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The follow-up timing observations were carried out for 24 pulsars discovered with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) in Commensal Radio Astronomy FAST Survey. We report their phase-connected timing ephemeris, polarization pulse profiles, and Faraday rotation measurements. With their spin periods spanning from 2.995 ms to 4.34 s, their period derivatives were determined to spread between 7.996(8) × 10−21 and 9.83(3) × 10−15 s s−1, which imply that they have characteristic ages from 1.97 × 106 to 5.93 × 109 yr. It is inferred that PSRs J0211+4235 and J0518+2431 are beyond the ‘traditional death line’. PSR J0211+4235 is beyond the ‘death valley’. The death line model of Zhang et al. also cannot explain the radio presence of PSR J0211+4235. This suggests that radiation theory needs to be improved. Besides, ten of the 22 canonical pulsars show nulling phenomena. Moreover, PSR J1617+1123 exhibits variation of emission and J0540+4542 shows subpulse drifting. The DM of five pulsars is larger than the estimated by the YMW16 electron density model, which could suggest that electron density models need updates for higher Galactic latitude regions. PSRs J0447+2447 and J1928−0548 are isolated millisecond pulsars. With their flux densities spanning from 5(1)–553(106) μJy, some of these new pulsars found by FAST are distant, dim, and low-$\dot{E}$ ones and are suitable for testing pulsar emission theories.

We report the phase-connected timing ephemeris, polarization pulse profiles, Faraday rotation measurements, and Rotating-Vector-Model (RVM) fitting results of 12 millisecond pulsars (MSPs) discovered with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) in the Commensal Radio Astronomy FAST survey (CRAFTS). The timing campaigns were carried out with FAST and Arecibo over 3 yr. 11 of the 12 pulsars are in neutron star–white dwarf binary systems, with orbital periods between 2.4 and 100 d. 10 of them have spin periods, companion masses, and orbital eccentricities that are consistent with the theoretical expectations for MSP–Helium white dwarf (He WD) systems. The last binary pulsar (PSR J1912−0952) has a significantly smaller spin frequency and a smaller companion mass, the latter could be caused by a low orbital inclination for the system. Its orbital period of 29 d is well within the range of orbital periods where some MSP–He WD systems have shown anomalous eccentricities, however, the eccentricity of PSR J1912−0952 is typical of what one finds for the remaining MSP–He WD systems.

Scalable quantum computing can become a reality with error correction, provided coherent qubits can be constructed in large arrays. The key premise is that physical errors can remain both small and sufficiently uncorrelated as devices scale, so that logical error rates can be exponentially suppressed. However, energetic impacts from cosmic rays and latent radioactivity violate both of these assumptions. An impinging particle ionizes the substrate, radiating high energy phonons that induce a burst of quasiparticles, destroying qubit coherence throughout the device. High-energy radiation has been identified as a source of error in pilot superconducting quantum devices, but lacking a measurement technique able to resolve a single event in detail, the effect on large scale algorithms and error correction in particular remains an open question. Elucidating the physics involved requires operating large numbers of qubits at the same rapid timescales as in error correction, exposing the event's evolution in time and spread in space. Here, we directly observe high-energy rays impacting a large-scale quantum processor. We introduce a rapid space and time-multiplexed measurement method and identify large bursts of quasiparticles that simultaneously and severely limit the energy coherence of all qubits, causing chip-wide failure. We track the events from their initial localised impact to high error rates across the chip. Our results provide direct insights into the scale and dynamics of these damaging error bursts in large-scale devices, and highlight the necessity of mitigation to enable quantum computing to scale.

Systems of correlated particles appear in many fields of science and represent some of the most intractable puzzles in nature. The computational challenge in these systems arises when interactions become comparable to other energy scales, which makes the state of each particle depend on all other particles. The lack of general solutions for the 3-body problem and acceptable theory for strongly correlated electrons shows that our understanding of correlated systems fades when the particle number or the interaction strength increases. One of the hallmarks of interacting systems is the formation of multi-particle bound states. In a ring of 24 superconducting qubits, we develop a high fidelity parameterizable fSim gate that we use to implement the periodic quantum circuit of the spin-1/2 XXZ model, an archetypal model of interaction. By placing microwave photons in adjacent qubit sites, we study the propagation of these excitations and observe their bound nature for up to 5 photons. We devise a phase sensitive method for constructing the few-body spectrum of the bound states and extract their pseudo-charge by introducing a synthetic flux. By introducing interactions between the ring and additional qubits, we observe an unexpected resilience of the bound states to integrability breaking. This finding goes against the common wisdom that bound states in non-integrable systems are unstable when their energies overlap with the continuum spectrum. Our work provides experimental evidence for bound states of interacting photons and discovers their stability beyond the integrability limit., 7 pages + 15 pages supplements

Quantum many-body systems display rich phase structure in their low-temperature equilibrium states1. However, much of nature is not in thermal equilibrium. Remarkably, it was recently predicted that out-of-equilibrium systems can exhibit novel dynamical phases2–8 that may otherwise be forbidden by equilibrium thermodynamics, a paradigmatic example being the discrete time crystal (DTC)7,9–15. Concretely, dynamical phases can be defined in periodically driven many-body-localized (MBL) systems via the concept of eigenstate order7,16,17. In eigenstate-ordered MBL phases, the entire many-body spectrum exhibits quantum correlations and long-range order, with characteristic signatures in late-time dynamics from all initial states. It is, however, challenging to experimentally distinguish such stable phases from transient phenomena, or from regimes in which the dynamics of a few select states can mask typical behaviour. Here we implement tunable controlled-phase (CPHASE) gates on an array of superconducting qubits to experimentally observe an MBL-DTC and demonstrate its characteristic spatiotemporal response for generic initial states7,9,10. Our work employs a time-reversal protocol to quantify the impact of external decoherence, and leverages quantum typicality to circumvent the exponential cost of densely sampling the eigenspectrum. Furthermore, we locate the phase transition out of the DTC with an experimental finite-size analysis. These results establish a scalable approach to studying non-equilibrium phases of matter on quantum processors., A study establishes a scalable approach to engineer and characterize a many-body-localized discrete time crystal phase on a superconducting quantum processor.

We demonstrate a high dynamic range Josephson parametric amplifier (JPA) in which the active nonlinear element is implemented using an array of rf-SQUIDs. The device is matched to the 50 $\Omega$ environment with a Klopfenstein-taper impedance transformer and achieves a bandwidth of 250-300 MHz, with input saturation powers up to -95 dBm at 20 dB gain. A 54-qubit Sycamore processor was used to benchmark these devices, providing a calibration for readout power, an estimate of amplifier added noise, and a platform for comparison against standard impedance matched parametric amplifiers with a single dc-SQUID. We find that the high power rf-SQUID array design has no adverse effect on system noise, readout fidelity, or qubit dephasing, and we estimate an upper bound on amplifier added noise at 1.6 times the quantum limit. Lastly, amplifiers with this design show no degradation in readout fidelity due to gain compression, which can occur in multi-tone multiplexed readout with traditional JPAs., Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures

In this study, we report on a detailed single pulse analysis of the radio emission from a rotating radio transient (RRAT) J1918$-$0449 which is the first RRAT discovered with the five hundred meter aperture spherical radio telescope (FAST). The sensitive observations were carried out on 30 April 2021 using the FAST with a central frequency of 1250 MHz and a short time resolution of 49.152 $\mu$s, which forms a reliable basis to probe single pulse emission properties in detail. The source was successively observed for around 2 hours. A total of 83 dispersed bursts with significance above 6$\sigma$ are detected over 1.8 hours. The source's DM and rotational period are determined to be 116.1$\pm$0.4 \pcm \ and 2479.21$\pm$0.03 ms, respectively. The share of registered pulses from the total number of observed period is 3.12\%. No underlying emission is detected in the averaged off pulse profile. For bursts with fluence larger than 10 Jy ms, the pulse energy follows a power-law distribution with an index of $-3.1\pm0.4$, suggesting the existence of bright pulse emission. We find that the distribution of time between subsequent pulses is consistent with a stationary Poisson process and find no evidence of clustering over the 1.8 h observations, giving a mean burst rate of one burst every 66 s. Close inspection of the detected bright pulses reveals that 21 pulses exhibit well-defined quasi-periodicities. The subpulse drifting is present in non-successive rotations with periodicity of $2.51\pm0.06$ periods. Finally, possible physical mechanisms are discussed., Comment: 11 pages, 11 figures

Nuclear spins in the solid state are both a cause of decoherence and a valuable resource for spin qubits. In this work, we demonstrate control of isolated 29Si nuclear spins in silicon carbide (SiC) to create an entangled state between an optically active divacancy spin and a strongly coupled nuclear register. We then show how isotopic engineering of SiC unlocks control of single weakly coupled nuclear spins and present an ab initio method to predict the optimal isotopic fraction that maximizes the number of usable nuclear memories. We bolster these results by reporting high-fidelity electron spin control (F = 99.984(1)%), alongside extended coherence times (Hahn-echo T2 = 2.3 ms, dynamical decoupling T2DD > 14.5 ms), and a >40-fold increase in Ramsey spin dephasing time (T2*) from isotopic purification. Overall, this work underlines the importance of controlling the nuclear environment in solid-state systems and links single photon emitters with nuclear registers in an industrially scalable material. Isotope engineering of silicon carbide leads to control of nuclear spins associated with single divacancy centres and extended electron spin coherence.

Silicon carbide has recently been developed as a platform for optically addressable spin defects. In particular, the neutral divacancy in the 4H polytype displays an optically addressable spin-1 ground state and near-infrared optical emission. Here, we present the Purcell enhancement of a single neutral divacancy coupled to a photonic crystal cavity. We utilize a combination of nanolithographic techniques and a dopant-selective photoelectrochemical etch to produce suspended cavities with quality factors exceeding 5000. Subsequent coupling to a single divacancy leads to a Purcell factor of ∼50, which manifests as increased photoluminescence into the zero-phonon line and a shortened excited-state lifetime. Additionally, we measure coherent control of the divacancy ground-state spin inside the cavity nanostructure and demonstrate extended coherence through dynamical decoupling. This spin-cavity system represents an advance toward scalable long-distance entanglement protocols using silicon carbide that require the interference of indistinguishable photons from spatially separated single qubits.

We present the first measurement of pulse scattering close to the eclipse region of PSR B1957+20, which is in a compact binary system with a low-mass star. We measured pulse scattering time-scales up to 0.2 ms close to the eclipse and showed that it scales with the dispersion measure (DM) excess roughly as $\tau\propto\Delta{\rm DM}^{2}$. Our observations provide the first evidence of strong scattering due to multi-path propagation effects in the eclipsing material. We show that Kolmogorov turbulence in the eclipsing material with an inner scale of $\sim100$ m and an outer scale of the size of the eclipse region can naturally explain the observation. Our results show that the eclipsing material in such systems can be highly turbulent and suggest that scattering is one of the main eclipsing mechanisms at around 1.4 GHz., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, MNRAS accepted

We report the results of timing observations of PSR J1952+2630, a 20.7 ms pulsar in orbit with a massive white dwarf companion. We performed six months of timing observations with the Arecibo radio telescope in 2020 and used data from FAST from 2021. Together with previously published data, this represents a total timing baseline of 11 yr since the discovery of the pulsar in 2010. For the first time, we present a polarimetric profile of the pulsar and determine its rotation measure (RM), − 145.79 ± 0.15 rad m−2. With the increased timing baseline, we obtain improved estimates for astrometric, spin, and binary parameters for this system. In particular, we obtain an imporvement of an order of magnitude on the proper motion, and, for the first time, we detect three post-Keplerian parameters in this system: the advance of periastron ω̇, the orbital decay Ṗb, and the Shapiro delay (measured in the form of the h3 parameter). With the detection of these relativistic effects, we constrain the pulsar mass to 1.20−0.29+0.28 M⊙ and the mass of its companion to 0.97−0.13+0.16 M⊙. The current value of Ṗb is consistent with the General Relativity expectation for the masses obtained using ω̇ and h3. The excess (4.2−73.1+70.2 fs s−1) represents a limit on the emission of dipolar gravitational waves (GWs) from this system. This results in a limit on the difference in effective scalar couplings for the pulsar and companion (predicted by scalar-tensor theories of gravity; STTs) of |αp − αc|< 4.8 × 10−3 (68% C.L.), which does not yield a competitive test for STTs. However, our simulations of future timing campaigns of this system, based on the timing precision we have achieved with FAST, show that by 2032, the precision of Ṗb and ω̇ will allow for much more precise masses and much tighter constraints on the orbital decay contribution from dipolar GWs, resulting in |αp − αc|< 1.3 × 10−3 (68% C.L.). For comparison, we obtain |αp − αc|< 1.9 × 10−3 and < 3.3 × 10−3 from PSR J1738+0333 and PSR J2222−0137, respectively. We also present the constraints this system will place on the {α0, β0} parameters of Damour-Esposito-Farèse (DEF) gravity by 2032. They are comparable to those of PSR J1738+0333. Unlike PSR J1738+0333, PSR J1952+2630 will not be limited in its mass measurement and has the potential to place even more restrictive limits on DEF gravity in the future. Further improvements to this test will likely be limited by uncertainties in the kinematic contributions to Ṗb because of the lack of precise distance measurements., This work made use of the data from FAST (Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope). FAST is a Chinese national mega-science facility, operated by National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences. EP supported by the H2020 ERC Consolidator Grant “MAGNESIA” under grant agreement No. 817661 and National Spanish grant PGC2018-095512-BI00.

The mass of the W boson, a mediator of the weak force between elementary particles, is tightly constrained by the symmetries of the standard model of particle physics. The Higgs boson was the last missing component of the model. After observation of the Higgs boson, a measurement of the W boson mass provides a stringent test of the model. We measure the W boson mass, MW, using data corresponding to 8.8 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity collected in proton-antiproton collisions at a 1.96 tera-electron volt center-of-mass energy with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron collider. A sample of approximately 4 million W boson candidates is used to obtain MW ¼ 80;433:5 T 6:4stat T 6:9syst ¼ 80;433:5 T 9:4 MeV=c2, the precision of which exceeds that of all previous measurements combined (stat, statistical uncertainty; syst, systematic uncertainty; MeV, mega-electron volts; c, speed of light in a vacuum). This measurement is in significant tension with the standard model expectation. © 2022 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All rights reserved.

Inherent symmetry of a quantum system may protect its otherwise fragile states. Leveraging such protection requires testing its robustness against uncontrolled environmental interactions. Using 47 superconducting qubits, we implement the one-dimensional kicked Ising model, which exhibits nonlocal Majorana edge modes (MEMs) with ℤ 2 parity symmetry. We find that any multiqubit Pauli operator overlapping with the MEMs exhibits a uniform late-time decay rate comparable to single-qubit relaxation rates, irrespective of its size or composition. This characteristic allows us to accurately reconstruct the exponentially localized spatial profiles of the MEMs. Furthermore, the MEMs are found to be resilient against certain symmetry-breaking noise owing to a prethermalization mechanism. Our work elucidates the complex interplay between noise and symmetry-protected edge modes in a solid-state environment.

Spin defects in silicon carbide have exceptional electron spin coherence with a near-infrared spin-photon interface in a material amenable to modern semiconductor fabrication. Leveraging these advantages, we successfully integrate highly coherent single neutral divacancy spins in commercially available p-i-n structures and fabricate diodes to modulate the local electrical environment of the defects. These devices enable deterministic charge state control and broad Stark shift tuning exceeding 850 GHz. Surprisingly, we show that charge depletion results in a narrowing of the optical linewidths by over 50 fold, approaching the lifetime limit. These results demonstrate a method for mitigating the ubiquitous problem of spectral diffusion in solid-state emitters by engineering the electrical environment while utilizing classical semiconductor devices to control scalable spin-based quantum systems., 20 pages, 5 figures

Spin defects in silicon carbide have the advantage of exceptional electron spin coherence combined with a near-infrared spin-photon interface, all in a material amenable to modern semiconductor fabrication. Leveraging these advantages, we integrated highly coherent single neutral divacancy spins in commercially available p-i-n structures and fabricated diodes to modulate the local electrical environment of the defects. These devices enable deterministic charge-state control and broad Stark-shift tuning exceeding 850 gigahertz. We show that charge depletion results in a narrowing of the optical linewidths by more than 50-fold, approaching the lifetime limit. These results demonstrate a method for mitigating the ubiquitous problem of spectral diffusion in solid-state emitters by engineering the electrical environment while using classical semiconductor devices to control scalable, spin-based quantum systems.

Interactions in quantum systems can spread initially localized quantum information into the exponentially many degrees of freedom of the entire system. Understanding this process, known as quantum scrambling, is key to resolving several open questions in physics. Here, by measuring the time-dependent evolution and fluctuation of out-of-time-order correlators, we experimentally investigate the dynamics of quantum scrambling on a 53-qubit quantum processor. We engineer quantum circuits that distinguish operator spreading and operator entanglement and experimentally observe their respective signatures. We show that whereas operator spreading is captured by an efficient classical model, operator entanglement in idealized circuits requires exponentially scaled computational resources to simulate. These results open the path to studying complex and practically relevant physical observables with near-term quantum processors.

The dispersive sweep of fast radio bursts (FRBs) has been used to probe the ionized baryon content of the intergalactic medium, which is assumed to dominate the total extragalactic dispersion. While the host galaxy contributions to dispersion measure (DM) appear to be small for most FRBs, in at least one case there is evidence for an extreme magneto-ionic local environment and a compact persistent radio source. Here we report the detection and localization of the repeating FRB 20190520B, which is co-located with a compact, persistent radio source and associated with a dwarf host galaxy of high specific star formation rate at a redshift $z=0.241\pm0.001$. The estimated host galaxy DM $\approx 903^{+72}_{-111}$ pc cm$^{-3}$, nearly an order of magnitude higher than the average of FRB host galaxies, far exceeds the DM contribution of the intergalactic medium. Caution is thus warranted in inferring redshifts for FRBs without accurate host galaxy identifications., Accepted, Version 3