Recent measurement on an LC resonator magnetically coupled to a superconducting qubit[arXiv:1005.1559] shows that the system operates in the ultra-strong coupling regime and crosses the limit of validity for the rotating-wave approximation of the Jaynes-Cummings model. By using extended bosonic coherent states, we solve the Jaynes-Cummings model exactly without the rotating-wave approximation. Our numerically exact results for the spectrum of the flux qubit coupled to the LC resonator are fully consistent with the experimental observations. The smallest Bloch-Siegert shift obtained is consistent with that observed in this experiment. In addition, the Bloch-Siegert shifts in arbitrary level transitions and for arbitrary coupling constants are predicted.
We measure the dispersive energy-level shift of an $LC$ resonator magnetically coupled to a superconducting qubit, which clearly shows that our system operates in the ultrastrong coupling regime. The large mutual kinetic inductance provides a coupling energy of $\approx0.82$~GHz, requiring the addition of counter-rotating-wave terms in the description of the Jaynes-Cummings model. We find a 50~MHz Bloch-Siegert shift when the qubit is in its symmetry point, fully consistent with our analytical model.
We report an experimentally observed anomalous doubly split spectrum and its split-width fluctuation in an ultrastrongly coupled superconducting qubit and resonator. From an analysis of Rabimodel and circuit model Hamiltonians, we found that the doubly split spectrum and split-width fluctuation are caused by discrete charge hops due to quasiparticle tunnelings and a continuous background charge fluctuation in islands of a flux qubit. During 70 hours in the spectrum measurement, split width fluctuates but the middle frequency of the split is constant. This result indicates that quasiparticles i…
We present an experimentally feasible scheme to implement holonomic quantum computation in the ultrastrong-coupling regime of light-matter interaction. The large anharmonicity and the Z2 symmetry of the quantum Rabi model allow us to build an effective three-level Λ-structured artificial atom for quantum computation. The proposed physical implementation includes two gradiometric flux qubits and two microwave resonators where single-qubit gates are realized by a two-tone driving on one physical qubit, and a two-qubit gate is achieved with a time-dependent coupling between the field quadratures …
We consider a system composed of a two-level system (i.e. a qubit) and a harmonic oscillator in the ultrastrong-coupling regime, where the coupling strength is comparable to the qubit and oscillator energy scales. Special emphasis is placed on the possibility of preparing nonclassical states in this system. These nonclassical states include squeezed states, Schrodinger-cat states and entangled states. We start by comparing the predictions of a number of analytical methods that can be used to describe the system under different assumptions, thus analyzing the properties of the system in various…
We introduce an approach to studying a driven qubit-oscillator system in the ultrastrong coupling regime, where the ratio $g/Ω$ between coupling strength and oscillator frequency approaches unity or goes beyond, and simultaneously for driving strengths much bigger than the qubit energy splitting (extreme driving). Both qubit-oscillator coupling and external driving lead to a dressing of the qubit tunneling matrix element of different nature: the former can be used to suppress selectively certain oscillator modes in the spectrum, while the latter can bring the qubit's dynamics to a standstill a…
We investigate theoretically the performance of two-qubit resonant gates in the crossover from the strong to the ultrastrong coupling (USC) regime of light-matter interaction in circuit QED. Two controlled-PHASE gate schemes---that works well within the rotating wave-approximation (RWA)---are analyzed while taking into account the effects of counter-rotating terms appearing in the Hamiltonian. Our numerical results show that the fidelity of the gate operation is above 96 % when the ratio between the coupling strength and the resonator frequency, g/ω_r, is of about 10 %. Novel schemes are requi…
We study effective light-matter interactions in a circuit QED system consisting of a single $LC$ resonator, which is coupled symmetrically to multiple superconducting qubits. Starting from a minimal circuit model, we demonstrate that in addition to the usual collective qubit-photon coupling the resulting Hamiltonian contains direct qubit-qubit interactions, which have a drastic effect on the ground and excited state properties of such circuits in the ultrastrong coupling regime. In contrast to a superradiant phase transition expected from the standard Dicke model, we find an opposite mechanism…
We propose a superconducting circuit platform for simulating spin-1 models. To this purpose we consider a chain of N ultrastrongly coupled qubit-resonator systems interacting through a grounded SQUID. The anharmonic spectrum of the qubit-resonator system and the selection rules imposed by the global parity symmetry allow us to activate well controlled two-body quantum gates via AC-pulses applied to the SQUID. We show that our proposal has the same simulation time for any number of spin-1 interacting particles. This scheme may be implemented within the state-of-the-art circuit QED in the ultras…
We study a circuit QED setup where multiple superconducting qubits are ultrastrongly coupled to a single radio-frequency resonator. In this extreme parameter regime of cavity QED the dynamics of the electromagnetic mode is very slow compared to all other relevant timescales and can be described as an effective particle moving in an adiabatic energy landscape defined by the qubits. The focus of this work is placed on settings with two or multiple qubits, where different types of symmetry-breaking transitions in the ground- and excited-state potentials can occur. Specifically, we show how the ch…
The interaction between an atom and the electromagnetic field inside a cavity has played a crucial role in the historical development of our understanding of light-matter interaction and is a central part of various quantum technologies, such as lasers and many quantum computing architectures. The emergence of superconducting qubits has allowed the realization of strong and ultrastrong coupling between artificial atoms and cavities. If the coupling strength $g$ becomes as large as the atomic and cavity frequencies ($Δ$ and $ω_{\rm o}$ respectively), the energy eigenstates including the ground …
We study the time and space resolved dynamics of a qubit with an Ohmic coupling to propagating 1D photons, from weak coupling to the ultrastrong coupling regime. A nonperturbative study based on Matrix Product States (MPS) shows the following results: (i) The ground state of the combined systems contains excitations of both the qubit and the surrounding bosonic field. (ii) An initially excited qubit equilibrates through spontaneous emission to a state, which under certain conditions, is locally close to that ground state, both in the qubit and the field. (iii) The resonances of the combined qu…
We analyze a multiqubit circuit QED system in the regime where the qubit-photon coupling dominates over the system's bare energy scales. Under such conditions a manifold of low-energy states with a high degree of entanglement emerges. Here we describe a time-dependent protocol for extracting these quantum correlations and converting them into well-defined multipartite entangled states of noninteracting qubits. Based on a combination of various ultrastrong-coupling effects, the protocol can be operated in a fast and robust manner, while still being consistent with experimental constraints on sw…
We investigate theoretically the dynamical behavior of a qubit obtained with the two ground eigenstates of an ultrastrong coupling circuit-QED system consisting of a finite number of Josephson fluxonium atoms inductively coupled to a transmission line resonator. We show an universal set of quantum gates by using multiple transmission line resonators (each resonator represents a single qubit). We discuss the intrinsic 'anisotropic' nature of noise sources for fluxonium artificial atoms. Through a master equation treatment with colored noise and manylevel dynamics, we prove that, for a general c…
We propose to construct large quantum graph codes by means of superconducting circuits working at the ultrastrong coupling regime. In this physical scenario, we are able to create a cluster state between any pair of qubits within a fraction of a nanosecond. To exemplify our proposal, creation of the five-qubit and Steane codes is numerically simulated. We also provide optimal operating conditions with which the graph codes can be realized with state-of-the-art superconducting technologies.
Superconducting quantum circuits possess the ingredients for quantum information processing and for developing on-chip microwave quantum optics. From the initial manipulation of few-level superconducting systems (qubits) to their strong coupling to microwave resonators, the time has come to consider the generation and characterization of propagating quantum microwaves. In this paper, we design a key ingredient that will prove essential in the general frame: a swtichable coupling between qubit(s) and transmission line(s) that can work in the ultrastrong coupling regime, where the coupling stren…
We study the equilibrium and non-equilibrium physics of two qubits interacting through an ultrastrong coupled qubit-cavity system. By tuning the qubits energy gap while keeping the ultrastrong coupling system to its ground state, we demonstrate a strong two-qubit interaction as well as an enhanced excitation transfer between the two qubits. Our proposal has twofold implications: a means to attain multipurpose parity-protected quantum information tasks in superconducting circuits, and a building block for ultrastrong coupled cavity-enhanced exciton transport in disordered media.
A cavity quantum electrodynamical (QED) system beyond the strong-coupling regime is expected to exhibit intriguing quantum phenomena. Here we report a direct measurement of the photon-dressed qubit transition frequencies up to four photons by harnessing the same type of state transitions in an ultrastrongly coupled circuit-QED system realized by inductively coupling a superconducting flux qubit to a coplanar-waveguide resonator. This demonstrates a convincing observation of the photon-dressed Bloch-Siegert shift in the ultrastrongly coupled quantum system. Moreover, our results show that the p…
We study the photon transfer along a linear array of three coupled cavities where the central one contains an interacting two-level system in the strong and ultrastrong coupling regimes. We find that an inhomogeneously coupled array forbids a complete single-photon transfer between the external cavities when the central one performs a Jaynes-Cummings dynamics. This is not the case in the ultrastrong coupling regime, where the system exhibits singularities in the photon transfer time as a function of the cavity-qubit coupling strength. Our model can be implemented within the state-of-the-art ci…
Circuit quantum electrodynamics, consisting of superconducting artificial atoms coupled to on-chip resonators, represents a prime candidate to implement the scalable quantum computing architecture because of the presence of good tunability and controllability. Furthermore, recent advances have pushed the technology towards the ultrastrong coupling regime of light-matter interaction, where the qubit-resonator coupling strength reaches a considerable fraction of the resonator frequency. Here, we propose a qubit-resonator system operating in that regime, as a quantum memory device and study the s…
We study the Zeno and anti-Zeno effects in a superconducting qubit interacting strongly and ultrastrongly with a microwave resonator. Using a model of a frequently measured two-level system interacting with a quantized mode, we show different behaviors and total control of the Zeno times depending on whether the rotating-wave approximation can be applied in the Jaynes-Cummings model, or not. We exemplify showing the strong dependence of our results with the properties of the initial field states and suggest applications for quantum tomography.
The quantum Rabi model describing the fundamental interaction between light and matter is a cornerstone of quantum physics. It predicts exotic phenomena like quantum phase transitions and ground-state entanglement in the ultrastrong-coupling (USC) regime, where coupling strengths are comparable to subsystem energies. Despite progress in many experimental platforms, the few experiments reaching USC have been limited to spectroscopy: demonstrating USC dynamics remains an outstanding challenge. Here, we employ a circuit QED chip with moderate coupling between a resonator and transmon qubit to rea…
The scattering of a flying photon by a two-level system ultrastrongly coupled to a one-dimensional photonic waveguide is studied numerically. The photonic medium is modeled as an array of coupled cavities and the whole system is analyzed beyond the rotating wave approximation using Matrix Product States. It is found that the scattering is strongly influenced by the single- and multi-photon dressed bound states present in the system. In the ultrastrong coupling regime a new channel for inelastic scattering appears, where an incident photon deposits energy into the qubit, exciting a photon-bound…
In this work we study an ultrastrong coupled qubit-cavity system subjected to slow repeated measurements. We demonstrate that even under a few imperfect measurements it is possible to detect transitions of the qubit from its free ground state to the excited state. The excitation probability grows exponentially fast in analogy with the quantum anti-Zeno effect. The dynamics and physics described in this paper is accessible to current superconducting circuit technology.
We present protocols for the generation of high-dimensional entangled states of anharmonic oscillators by means of coherent manipulation of light-matter systems in the ultrastrong coupling regime. Our protocols consider a pair of ultrastrong coupled qubit-cavity systems, each coupled to an ancilla qubit, and combine classical pulses plus the selection rules imposed by the parity symmetry. We study the robustness of the entangling protocols under dissipative effects. This proposal may have applications within state-of-art circuit quantum electrodynamics.
In cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED), light-matter interaction is probed at its most fundamental level, where individual atoms are coupled to single photons stored in three-dimensional cavities. This unique possibility to experimentally explore the foundations of quantum physics has greatly evolved with the advent of circuit QED, where on-chip superconducting qubits and oscillators play the roles of two-level atoms and cavities, respectively. In the strong coupling limit, atom and cavity can exchange a photon frequently before coherence is lost. This important regime has been reached both i…
We examine a two-level system coupled to a quantum oscillator, typically representing experiments in cavity and circuit quantum electrodynamics. We show how such a system can be treated analytically in the ultrastrong coupling limit, where the ratio $g/Ω$ between coupling strength and oscillator frequency approaches unity and goes beyond. In this regime the Jaynes-Cummings model is known to fail, because counter-rotating terms have to be taken into account. By using Van Vleck perturbation theory to higher orders in the qubit tunneling matrix element $Δ$ we are able to enlarge the regime of app…
We report on experimentally measured light shifts of superconducting flux qubits deep-strongly coupled to LC oscillators, where the coupling constants are comparable to the qubit and oscillator resonance frequencies. By using two-tone spectroscopy, the energies of the six lowest levels of each circuit are determined. We find huge Lamb shifts that exceed 90% of the bare qubit frequencies and inversions of the qubits' ground and excited states when there are a finite number of photons in the oscillator. Our experimental results agree with theoretical predictions based on the quantum Rabi model.
Understanding the interaction between light and matter is very relevant for fundamental studies of quantum electrodynamics and for the development of quantum technologies. The quantum Rabi model captures the physics of a single atom interacting with a single photon at all regimes of coupling strength. We report the spectroscopic observation of a resonant transition that breaks a selection rule in the quantum Rabi model, implemented using an $LC$ resonator and an artificial atom, a superconducting qubit. The eigenstates of the system consist of a superposition of bare qubit-resonator states wit…
We report on a robust method to achieve strong coupling between a superconducting flux qubit and a high-quality quarter-wavelength coplanar waveguide resonator. We demonstrate the progression from the strong to ultrastrong coupling regime by varying the length of a shared inductive coupling element, ultimately achieving a qubit-resonator coupling strength of 655 MHz, $10\%$ of the resonator frequency. We derive an analytical expression for the coupling strength in terms of circuit parameters and also discuss the maximum achievable coupling within this framework. We experimentally characterize …
We theoretically describe the weak measurement of a two-level system (qubit) and quantify the degree to which such a qubit measurement has a quantum non-demolition (QND) character. The qubit is coupled to a harmonic oscillator which undergoes a projective measurement. Information on the qubit state is extracted from the oscillator measurement outcomes, and the QND character of the measurement is inferred by the result of subsequent measurements of the oscillator. We use the positive operator valued measure (POVM) formalism to describe the qubit measurement. Two mechanisms lead to deviations fr…
A flux qubit biased at its symmetry point shows a minimum in the energy splitting (the gap), providing protection against flux noise. We have fabricated a qubit whose gap can be tuned fast and have coupled this qubit strongly to an LC oscillator. We show full spectroscopy of the qubit-resonator system and generate vacuum Rabi oscillations. When the gap is made equal to the oscillator frequency $ν_{osc}$ we find the strongest qubit-resonator coupling ($g/h\sim0.1ν_{\rm osc}$). Here being at resonance coincides with the optimal coherence of the symmetry point. Significant further increase of the…
We present a theory describing the semiclassical dynamics of a superconducting flux qubit inductively coupled to a nanomechanical oscillator. Focusing on the influence of the qubit on the mechanical element, and on the nonlinear phenomena displayed by this device, we show that it exhibits retardation effects and self-excited oscillations. These can be harnessed for the generation of non-classical states of the mechanical oscillator. In addition, we find that this system shares several fundamental properties with cavity optomechanical systems, and elucidate the analogy between these two classes…
We propose an experimentally realizable hybrid quantum circuit for achieving a strong coupling between a spin ensemble and a transmission-line resonator via a superconducting flux qubit used as a data bus. The resulting coupling can be used to transfer quantum information between the spin ensemble and the resonator. In particular, in contrast to the direct coupling without a data bus, our approach requires far less spins to achieve a strong coupling between the spin ensemble and the resonator (e.g., three to four orders of magnitude less). This proposed hybrid quantum circuit could enable a lo…
We present a scheme designed to suppress the dominant source of infidelity in entangling gates between quantum systems coupled through intermediate bosonic oscillator modes. Such systems are particularly susceptible to residual qubit-oscillator entanglement at the conclusion of a gate period which reduces the fidelity of the target entangling operation. We demonstrate how the exclusive use of discrete phase shifts in the field moderating the qubit-oscillator interaction - easily implemented with modern synthesizers - is sufficient to both ensure multiple oscillator modes are decoupled and to s…
We investigate how the dynamical Casimir effect can entangle quantum systems in different coupling regimes of circuit quantum electrodynamics, and show the robustness of such entanglement generation against dissipative effects with current technology. We consider two qubit-resonator systems, which are coupled by a SQUID driven with an external magnetic field, and explore the entire range of coupling regimes between each qubit and its respective resonator. In this scheme, we derive a semianalytic explanation for the entanglement generation between both superconducting qubits when they are coupl…
We analyze the relaxation of a superconducting flux qubit during measurement. The qubit state is measured with a nonlinear oscillator driven across the threshold of bifurcation, acting as a switching dispersive detector. This readout scheme is of quantum non-demolition type. Two successive readouts are used to analyze the evolution of the qubit and the detector during the measurement. We introduce a simple transition rate model to characterize the qubit relaxation and the detector switching process. Corrected for qubit relaxation the readout fidelity is at least 95%. Qubit relaxation strongly …
We study numerically the behavior of qubit coupled to a quantum dissipative driven oscillator (resonator). Above a critical coupling strength the qubit rotations become synchronized with the oscillator phase. In the synchronized regime, at certain parameters, the qubit exhibits tunneling between two orientations with a macroscopic change of number of photons in the resonator. The life times in these metastable states can be enormously large. The synchronization leads to a drastic change of qubit radiation spectrum with appearance of narrow lines corresponding to recently observed single artifi…
We investigate the measurements of two-state quantum systems (qubits) at finite temperatures using a resonant harmonic oscillator as a quantum probe. The reduced density matrix and oscillator correlators are calculated by a scheme combining numerical methods with an analytical perturbation theory. Correlators provide us information about the system impedance, which depends on the qubit state. We show in detail how this property can be exploited in the qubit measurement.
We have observed the coherent exchange of a single energy quantum between a flux qubit and a superconducting LC circuit acting as a quantum harmonic oscillator. The exchange of an energy quantum is known as the vacuum Rabi oscillations: the qubit is oscillating between the excited state and the ground state and the oscillator between the vacuum state and the first excited state. We have also obtained evidence of level quantization of the LC circuit by observing the change in the oscillation frequency when the LC circuit was not initially in the vacuum state.
