibrations and perturb its motion with optical forces at a level dictated by the Heisenberg measurement-disturbance uncertainty relation. Such quantum backaction is typically difficult to observe at room temperature where the motion driven by optical quantum intensity fluctuations is many orders of magnitude smaller than the thermal motion. We demonstrate a cross-correlation technique to distinguish optically driven motion from thermally driven motion, observing this quantum backaction signature up to room temperature. While it is often difficult to absolutely calibrate optical detection, we use the scale of the quantum correlations, which is determined by fundamental constants, to gauge the size of thermal motion, demonstrating a path towards absolute thermometry with quantum mechanically calibrated ticks., Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures

We investigate a hybrid quantum system consisting of spatially separated resonant exchange qubits, defined in three-electron semiconductor triple quantum dots, that are coupled via a superconducting transmission line resonator. Drawing on methods from circuit quantum electrodynamics and Hartmann-Hahn double resonance techniques, we analyze three specific approaches for implementing resonator-mediated two-qubit entangling gates in both dispersive and resonant regimes of interaction. We calculate entangling gate fidelities as well as the rate of relaxation via phonons for resonant exchange qubits in silicon triple dots and show that such an implementation is particularly well-suited to achieving the strong coupling regime. Our approach combines the favorable coherence properties of encoded spin qubits in silicon with the rapid and robust long-range entanglement provided by circuit QED systems., Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures

We investigate the non-classical states of light that emerge in a microwave resonator coupled to a periodically-driven electron in a nanowire double quantum dot (DQD). Under certain drive configurations, we find that the resonator approaches a thermal state at the temperature of the surrounding substrate with a chemical potential given by a harmonic of the drive frequency. Away from these thermal regions we find regions of gain and loss, where the system can lase, or regions where the DQD acts as a single-photon source. These effects are observable in current devices and have broad utility for quantum optics with microwave photons., Comment: Final submitted version

Emission linewidth is an important figure of merit for masers and lasers. We recently demonstrated a semiconductor double quantum dot (DQD) micromaser where photons are generated through single electron tunneling events. Charge noise directly couples to the DQD energy levels, resulting in a maser linewidth that is more than 100 times larger than the Schawlow-Townes prediction. Here we demonstrate a linewidth narrowing of more than a factor 10 by locking the DQD emission to a coherent tone that is injected to the input port of the cavity. We measure the injection locking range as a function of cavity input power and show that it is in agreement with the Adler equation. The position and amplitude of distortion sidebands that appear outside of the injection locking range are quantitatively examined. Our results show that this unconventional maser, which is impacted by strong charge noise and electron-phonon coupling, is well described by standard laser models.

In this paper, we extend the vertical modeling approach for the analysis of survival data with competing risks to incorporate a cured fraction in the population, that is, a proportion of the population for which none of the competing events can occur. The proposed method has three components: the proportion of cure, the risk of failure, irrespective of the cause, and the relative risk of a certain cause of failure, given a failure occurred. Covariates may affect each of these components. An appealing aspect of the method is that it is a natural extension to competing risks of the semi-parametric mixture cure model in ordinary survival analysis; thus, causes of failure are assigned only if a failure occurs. This contrasts with the existing mixture cure model for competing risks of Larson and Dinse, which conditions at the onset on the future status presumably attained. Regression parameter estimates are obtained using an EM-algorithm. The performance of the estimators is evaluated in a simulation study. The method is illustrated using a melanoma cancer data set., Comment: 21 pages, 4 figures

We show how to achieve optical, spin-selective transitions from the ground state to excited orbital states of group-V donors (P, As, Sb, Bi) in silicon. We consider two approaches based on either resonant, far-infrared (IR) transitions of the neutral donor or resonant, near-IR excitonic transitions. For far-IR light, we calculate the dipole matrix elements between the valley-orbit and spin-orbit split states for all the goup-V donors using effective mass theory. We then calculate the maximum rate and amount of electron-nuclear spin-polarization achievable through optical pumping with circularly polarized light. We find this approach is most promising for Bi donors due to their large spin-orbit and valley-orbit interactions. Using near-IR light, spin-selective excitation is possible for all the donors by driving a two-photon $\Lambda$-transition from the ground state to higher orbitals with even parity. We show that externally applied electric fields or strain allow similar, spin-selective $\Lambda$-transition to odd-parity excited states. We anticipate these results will be useful for future spectroscopic investigations of donors, quantum control and state preparation of donor spin qubits, and for developing a coherent interface between donor spin qubits and single photons., Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures; v2: Added Fig. 2(c) and discussion of high field regime to Sec. IIIB, v3: Corrected dipole matrix element calculation in Sec. IIIA

The coherent generation of light, from masers to lasers, relies upon the specific structure of the individual emitters that lead to gain. Devices operating as lasers in the few-emitter limit provide opportunities for understanding quantum coherent phenomena, from THz sources to quantum communication. Here we demonstrate a maser that is driven by single electron tunneling events. Semiconductor double quantum dots (DQDs) serve as a gain medium and are placed inside of a high quality factor microwave cavity. We verify maser action by comparing the statistics of the emitted microwave field above and below the maser threshold.

We develop a microscopic model for the recently demonstrated double quantum dot (DQD) maser. In characterizing the gain of this device we find that, in addition to the direct stimulated emission of photons, there is a large contribution from the simultaneous emission of a photon and a phonon, i.e., the phonon sideband. We show that this phonon-assisted gain typically dominates the overall gain which leads to masing. Recent experimental data are well fit with our model., Comment: v1: 6 pgs, 2 figures; v2: 6 pgs, 3 figures, added Fig 2b and Fig. 3b, modified main text; v3: 6+ pgs, 3 figures, modified main text

We investigate a method for entangling two singlet-triplet qubits in adjacent double quantum dots via capacitive interactions. In contrast to prior work, here we focus on a regime with strong interactions between the qubits. The interplay of the interaction energy and simultaneous large detunings for both double dots gives rise to the double charge resonant regime, in which the unpolarized (1111) and fully polarized (0202) four-electron states in the absence of interqubit tunneling are near degeneracy, while being energetically well-separated from the partially polarized (0211 and 1102) states. A rapid controlled-phase gate may be realized by combining time evolution in this regime in the presence of intraqubit tunneling and the interqubit Coulomb interaction with refocusing ${\pi}$ pulses that swap the singly occupied singlet and triplet states of the two qubits via, e.g., magnetic gradients. We calculate the fidelity of this entangling gate, incorporating models for two types of noise -- charge fluctuations in the single-qubit detunings and charge relaxation within the low-energy subspace via electron-phonon interaction -- and identify parameter regimes that optimize the fidelity. The rates of phonon-induced decay for pairs of GaAs or Si double quantum dots vary with the sizes of the dipolar and quadrupolar contributions and are several orders of magnitude smaller for Si, leading to high theoretical gate fidelities for coupled singlet-triplet qubits in Si dots. We also consider the dependence of the capacitive coupling on the relative orientation of the double dots and find that a linear geometry provides the fastest potential gate., Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures (revised)

We consider a quantum network of mid-infrared, graphene plasmons coupled to the hydrogen-like excited states of group-V donors in silicon. First, we show how to use plasmon-enhanced light-matter interactions to achieve single-shot spin readout of the donor qubits via optical excitation and electrical detection of the emitted plasmons. We then show how plasmons in high mobility graphene nanoribbons can be used to achieve high-fidelity, two-qubit gates and entanglement of distant Si donor qubits. The proposed device is readily compatible with existing technology and fabrication methods., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, supplemental included

Usually photons are not conserved in their interaction with matter. Consequently, for the thermodynamics of photons, while we have a concept of temperature for energy conservation, there is no equivalent chemical potential for particle number conservation. However, the notion of a chemical potential is crucial in understanding a wide variety of single- and many-body effects, from transport in conductors and semiconductors to phase transitions in electronic and atomic systems. Here we show how a direct modification of the system-bath coupling via parametric oscillation creates an effective chemical potential for photons even in the thermodynamic limit. In particular, we show that the photonic system equilibrates to the temperature of the bath, with a tunable chemical potential that is set by the frequency of the parametric coupler. Specific implementations, using circuit-QED or optomechanics, are feasible using current technologies, and we show a detailed example demonstrating the emergence of Mott insulator-superfluid transition in a lattice of nonlinear oscillators. Our approach paves the way for quantum simulation, quantum sources, and even electron-like circuits with light., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, v3: extended discussions, similar to published version at PRB

Newtonian gravity yields specific observable consequences, the most striking of which is the emergence of a $1/r^2$ force. In so far as communication can arise via such interactions between distant particles, we can ask what would be expected for a theory of gravity that only allows classical communication. Many heuristic suggestions for gravity-induced decoherence have this restriction implicitly or explicitly in their construction. Here we show that communication via a $1/r^2$ force has a minimum noise induced in the system when the communication cannot convey quantum information, in a continuous time analogue to Bell's inequalities. Our derived noise bounds provide tight constraints from current experimental results on any theory of gravity that does not allow quantum communication., Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure

Electronic transport in low dimensions through a disordered medium leads to localization. The addition of gauge fields to disordered media leads to fundamental changes in the transport properties. For example, chiral edge states can emerge in two-dimensional systems with a perpendicular magnetic field. Here, we implement a "synthetic'' gauge field for photons using silicon-on-insulator technology. By determining the distribution of transport properties, we confirm the localized transport in the bulk and the suppression of localization in edge states, using the "gold standard'' for localization studies. Our system provides a new platform to investigate transport properties in the presence of synthetic gauge fields, which is important both from the fundamental perspective of studying photonic transport and for applications in classical and quantum information processing., Comment: 4.5 pages, 3 figures and supplementary material

We study a voltage biased InAs double quantum dot (DQD) that is coupled to a superconducting transmission line resonator. Inelastic tunneling in the DQD is mediated by electron phonon coupling and coupling to the cavity mode. We show that electronic transport through the DQD leads to photon emission from the cavity at a rate of 10 MHz. With a small cavity drive field, we observe a gain of up to 15 in the cavity transmission. Our results are analyzed in the context of existing theoretical models and suggest that it may be necessary to account for inelastic tunneling processes that proceed via simultaneous emission of a phonon and a photon., Comment: Related papers at http://pettagroup.princeton.edu

We show that, by treating the gravitational interaction between two mechanical resonators as a classical measurement channel, a gravitational decoherence model results that is equivalent to a model first proposed by Diosi. The resulting decoherence model implies that the classically mediated gravitational interaction between two gravitationally coupled resonators cannot create entanglement. The gravitational decoherence rate ( and the complementary heating rate) is of the order of the gravitationally induced normal mode splitting of the two resonators., Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure

Resistance thermometry provides a time-tested method for taking temperature measurements. However, fundamental limits to resistance-based approaches has produced considerable interest in developing photonic temperature sensors to leverage advances in frequency metrology and to achieve greater mechanical and environmental stability. Here we show that silicon-based optical ring resonator devices can resolve temperature differences of 1 mK using the traditional wavelength scanning methodology. An even lower noise floor of 80 microkelvin for measuring temperature difference is achieved in the side-of-fringe, constant power mode measurement., Comment: 9 pages, 2 figs

We present an approach for entangling electron spin qubits localized on spatially separated impurity atoms or quantum dots via a multi-electron, two-level quantum dot. The effective exchange interaction mediated by the dot can be understood as the simplest manifestation of Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida exchange, and can be manipulated through gate voltage control of level splittings and tunneling amplitudes within the system. This provides both a high degree of tuneability and a means for realizing high-fidelity two-qubit gates between spatially separated spins, yielding an experimentally accessible method of coupling donor electron spins in silicon via a hybrid impurity-dot system., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures

Lorentz invariance requires local interactions, with force laws such as the Coulomb interaction arising via virtual exchange of force carriers such as photons. Many have considered the possibility that, at long distances or large mass scales, this process changes in some way to lead to classical behavior. Here we hypothesize that classical behavior could be due to an inability of some force carriers to convey entanglement, a characteristic measure of nonlocal, quantum behavior. We then prove that there exists a local test that allows one to verify entanglement generation, falsifying our hypothesis. Crucially, we show that noise measurements can directly verify entanglement generation. This provides a step forward for a wide variety of experimental systems where traditional entanglement tests are challenging, including entanglement generation by gravity alone between macroscopic torsional oscillators., Comment: 5 pages plus appendix, 2 figures

Quantum vacuum forces dictate the interaction between individual atoms and dielectric surfaces at nanoscale distances. For example, their large strengths typically overwhelm externally applied forces, which makes it challenging to controllably interface cold atoms with nearby nanophotonic systems. Here, we show that it is possible to tailor the vacuum forces themselves to provide strong trapping potentials. The trapping scheme takes advantage of the attractive ground state potential and adiabatic dressing with an excited state whose potential is engineered to be resonantly enhanced and repulsive. This procedure yields a strong metastable trap, with the fraction of excited state population scaling inversely with the quality factor of the resonance of the dielectric structure. We analyze realistic limitations to the trap lifetime and discuss possible applications that might emerge from the large trap depths and nanoscale confinement., Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures