A major challenge in operating multi-qubit quantum processors is to mitigate multi-qubit coherent errors. For superconducting circuits, besides crosstalk originating from imperfect isolation of control lines, dispersive coupling between qubits is a major source of multi-qubit coherent errors. We benchmark phase errors in a controlled-phase gate due to dispersive coupling of either of the qubits involved in the gate to one or more spectator qubits. We measure the associated gate infidelity using quantum process tomography. In addition, we point out that, due to coupling of the gate qubits to a non-computational state during the gate, two-qubit conditional phase errors are enhanced. Our work is important for understanding limits to the fidelity of two-qubit gates with finite on/off ratio in multi-qubit settings.
Cross-resonance (CR) gate has emerged as a promising scheme for fault-tolerant quantum computation with fixed-frequency qubits. We experimentally implement entangling CR gate by using a microwave-only control in a tunable coupling superconducting circuit, where the tunable coupler provides extra degrees of freedom to verify optimal condition for constructing CR gate. By developing three-qubit CR Hamiltonian tomography protocol, we systematically investigate the dependency of gate fidelities on spurious qubit interactions and present the first experimental approach to the evaluation of the pert…
Spectator Leakage Suppression via Invariant Subspace Engineering for CZ Gates in Superconducting Quantum Circuits
University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学）；CAS Center For Excellence in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics（中国科学院量子信息与量子物理前沿卓越创新中心）；Suzhou Institute for Advanced Research, University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学苏州高等研究院）；Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center（合肥综合性国家科学中心人工智能研究院）
We report the first complete characterization of single-qubit and two-qubit gate fidelities in silicon-based spin qubits, including cross-talk and error correlations between the two qubits. To do so, we use a combination of standard randomized benchmarking and a recently introduced method called character randomized benchmarking, which allows for more reliable estimates of the two-qubit fidelity in this system. Interestingly, with character randomized benchmarking, the two-qubit CPhase gate fidelity can be obtained by studying the additional decay induced by interleaving the CPhase gate in a r…
Optimizing the frequency positioning of tunable couplers in a circuit QED processor to mitigate spectator effects on quantum operations
QuTech and Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Delft University of Technology（代尔夫特理工大学奎克与卡弗里纳米科学研究所）；Orange Quantum Systems（橙量子系统）；Quantware B.V.（Quantware有限公司）
We present an improvement to the cross resonance gate realized with the addition of resonant, target rotary pulses. These pulses, applied directly to the target qubit, are simultaneous to and in phase with the echoed cross resonance pulses. Using specialized Hamiltonian error amplifying tomography, we confirm a reduction of error terms with target rotary -- directly translating to improved two-qubit gate fidelity. Beyond improvement in the control-target subspace, the target rotary reduces entanglement between target and target spectators caused by residual quantum interactions. We further cha…
We implement a complete randomized benchmarking protocol on a system of two superconducting qubits. The protocol consists of randomizing over gates in the Clifford group, which experimentally are generated via an improved two-qubit cross-resonance gate implementation and single-qubit unitaries. From this we extract an optimal average error per Clifford of 0.0936. We also perform an interleaved experiment, alternating our optimal two-qubit gate with random two-qubit Clifford gates, to obtain a two-qubit gate error of 0.0653. We compare these values with a two-qubit gate error of ~0.12 obtained …
We theoretically consider a cross-resonance (CR) gate implemented by pulse sequences proposed by Calderon-Vargas & Kestner, Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 150502 (2017). These sequences mitigate systematic error to first order, but their effectiveness is limited by one-qubit gate imperfections. Using additional microwave control pulses, it is possible to tune the effective CR Hamiltonian into a regime where these sequences operate optimally. This improves the overall feasibility of these sequences by reducing the one-qubit operations required for error correction. We illustrate this by simulating rando…
If NMR systems are to be used as practical quantum computers, the number of coupled spins will need to be so large that it is not feasible to rely on purely heteronuclear spin systems. The implementation of a quantum logic gate imposes certain constraints on the motion of those spins not directly involved in that gate, the so-called "spectator" spins; they must be returned to their initial states at the end of the sequence. As a result, a homonuclear spin system where there is appreciable coupling between every pair of spins would seem to require a refocusing scheme that doubles in complexity …
We present a comprehensive theoretical study of the cross-resonance gate operation covering estimates for gate parameters and gate error as well as analyzing spectator qubits and multi-qubit frequency collisions. We start by revisiting the derivation of effective Hamiltonian models following Magesan et al. (arXiv:1804.04073). Transmon qubits are commonly modeled as a weakly anharmonic Kerr oscillator. Kerr theory only accounts for qubit frequency renormalization, while adopting number states as the eigenstates of the bare qubit Hamiltonian. Starting from the Josephson nonlinearity and by accou…
We study theoretically the responses of the dynamically corrected gates to time-dependent noises in the exchange-only spin qubit system. We consider $1/f$ noises having spectra proportional to $1/ω^α$, where the exponent $α$ indicates the strength of correlation within the noise. The quantum gate errors due to noises are extracted from a numerical simulation of Randomized Benchmarking, and are compared between the application of uncorrected operations and that of dynamically corrected gates robust against the hyperfine noise. We have found that for $α\gtrsim1.5$, the dynamically corrected gate…
We present measurements of single-qubit gate errors for a superconducting qubit. Results from quantum process tomography and randomized benchmarking are compared with gate errors obtained from a double pi pulse experiment. Randomized benchmarking reveals a minimum average gate error of 1.1+/-0.3% and a simple exponential dependence of fidelity on the number of gates. It shows that the limits on gate fidelity are primarily imposed by qubit decoherence, in agreement with theory.
Building upon the demonstration of coherent control and single-shot readout of the electron and nuclear spins of individual 31-P atoms in silicon, we present here a systematic experimental estimate of quantum gate fidelities using randomized benchmarking of 1-qubit gates in the Clifford group. We apply this analysis to the electron and the ionized 31-P nucleus of a single P donor in isotopically purified 28-Si. We find average gate fidelities of 99.95 % for the electron, and 99.99 % for the nuclear spin. These values are above certain error correction thresholds, and demonstrate the potential …
Recent experiments have demonstrated superconducting transmon qubits with semiconductor nanowire Josephson junctions. These hybrid gatemon qubits utilize field effect tunability characteristic for semiconductors to allow complete qubit control using gate voltages, potentially a technological advantage over conventional flux-controlled transmons. Here, we present experiments with a two-qubit gatemon circuit. We characterize qubit coherence and stability and use randomized benchmarking to demonstrate single-qubit gate errors below 0.7% for all gates, including voltage-controlled $Z$ rotations. W…
With the development of controllable quantum systems, fast and practical characterization for multi-qubit gates is essential for building high-fidelity quantum computing devices. The usual way to fulfill this requirement via randomized benchmarking asks for the complicated implementation of numerous multi-qubit twirling gates. How to efficiently and reliably estimate the fidelity of a quantum process remains an open problem. In this work, we propose a character-cycle benchmarking protocol and a character-average benchmarking protocol only using local twirling gates to estimate the process fide…
Randomized benchmarking (RB) protocols have become an essential tool for providing a meaningful partial characterization of experimental quantum operations. While the RB decay rate is known to enable estimates of the average fidelity of those operations under gate-independent Markovian noise, under gate-dependent noise this rate is more difficult to interpret rigorously. In this paper, we prove that single-qubit RB decay parameter $p$ coincides with the decay parameter of the gate-set circuit fidelity, a novel figure of merit which characterizes the expected average fidelity over arbitrary cir…
Any technology requires precise benchmarking of its components, and the quantum technologies are no exception. Randomized benchmarking allows for the relatively resource economical estimation of the average gate fidelity of quantum gates from the Clifford group, assuming identical noise levels for all gates, making use of suitable sequences of randomly chosen Clifford gates. In this work, we report significant progress on randomized benchmarking, by showing that it can be done for individual quantum gates outside the Clifford group, even for varying noise levels per quantum gate. This is possi…
We present a protocol for Interleaved Randomized Benchmarking of arbitrary quantum gates using Monte Carlo sampling of quantum states. It is generally applicable, including non-Clifford gates while preserving key advantages of Randomized Benchmarking such as error amplification as well as independence from state preparation and measurement errors. This property is crucial for implementations in many contemporary systems. Although the protocol scales exponentially in the number of qubits, it is superior to direct Monte Carlo sampling of the average gate fidelity in both the total number of expe…
We analyze randomized benchmarking for arbitrary gate-dependent noise and prove that the exact impact of gate-dependent noise can be described by a single perturbation term that decays exponentially with the sequence length. That is, the exact behavior of randomized benchmarking under general gate-dependent noise converges exponentially to a true exponential decay of exactly the same form as that predicted by previous analysis for gate-independent noise. Moreover, we show that the operational meaning of the decay parameter for gate-dependent noise is essentially unchanged, that is, we show tha…
One of the main challenges in building a quantum processor is to characterize the environmental noise. Noise characterization can be achieved by exploiting different techniques, such as randomization where several sequences of random quantum gates are applied to the qubit under test to derive statistical characteristics about the affecting noises. A scalable and robust algorithm able to benchmark the full set of Clifford gates using randomization techniques is called randomized benchmarking. In this study, we simulated randomized benchmarking protocols in a semiconducting all-electrical three-…
We describe and expand upon the scalable randomized benchmarking protocol proposed in Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 180504 (2011) which provides a method for benchmarking quantum gates and estimating the gate-dependence of the noise. The protocol allows the noise to have weak time and gate-dependence, and we provide a sufficient condition for the applicability of the protocol in terms of the average variation of the noise. We discuss how state preparation and measurement errors are taken into account and provide a complete proof of the scalability of the protocol. We establish a connection in special …
Randomized benchmarking is a widely used experimental technique to characterize the average error of quantum operations. Benchmarking procedures that scale to enable characterization of $n$-qubit circuits rely on efficient procedures for manipulating those circuits and, as such, have been limited to subgroups of the Clifford group. However, universal quantum computers require additional, non-Clifford gates to approximate arbitrary unitary transformations. We define a scalable randomized benchmarking procedure over $n$-qubit unitary matrices that correspond to protected non-Clifford gates for a…
We implement a two-qubit logic gate between a $^{43}\mathrm{Ca}^+\,$ hyperfine qubit and a $^{88}\mathrm{Sr}^+\,$ Zeeman qubit. For this pair of ion species, the S--P optical transitions are close enough that a single laser of wavelength $402\,\mathrm{nm}$ can be used to drive the gate, but sufficiently well separated to give good spectral isolation and low photon scattering errors. We characterize the gate by full randomized benchmarking, gate set tomography and Bell state analysis. The latter method gives a fidelity of $99.8(1)\%$, comparable to that of the best same-species gates and consis…
Typical quantum gate tomography protocols struggle with a self-consistency problem: the gate operation cannot be reconstructed without knowledge of the initial state and final measurement, but such knowledge cannot be obtained without well-characterized gates. A recently proposed technique, known as randomized benchmarking tomography (RBT), sidesteps this self-consistency problem by designing experiments to be insensitive to preparation and measurement imperfections. We implement this proposal in a superconducting qubit system, using a number of experimental improvements including implementing…
Standard randomized benchmarking protocols entail sampling from a unitary 2 design, which is not always practical. In this article we examine randomized benchmarking protocols based on subgroups of the Clifford group that are not unitary 2 designs. We introduce a general method for analyzing such protocols and subsequently apply it to two subgroups, the group generated by controlled-NOT, Hadamard, and Pauli gates and that generated by only controlled-NOT and Pauli gates. In both cases the error probability can be estimated to within a factor of two or less where the factor can be arranged to b…
Randomized benchmarking is a technique for estimating the average fidelity of a set of quantum gates. For general gatesets, however, it is difficult to draw robust conclusions from the resulting data. Here we propose a new method based on representation theory that has little experimental overhead and applies to a broad class of benchmarking problems. As an example, we apply our method to a gateset that includes the $T$-gate, and analyze a new interleaved benchmarking protocol that extracts the average fidelity of a 2-qubit Clifford gate using only single-qubit Clifford gates as reference.
Randomized benchmarking is routinely used as an efficient method for characterizing the performance of sets of elementary logic gates in small quantum devices. In the measurement-based model of quantum computation, logic gates are implemented via single-site measurements on a fixed universal resource state. Here we adapt the randomized benchmarking protocol for a single qubit to a linear cluster state computation, which provides partial, yet efficient characterization of the noise associated with the target gate set. Applying randomized benchmarking to measurement-based quantum computation exh…
With improved gate calibrations reducing unitary errors, we achieve a benchmarked single-qubit gate fidelity of 99.95% with superconducting qubits in a circuit quantum electrodynamics system. We present a method for distinguishing between unitary and non-unitary errors in quantum gates by interleaving repetitions of a target gate within a randomized benchmarking sequence. The benchmarking fidelity decays quadratically with the number of interleaved gates for unitary errors but linearly for non-unitary, allowing us to separate systematic coherent errors from decoherent effects. With this protoc…
In randomized benchmarking of quantum logical gates, partial twirling can be used for simpler implementation, better scaling, and higher accuracy and reliability. For instance, for two-qubit gates, single-qubit twirling is easier to realize than full averaging. We analyze such simplified, partial twirling and demonstrate that, unlike for the standard randomized benchmarking, the measured decay of fidelity is a linear combination of exponentials with different decay rates (3 for two qubits and single-bit twirling). The evolution with the sequence length is governed by an iteration matrix, whose…
We propose a method to reliably and efficiently extract the fidelity of many-qubit quantum circuits composed of continuously parametrized two-qubit gates called matchgates. This method, which we call matchgate benchmarking, relies on advanced techniques from randomized benchmarking as well as insights from the representation theory of matchgate circuits. We argue the formal correctness and scalability of the protocol, and moreover deploy it to estimate the performance of matchgate circuits generated by two-qubit XY spin interactions on a quantum processor.
We show that the Randomized Benchmarking (RB) protocol is a convolution amenable to Fourier space analysis. By adopting the mathematical framework of Fourier transforms of matrix-valued functions on groups established in recent work from Gowers and Hatami [Sbornik: Mathematics 208, 1784 (2017)], we provide an alternative proof of Wallman's [Quantum 2, 47 (2018)] and Proctor's [Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 130502 (2017)] bounds on the effect of gate-dependent noise on randomized benchmarking. We show explicitly that as long as our faulty gate-set is close to the targeted representation of the Clifford…
Randomized benchmarking (RB) is a powerful method for determining the error rate of experimental quantum gates. Traditional RB, however, is restricted to gatesets, such as the Clifford group, that form a unitary 2-design. The recently introduced character RB can benchmark more general gates using techniques from representation theory; up to now, however, this method has only been applied to "multiplicity-free" groups, a mathematical restriction on these groups. In this paper, we extend the original character RB derivation to explicitly treat non-multiplicity-free groups, and derive several app…
The possibility to utilize different types of two-qubit gates on a single quantum computing platform adds flexibility in the decomposition of quantum algorithms. A larger hardware-native gate set may decrease the number of required gates, provided that all gates are realized with high fidelity. Here, we benchmark both controlled-Z (CZ) and exchange-type (iSWAP) gates using a parametrically driven tunable coupler that mediates the interaction between two superconducting qubits. Using randomized benchmarking protocols we estimate an error per gate of $0.9\pm0.03\%$ and $1.3\pm0.4\%$ fidelity for…
With the advent of public access to small gate-based quantum processors, it becomes necessary to develop a benchmarking methodology such that independent researchers can validate the operation of these processors. We explore the usefulness of a number of simple quantum circuits as benchmarks for gate-based quantum computing devices and show that circuits performing identity operations are very simple, scalable and sensitive to gate errors and are therefore very well suited for this task. We illustrate the procedure by presenting benchmark results for the IBM Quantum Experience, a cloud-based p…
Randomized benchmarking (RB) is an important protocol for robustly characterizing the error rates of quantum gates. The technique is typically applied to the Clifford gates since they form a group that satisfies a convenient technical condition of forming a unitary 2-design, in addition to having a tight connection to fault-tolerant quantum computing and an efficient classical simulation. In order to achieve universal quantum computing one must add at least one additional gate such as the T gate (also known as the $π$/8 gate). Here we propose and analyze a simple variation of the standard inte…
Characterization of experimental systems is an essential step in developing and improving quantum hardware. A collection of protocols known as Randomized Benchmarking (RB) was developed in the past decade, which provides an efficient way to measure error rates in quantum systems. In a recent paper (arxiv:2010.07974), a general framework for RB was proposed, which encompassed most of the known RB protocols and overcame the limitation on error models in previous works. However, even this general framework has a restriction: it can only be applied to a finite group of gates. This does not meet th…
We present a method for optimizing quantum control in experimental systems, using a subset of randomized benchmarking measurements to rapidly infer error. This is demonstrated to improve single- and two-qubit gates, minimize gate bleedthrough, where a gate mechanism can cause errors on subsequent gates, and identify control crosstalk in superconducting qubits. This method is able to correct parameters to where control errors no longer dominate, and is suitable for automated and closed-loop optimization of experimental systems.
Hardware efficient transpilation of quantum circuits to a quantum devices native gateset is essential for the execution of quantum algorithms on noisy quantum computers. Typical quantum devices utilize a gateset with a single two-qubit Clifford entangling gate per pair of coupled qubits, however, in some applications access to a non-Clifford two-qubit gate can result in more optimal circuit decompositions and also allows more flexibility in optimizing over noise. We demonstrate calibration of a low error non-Clifford Controlled-$\fracπ{2}$ phase (CS) gate on a cloud based IBM Quantum computing…
We describe a scalable experimental protocol for obtaining estimates of the error rate of individual quantum computational gates. This protocol, in which random Clifford gates are interleaved between a gate of interest, provides a bounded estimate of the average error of the gate under test so long as the average variation of the noise affecting the full set of Clifford gates is small. This technique takes into account both state preparation and measurement errors and is scalable in the number of qubits. We apply this protocol to a superconducting qubit system and find gate errors that compare…
Randomized benchmarking has emerged as a popular and easy-to-implement experimental technique for gauging the quality of gate operations in quantum computing devices. A typical randomized benchmarking procedure identifies the exponential decay in the fidelity as the benchmarking sequence of gates increases in length, and the decay rate is used to estimate the fidelity of the gate. That the fidelity decays exponentially, however, relies on the assumption of time-independent or static noise in the gates, with no correlations or significant drift in the noise over the gate sequence, a well-satisf…
A key requirement for scalable quantum computing is that elementary quantum gates can be implemented with sufficiently low error. One method for determining the error behavior of a gate implementation is to perform process tomography. However, standard process tomography is limited by errors in state preparation, measurement and one-qubit gates. It suffers from inefficient scaling with number of qubits and does not detect adverse error-compounding when gates are composed in long sequences. An additional problem is due to the fact that desirable error probabilities for scalable quantum computin…
An NMR realization of a two-qubit quantum gate which processes quantum information indirectly via couplings to a spectator qubit is presented in the context of the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm. This enables a successful comprehensive NMR implementation of the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm for functions with three argument bits and demonstrates a technique essential for multi-qubit quantum computation.
