We introduce a method to distribute memory effects among different subspaces of an open two-qubit system's state space. Within the linear optical framework, our system of interest is the polarization of two photons, while the environment consists of their frequency degree of freedom. By exploiting initially correlated frequency distributions and initial frequency-dependent phase factors, we are able to control all the four decoherence functions for polarization -- corresponding to different open system subspace divisions -- almost independently of each other. Hence, our results demonstrate how, in a multipartite dephasing system, Markovian and non-Markovian dynamics can be arbitrarily divided between the subsystems, and giving rise to a novel concept of memory partitions. We also discuss further implications the results have, e.g., on the dynamics of purity and entropy within the two-qubit system.
We show how branching spin chains can be used to both generate and distribute entanglement from their natural dynamics. Such entanglement provides a useful resource, for example for teleportation or distributed quantum processing. Once distributed, this resource can be isolated through mapping or swapping the entanglement into specific qubits at the ends of branches. Alternatively, as we demonstrate for distributed bipartite entanglement, applying simple single-qubit operations to the end spin of one or more branches can dynamically freeze the entanglement at the branch ends.
We investigate noise effects on the performance of entanglement distribution by separable state. We consider a realistic situation in which the mediating particle between two distant nodes of the network goes through a noisy channel. For a large class of noise models we show that the average value of distributed entanglement between two parties is equal to entanglement between particular bipartite partitions of target qubits and exchange qubit in intermediate steps of the protocol. This result is valid for distributing two qubit/qudit and three qubit entangled states. In explicit examples of t…
We describe a scheme that enables a strong Jaynes-Cummings coupling between a topological qubit and a superconducting flux qubit. The coupling strength is dependent on the phase difference between two superconductors on a topological insulator and may be expediently controlled by a phase controller. With this coherent coupling and single-qubit rotations arbitrary unitary operations on the two-qubit hybrid system of topological and flux qubits can be performed. Numerical simulations show that quantum state transfer and entanglement distributing between the topological and superconducting flux q…
A scheme is presented for protecting one-qubit quantum information against decoherence due to a general environment and local exchange interactions. The scheme operates essentially by distributing information over two pairs of qubits and through error prevention procedures. In the scheme, quantum information is encoded through a decoherence-free subspace for collective phase errors and exchange errors affecting the qubits in pairs; leakage out of the encoding space due to amplitude damping is reduced by quantum Zeno effect. In addition, how to construct decoherence-free states for n-qubit info…
Doubly-parametric quantum transducers (DPTs), such as electro-opto-mechanical devices, show promise as quantum interconnects between the optical and microwave domains, thereby enabling long distance quantum networks between superconducting qubit systems. However, any transducer will inevitably introduce loss and noise that will degrade the performance of a quantum network. We explore how DPTs can be used to construct a network capable of distributing remote two-mode microwave entanglement over an optical link by comparing fourteen different network topologies. The fourteen topologies we analyz…
For quantum information processing, each physical system has different advantage for the implementation and so hybrid systems to benefit from several systems would be able to provide a promising approach. One of the common hybrid approach is to combine a superconducting qubit as a controllable qubit and the other quantum system with a long coherence time as a memory qubit. The superconducting qubit allows us to have an excellent controllability of the quantum states and the memory qubit is capable of storing the information for a long time. By tuning the energy splitting between the supercondu…
We analyze random unitary evolution of the qubit within memory kernel approach. We provide sufficient conditions which guarantee that the corresponding memory kernel generates physically legitimate quantum evolution. Interestingly, we are able to recover several well known examples and generate new classes of nontrivial qubit evolution. Surprisingly, it turns out that quantum evolution with memory kernel generated by our approach gives rise to vanishing non-Markovianity measure based on the distinguishability of quantum states.
Many protocols for quantum computation require a quantum memory element to store qubits. We discuss the accuracy with which quantum states prepared in a Josephson junction qubit can be stored in a nanoelectromechanical resonator and then transfered back to the junction. We find that the fidelity of the memory operation depends on both the junction-resonator coupling strength and the location of the state on the Bloch sphere. Although we specifically focus on a large-area, current-biased Josesphson junction phase qubit coupled to the dilatational mode of a piezoelectric nanoelectromechanical di…
Different from the previous works on generating entangled states, this work is focused on how to transfer the prepared entangled states onto memory qubits for protecting them against decoherence. We here consider a physical system consisting of $n$ operation qubits and $2n$ memory qubits placed in a cavity or coupled to a resonator. A method is presented for transferring $n$-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) entangled states from the operation qubits (i.e., information processing cells) onto the memory qubits (i.e., information memory elements with long decoherence time). The transferred…
We demonstrate experimentally a robust quantum memory using a magnetic-field-independent hyperfine transition in 9Be+ atomic ion qubits at a magnetic field B ~= 0.01194 T. We observe that the single physical qubit memory coherence time is greater than 10 seconds, an improvement of approximately five orders of magnitude from previous experiments with 9Be+. We also observe long coherence times of decoherence-free subspace logical qubits comprising two entangled physical qubits and discuss the merits of each type of qubit.
We report an experimental realization of an atomic vapor quantum memory for the photonic po- larization qubit. The performance of the quantum memory for the polarization qubit, realized with electromagnetically-induced transparency in two spatially separated ensembles of warm Rubidium atoms in a single vapor cell, has been characterized with quantum process tomography. The process fidelity better than 0.91 for up to 16 μs of storage time has been achieved.
Random access memory is an indispensable device for classical information technology. Analog to this, for quantum information technology, it is desirable to have a random access quantum memory with many memory cells and programmable access to each cell. We report an experiment that realizes a random access quantum memory of 105 qubits carried by 210 memory cells in a macroscopic atomic ensemble. We demonstrate storage of optical qubits into these memory cells and their read-out at programmable times by arbitrary orders with fidelities exceeding any classical bound. Experimental realization of …
We propose a scheme to manipulate a topological spin qubit which is realized with cold atoms in a one-dimensional optical lattice. In particular, by introducing a quantum opto-electro-mechanical interface, we are able to first transfer a superconducting qubit state to an atomic qubit state and then to store it into the topological spin qubit. In this way, an efficient topological quantum memory could be constructed for the superconducting qubit. Therefore, we can consolidate the advantages of both the noise resistance of the topological qubits and the scalability of the superconducting qubits …
We study the classical capacity of a forgetful quantum memory channel that switches between two qubit depolarizing channels according to an ergodic Markov chain. The capacity of this quantum memory channel depends on the parameters of the two depolarizing channels and the memory of the ergodic Markov chain. When the number of input qubit's is two, we show that depending on channel parameters either the maximally entangled input states or product input states achieve the classical capacity. Our conjecture based on numerics is that as the number of input qubits are increased the classical capaci…
We have performed a proof-of-principle experiment in which qubits encoded in the polarization states of single-photons from a parametric down-conversion source were coherently stored and read-out from a quantum memory device. The memory device utilized a simple free-space storage loop, providing a cyclical read-out that could be synchronized with the cycle time of a quantum computer. The coherence of the photonic qubits was maintained during switching operations by using a high-speed polarizing Sagnac interferometer switch.
The combination of quantum teleportation and quantum memory of photonic qubits is essential for future implementations of large-scale quantum communication and measurement-based quantum computation. Both steps have been achieved separately in many proof-of-principle experiments, but the demonstration of memory-built-in teleportation of photonic qubits remains an experimental challenge. Here, we demonstrate teleportation between photonic (flying) and atomic (stationary) qubits. In our experiment, an unknown polarization state of a single photon is teleported over 7 m onto a remote atomic qubit …
We demonstrate sympathetic cooling of a 43Ca+ trapped-ion "memory" qubit by a 40Ca+ "coolant" ion near the ground state of both axial motional modes, whilst maintaining coherence of the qubit. This is an essential ingredient in trapped-ion quantum computers. The isotope shifts are sufficient to suppress decoherence and phase shifts of the memory qubit due to the cooling light which illuminates both ions. We measure the qubit coherence during 10 cycles of sideband cooling, finding a coherence loss of 3.3% per cooling cycle. The natural limit of the method is O(0.01%) infidelity per cooling cycl…
Photonic polarization qubits are widely used in quantum computation and quantum communication due to the robustness in transmission and the easy qubit manipulation. An integrated quantum memory for polarization qubits is a fundamental building block for large-scale integrated quantum networks. However, on-demand storing polarization qubits in an integrated quantum memory is a long-standing challenge due to the anisotropic absorption of solids and the polarization-dependent features of microstructures. Here we demonstrate a reliable on-demand quantum memory for polarization qubits, using a depr…
We propose how to realize high-fidelity quantum storage using a hybrid quantum architecture including two coupled flux qubits and a nitrogen-vacancy center ensemble (NVE). One of the flux qubits is considered as the quantum computing processor and the NVE serves as the quantum memory. By separating the computing and memory units, the influence of the quantum computing process on the quantum memory can be effectively eliminated, and hence the quantum storage of an arbitrary quantum state of the computing qubit could be achieved with high fidelity. Furthermore the present proposal is robust with…
Polarization-encoded qubits are particularly useful in quantum information tasks due to the easy transportation in a single spatial and temporal mode, the accurate qubit manipulation and the high robustness against decoherence. Reliable storage of polarization-encoded qubits is essential for the construction of large-scale quantum networks. Here we demonstrate a faithful quantum memory for photonic polarization qubits using the noiseless photon echo protocol implemented in a rare-earth-ion doped crystal (151Eu3+:Y2SiO5). Based on a detailed spectroscopic investigation on the 151Eu3+ ions at th…
We address how the non-local nature of the topological qubits, realized by Majorana modes and driven by an external magnetic field, can be used to control the non-Markovian dynamics of the system. It is also demonstrated that the non-local characteristic plays a key role in control and protection of quantum correlations between Majorana qubits. Moreover, we discuss how those non-local qubits help us to enhance quantum magnetometry.
The long-lived, efficient storage and retrieval of a qubit encoded on a photon is an important ingredient for future quantum networks. Although systems with intrinsically long coherence times have been demonstrated, the combination with an efficient light-matter interface remains an outstanding challenge. In fact, the coherence times of memories for photonic qubits are currently limited to a few milliseconds. Here we report on a qubit memory based on a single atom coupled to a high-finesse optical resonator. By mapping and remapping the qubit between a basis used for light-matter interfacing a…
Photonic qubits memories are essential ingredients of numerous quantum networking protocols. The ideal situation features quantum computing nodes that are efficiently connected to quantum communication channels via quantum interfaces. The nodes contain a set of long-lived matter qubits, the channels support the propagation of light qubits, and the interface couples light and matter qubits. Towards this vision, we here demonstrate a random-access multi-qubit write-read memory for photons using two rubidium atoms coupled to the same mode of an optical cavity, a setup which is known to feature qu…
Using the axiomatic definition of the coherence measure, such as the $l_{1}$ norm and the relative entropy, we study the phenomena of two-qubit system quantum coherence through quantum channels where successive uses of the channels are memory. Different types of noisy channels with memory, such as amplitude damping, phase-damping, and depolarizing channels effect on quantum coherence have been discussed in detail. The results show that, quantum channels with memory can efficiently protect coherence from noisy channels. Particularly, as channels with perfect memory, quantum coherence is unaffec…
We describe a fault-tolerant memory for an error-corrected logical qubit based on silicon double quantum dot physical qubits. Our design accounts for constraints imposed by supporting classical electronics. A significant consequence of the constraints is to add error-prone idle steps for the physical qubits. Even using a schedule with provably minimum idle time, for our noise model and choice of error-correction code, we find that these additional idles negate any benefits of error correction. Using additional qubit operations, we can greatly suppress idle-induced errors, making error correcti…
Quantum memory for flying optical qubits is a key enabler for a wide range of applications in quantum information science and technology. A critical figure of merit is the overall storage-and-retrieval efficiency. So far, despite the recent achievements of efficient memories for light pulses, the storage of qubits has suffered from limited efficiency. Here we report on a quantum memory for polarization qubits that combines an average conditional fidelity above 99% and an efficiency equal to (68$\pm$ 2)%, thereby demonstrating a reversible qubit mapping where more information is retrieved than …
The maximal amount of information which is reliably transmitted over two uses of general Pauli channels with memory is proven to be achieved by maximally entangled states beyond some memory threshold. In particular, this proves a conjecture on the depolarizing channel by Macchiavello and Palma [Phys. Rev. A {\bf 65}, 050301(R) (2002)]. Below the memory threshold, for arbitrary Pauli channels, the two-use classical capacity is only achieved by a particular type of product states.
We propose to use a cryogenic nonlinear resonator for the projective readout, classical memory, and feedback for a superconducting qubit. This approach sidesteps many of the inefficiencies inherent in two-way communication between temperature stages in typical systems with room temperature controllers, and avoids increasing the cryogenic heat load. This controller may find a broad range of uses in multi-qubit systems, but here we analyze two specific demonstrative cases in single qubit-control. In the first case, the nonlinear controller is used to initialize the qubit in a definite eigenstate…
Quantum temporal correlations exhibited by violations of Leggett-Garg Inequality (LGI) and Temporal Steering Inequality (TSI) are in general found to be non-increasing under decoherence channels when probed on two-qubit pure entangled states. We study the action of decoherence channels, such as amplitude damping, phase-damping and depolarising channels when partial memory is introduced in a way such that two consecutive uses of the channels are time-correlated. We show that temporal correlations demonstrated by violations of the above temporal inequalities can be protected against decoherence …
We analyze decoherence of a quantum register in the absence of non-local operations i.e. of $n$ non-interacting qubits coupled to an environment. The problem is solved in terms of a sum rule which implies linear scaling in the number of qubits. Each term involves a single qubit and its entanglement with the remaining ones. Two conditions are essential: first decoherence must be small and second the coupling of different qubits must be uncorrelated in the interaction picture. We apply the result to a random matrix model, and illustrate its reach considering a GHZ state coupled to a spin bath.
We report the first experimental realization of single-qubit manipulation for single spinwaves stored in an atomic ensemble quantum memory. In order to have high-fidelity gate operations, we make use of stimulated Raman transition and controlled Lamor precession jointly. We characterize the gate performances with quantum state tomography and quantum process tomography, both of which imply that high-fidelity operations have been achieved. Our work complements the experimental toolbox of atomic-ensemble quantum memories by adding the capability of single-qubit manipulation, thus may have importa…
To realize fault-tolerant quantum computing, it is necessary to store quantum information in logical qubits with error correction functions, realized by distributing a logical state among multiple physical qubits or by encoding it in the Hilbert space of a high-dimensional system. Quantum gate operations between these error-correctable logical qubits, which are essential for implementation of any practical quantum computational task, have not been experimentally demonstrated yet. Here we demonstrate a geometric method for realizing controlled-phase gates between two logical qubits encoded in p…
We prove that a general upper bound on the maximal mutual information of quantum channels is saturated in the case of Pauli channels with an arbitrary degree of memory. For a subset of such channels we explicitly identify the optimal signal states. We show analytically that for such a class of channels entangled states are indeed optimal above a given memory threshold. It is noteworthy that the resulting channel capacity is a non-differentiable function of the memory parameter.
Here we show an ultra-low noise regime of operation in a simple quantum memory in warm Rb atomic vapor. By modelling the quantum dynamics of four-level room temperature atoms, we achieve fidelities >90% for single-photon level polarization qubits, clearly surpassing any classical strategy exploiting the non-unitary memory efficiency. This is the first time such important threshold has been crossed with a room temperature device. Additionally we also show novel experimental techniques capable of producing fidelities close to unity. Our results demonstrate the potential of simple, resource-moder…
Robust qubit memory is essential for quantum computing, both for near-term devices operating without error correction, and for the long-term goal of a fault-tolerant processor. We directly measure the memory error $ε_m$ for a $^{43}$Ca$^+$ trapped-ion qubit in the small-error regime and find $ε_m<10^{-4}$ for storage times $t\lesssim50\,\mbox{ms}$. This exceeds gate or measurement times by three orders of magnitude. Using randomized benchmarking, at $t=1\,\mbox{ms}$ we measure $ε_m=1.2(7)\times10^{-6}$, around ten times smaller than that extrapolated from the $T_{2}^{\ast}$ time, and limited b…
The classical product state capacity of a noisy quantum channel with memory is investigated. A forgetful noise-memory channel is constructed by Markov switching between two depolarizing channels which introduces non-Markovian noise correlations between successive channel uses. The computation of the capacity is reduced to an entropy computation for a function of a Markov process. A reformulation in terms of algebraic measures then enables its calculation. The effects of the hidden-Markovian memory on the capacity are explored. An increase in noise-correlations is found to increase the capacity…
We propose a scheme to implement a heralded quantum memory for single-photon polarization qubits with a single atom trapped in an optical cavity. In this scheme, an injected photon only exchanges quantum state with the atom, so that the heralded storage can be achieved by detecting the output photon. We also demonstrate that the scheme can be used for realizing the heralded quantum state transfer, exchange and entanglement distribution between distant nodes. The ability to detect whether the operation has succeeded or not is crucial for practical application.
We investigate the problem of enhancement of mutual information by encoding classical data into entangled input states of arbitrary length and show that while there is a threshold memory or correlation parameter beyond which entangled states outperform the separable states, resulting in a higher mutual information, this memory threshold increases toward unity as the length of the string increases. These observations imply that encoding classical data into entangled states may not enhance the classical capacity of quantum channels.
We investigate a scheme of atomic quantum memory to store photonic qubits in cavity QED. This is motivated on the recent observation that the quantum-state swapping between a single-photon pulse and a Lambda-type atom trapped in a cavity is ideally realized via scattering for some specific case in the strong coupling cavity regime [T. W. Chen, C. K. Law, and P. T. Leung, Phys. Rev. A 69, 063810 (2004)]. We derive a simple formula for calculating the fidelity of this atom-photon swapping for quantum memory. We further propose a feasible method which implements conditionally the quantum memory o…
We analyze the performance of a quantum computer architecture combining a small processor and a storage unit. By focusing on integer factorization, we show a reduction by several orders of magnitude of the number of processing qubits compared with a standard architecture using a planar grid of qubits with nearest-neighbor connectivity. This is achieved by taking advantage of a temporally and spatially multiplexed memory to store the qubit states between processing steps. Concretely, for a characteristic physical gate error rate of $10^{-3}$, a processor cycle time of 1 microsecond, factoring a…
A quantum memory, for storing and retrieving flying photonic quantum states, is a key interface for realizing long-distance quantum communication and large-scale quantum computation. While many experimental schemes of high storage-retrieval efficiency have been performed with weak coherent light pulses, all quantum memories for true single photons achieved so far have efficiencies far below 50%, a threshold value for practical applications. Here, we report the demonstration of a quantum memory for single-photon polarization qubits with an efficiency of >85% and a fidelity of >99 %, basing on b…
We demonstrate the first solid-state spin-wave optical quantum memory with on-demand read-out. Using the full atomic frequency comb scheme in a \PrYSO crystal, we store weak coherent pulses at the single-photon level with a signal to noise ratio $> 10$. Narrow-band spectral filtering based on spectral hole burning in a second \PrYSO crystal is used to filter out the excess noise created by control pulses to reach an unconditional noise level of $(2.0 \pm 0.3) \times10^{-3}$ photons per pulse. We also report spin-wave storage of photonic time-bin qubits with conditional fidelities higher than a…
A scheme based on electromagnetically induced transparency is used to store light in a Bose-Einstein condensate. In this process, a photonic polarization qubit is stored in atomic Zeeman states. The performance of the storage process is characterized and optimized. The average process fidelity is 1.000 +/- 0.004. For long storage times, temporal fluctuations of the magnetic field reduce this value, yielding a lifetime of the fidelity of 1.1 +/- 0.2 ms. The write-read efficiency of the pulse energy can reach 0.53 +/- 0.05.
Classical feedback is defined here as the knowledge by the transmitter of the quantum state of the qubit received by the receiver. Such classical feedback doubles capacities of certain memoryless quantum channels without preexisting entanglement between transmitter and receiver. The increase in capacity, which is absent on classical memoryless channels, occurs because we can transform an entangled qubit pair into any other entangled state by applying a unitary operator to only one of the qubits.
Decoherence in quantum computer memory due to the inevitable coupling to the external environment is examined. We take the assumption that all quantum bits (qubits) interact with the same environment rather than the assumption of separate environments for different qubits. It is found that the qubits are decohered collectively. For some kinds of entangled input states, no decoherence occurs at all in the memory even if the qubits are interacting with the environment. Based on this phenomenon, a scheme is proposed for reducing the collective decoherence. We also discuss possible implications of…
