We propose a scheme to implement arbitrary-speed quantum entangling gates on two trapped ions immersed in a large linear crystal of ions, with minimal control of laser beams. For gate speeds slower than the oscillation frequencies in the trap, a single appropriately-detuned laser pulse is sufficient for high-fidelity gates. For gate speeds comparable to or faster than the local ion oscillation frequency, we discover a five-pulse protocol that exploits only the local phonon modes. This points to a method for efficiently scaling the ion trap quantum computer without shuttling ions.
In ion traps, entangling gate operations can be realized by a bichromatic pair of laser beams that collectively interact with the ions. In this paper, a new method of modelling the laser-ion interaction is introduced that turns out to be superior to standard techniques for the description of gate operations on optical qubits. The treatment allows for a comparison of the performance of gates based on $σ_z\otimesσ_z$ and Mølmer-Sørensen interactions on optical transitions where the bichromatic laser field can be realized by an amplitude-modulated laser resonant with the qubit transition. Shaping…
An approach is proposed to implement the universal quantum gates between the ions confined individually in the separated traps. Instead of the typical adiabatic operations, performed for manipulating the ion-ion coupling, here the switchable couplings between ions are implemented non-adiabatically by using the fast laser pulses. Consequently, the desirable quantum gates between the ions could be implemented by using only a series of laser pulses. The proposal may be conveniently generalized to the quantum computation with the scalable ion-traps.
We present an implementation of quantum logic gates via internal state dependent displacements of ions in a linear Paul trap caused by optical dipole forces. Based on a general quantum analysis of the system dynamics we consider specific implementations with alkaline earth ions. For experimentally realistic parameters gate infidelities as low as $10^{-4}$ can be obtained.
We present a fast phase gate scheme that is experimentally achievable and has an operation time more than two orders of magnitude faster than current experimental schemes for low numbers of pulses. The gate time improves with the number of pulses following an inverse power law. Unlike implemented schemes which excite precise motional sidebands, thus limiting the gate timescale, our scheme excites multiple motional states using discrete ultra-fast pulses. We use beam-splitters to divide pulses into smaller components to overcome limitations due to the finite laser pulse repetition rate. This pr…
A proposal for a phase gate and a Mølmer-Sørensen (MS) gate in the dressed state basis is presented. In order to perform the multi-qubit interaction, a strong magnetic field gradient is required to couple the phonon-bus to the qubit states. The gate is performed using resonant microwave driving fields together with either a radio-frequency (RF) driving field, or additional detuned microwave driving fields. The gate is robust to ambient magnetic field fluctuations due to an applied resonant microwave driving field. Furthermore, the gate is robust to fluctuations in the microwave Rabi frequency …
A scheme to implement quantum logic gates by manipulating trapped ions through interaction with monochromatic external laser field and quantized cavity field, beyond the Lamb-Dicke regime, is presented. Characteristic times, for implementing ionic state transitions using non-resont laser pulse or quantized cavity field, shows a sharp decline for large Lamb-Dicke parameter value of $η_{L}=η_{c}=0.2$, and is seen to decrease further with increase in number of initial state vibrational quanta $m$.
The conventional approach to perform two-qubit gate operations in trapped ions relies on exciting the ions on motional sidebands with laser light, which is an inherently slow process. One way to implement a fast entangling gate protocol requires a suitable pulsed laser to increase the gate speed by orders of magnitude. However, the realization of such a fast entangling gate operation presents a big technical challenge, as such the required laser source is not available off-the-shelf. For this, we have engineered an ultrafast entangling gate source based on a frequency comb. The source generate…
We describe a hybrid laser-microwave scheme to implement two-qubit geometric phase gates in crystals of trapped ions. The proposed gates can attain errors below the fault-tolerance threshold in the presence of thermal, dephasing, laser-phase, and microwave-intensity noise. Moreover, our proposal is technically less demanding than previous schemes, since it does not require a laser arrangement with interferometric stability. The laser beams are tuned close to a single vibrational sideband to entangle the qubits, while strong microwave drivings provide the geometric character to the gate, and th…
The authors call attention to a previous work [Qing Lin and Bing He, Phys. Rev. A 80, 042310 (2009)] on the realization of multi-qubit logic gates with controlled-path and merging gate. We supplement the work by showing how to efficiently build realistic quantum circuits in this approach and giving the guiding rules for the task.
Experimental realizations of two qubit entangling gates with trapped ions typically rely on addressing spectroscopically resolved motional sidebands, limiting gate speed to the secular frequency. Fast entangling gates using ultrafast pulsed lasers overcome this speed limit. This approach is based on state-dependent photon recoil kicks from a sequence of counter-propagating, resonant, ultrafast pulse pairs, which can allow sub-microsecond gate speeds. Here we demonstrate a key component of the ultrafast gate protocol, the coherent excitation of a 171Yb+ ion across the 2S1/2-2P1/2 transition wit…
Many efforts are currently underway to build a device capable of large scale quantum information processing (QIP). Whereas QIP has been demonstrated for a few qubits in several systems, many technical difficulties must be overcome in order to construct a large-scale device. In one proposal for large-scale QIP, trapped ions are manipulated by precisely controlled light pulses and moved through and stored in multizone trap arrays. The technical overhead necessary to precisely control both the ion geometrical configurations and the laser interactions is demanding. Here we propose methods that sig…
We experimentally demonstrate, with an all-optical setup, a nonlocal deterministic quantum non-demolition interaction gate applicable to quantum states at nodes separated by a physical distance and connected by classical communication channels. The gate implementation, based on entangled states shared in advance, local operations, and classical communication, runs completely in parallel fashion at both the local nodes, requiring minimum resource. The nondemolition character of the gate up to the local unitary squeezing is verified by the analysis using several coherent states. A genuine quantu…
We generalize nonadiabatic holonomic quantum computation in a resonant $Λ$ configuration proposed in [New J. Phys. 14 (2012) 103035] to the case of off-resonant driving lasers. We show that any single-qubit holonomic gate can be realized by separately varying the detuning, amplitude, and phase of the lasers.
A lower bound on the amount of energy needed to carry out an elementary logical operation on a qubit system, with a given accuracy and in a given time, has been recently postulated. This paper is an attempt to formalize this bound and explore the conditions under which it may be expected to hold. This is a work in progress and any contributions will be appreciated.
With the current interest in building quantum computers, there is a strong need for accurate and efficient characterization of the noise in quantum gate implementations. A key measure of the performance of a quantum gate is the minimum gate fidelity, i.e., the fidelity of the gate, minimized over all input states. Conventionally, the minimum fidelity is estimated by first accurately reconstructing the full gate process matrix using the experimental procedure of quantum process tomography (QPT). Then, a numerical minimization is carried out to find the minimum fidelity. QPT is, however, well kn…
We propose a new concept for a two-qubit gate operating on a pair of trapped ions based on laser coherent control techniques. The gate is insensitive to the temperature of the ions, works also outside the Lamb-Dicke regime, requires no individual addressing by lasers, and can be orders of magnitude faster than the trap period.
Some two qubit interactions are singly sufficient for universal quantum computation but not without the use of an ancilla. Recent schemes for universal quantum computation have focused on hybrid physical systems using ancillae. In them, the application of resources is shifted to the ancilla system. We consider which 2-qubit interactions are universal in ancilla schemes where direct connections between main register qubits are forbidden. By the use of ancilla driven operations and repeat-until-success style random gates, a single fixed symmetric gate can be universal be control of the number of…
The dominant error sources for state-of-the-art laser-free trapped-ion entangling gates are decoherence of the qubit state and the ion motion. The effect of these decoherence mechanisms can be suppressed with additional control fields, or with techniques that have the disadvantage of reducing gate speed. Here, we propose using a near-motional-frequency magnetic field gradient to implement a laser-free gate that is simultaneously resilient to both types of decoherence, does not require additional control fields, and has a relatively small cost in gate speed.
We propose a novel scheme to implement a quantum controlled phase gate for trapped ions in thermal motion with one standing wave laser pulse. Instead of applying the rotating wave approximation this scheme makes use of the counter-rotating terms of operators. We also demonstrate that the same scheme can be used to generate maximally entangled states of $N$ trapped ions by a single laser pulse.
We report on the implementation of a high fidelity universal gate-set on optical qubits based on trapped $^{88}$Sr$^+$ ions for the purpose of quantum information processing. All coherent operations were performed using a narrow linewidth diode laser. We employed a master-slave configuration for the laser, where an ultra low expansion glass (ULE) Fabry-Perot cavity is used as a stable reference as well as a spectral filter. We characterized the laser spectrum using the ions with a modified Ramsey sequence which eliminated the affect of the magnetic field noise. We demonstrated high fidelity si…
An effective interaction between trapped ions in thermal motion can be generated by illuminating them simultaneously with a single laser resonant with the ionic carrier frequency. The ac Stark-shift induces simultaneous `virtual' two-phonon transitions via several motional modes. Within a certain laser intensity range these transitions can interfere constructively, resulting in a relatively fast, heating-resistant two-qubit logic gate.
Fast entangling gates for trapped ions offer vastly improved gate operation times relative to implemented gates, as well as approaches to trap scaling. Gates on neighbouring ions only involve local ions when performed sufficiently fast, and we find that even a fast gate between distant ions with few degrees of freedom restores all the motional modes given more stringent gate speed conditions. We compare pulsed fast gate schemes, defined by a timescale faster than the trap period, and find that our proposed scheme has less stringent requirements on laser repetition rate for achieving arbitrary …
We demonstrate the relation between a global phase of the quantum gate and the layout of energy levels of its effective Hamiltonian required for implementing the gate for minimum time. By an example of the quantum Fourier transform gate for a qudit represented by a quadrupole nucleus with the spin I = 1, the effective Hamiltonians and minimum implementation times for different global phases are found. Using numerical optimal control methods, the problem of the global phase in searching for the optimal pulse shape is considered in detail for the quantum Fourier transform gate at I = 1, 3/2, 2, …
Optimal construction of quantum operations is a fundamental problem in the realization of quantum computation. We here introduce a newly discovered quantum gate, B, that can implement any arbitrary two-qubit quantum operation with minimal number of both two- and single-qubit gates. We show this by giving an analytic circuit that implements a generic nonlocal two-qubit operation from just two applications of the B gate. We also demonstrate that for the highly scalable Josephson junction charge qubits, the B gate is also more easily and quickly generated than the CNOT gate for physically feasibl…
We study the minimum time to implement an arbitrary two-qubit gate in two heteronuclear spins systems. We give a systematic characterization of two-qubit gates based on the invariants of local equivalence. The quantum gates are classified into four classes, and for each class the analytical formula of the minimum time to implement the quantum gates is explicitly presented. For given quantum gates, by calculating the corresponding invariants one easily obtains the classes to which the quantum gates belong. In particular, we analyze the effect of global phases on the minimum time to implement th…
In this paper we develop a unified framework to study the coherent control of trapped ions subject to state-dependent forces. Taking different limits in our theory, we can reproduce two different designs of a two-qubit quantum gate --the pushing gate [1] and the fast gates based on laser pulses from Ref. [2]--, and propose a new design based on continuous laser beams. We demonstrate how to simulate Ising Hamiltonians in a many ions setup, and how to create highly entangled states and induce squeezing. Finally, in a detailed analysis we identify the physical limits of this technique and study t…
A crucial building block for quantum information processing with trapped ions is a controlled-NOT quantum gate. In this paper, two different sequences of laser pulses implementing such a gate operation are analyzed using quantum process tomography. Fidelities of up to 92.6(6)% are achieved for single gate operations and up to 83.4(8)% for two concatenated gate operations. By process tomography we assess the performance of the gates for different experimental realizations and demonstrate the advantage of amplitude--shaped laser pulses over simple square pulses. We also investigate whether the p…
We present a general theory for laser-free entangling gates with trapped-ion hyperfine qubits, using either static or oscillating magnetic-field gradients combined with a pair of uniform microwave fields symmetrically detuned about the qubit frequency. By transforming into a `bichromatic' interaction picture, we show that either ${\hatσ_ϕ\otimes\hatσ_ϕ}$ or ${\hatσ_{z}\otimes\hatσ_{z}}$ geometric phase gates can be performed. The gate basis is determined by selecting the microwave detuning. The driving parameters can be tuned to provide intrinsic dynamical decoupling from qubit frequency fluct…
It is shown that a two-qubit phase gate and SWAP operation between ground states of cold trapped ions can be realised in one step by simultaneously applying two laser fields. Cooling during gate operations is possible without perturbing the computation and the scheme does not require a second ion species for sympathetic cooling. On the contrary, the cooling lasers even stabilise the desired time evolution of the system. This affords gate operation times of nearly the same order of magnitude as the inverse coupling constant of the ions to a common vibrational mode.
We present a study of the performance of the trapped-ion driven geometric phase gates introduced in [New J. Phys. 15, 083001 (2013)] when realized in a stimulated Raman transition. We show that the gate can achieve errors below the fault-tolerance threshold in the presence of laser intensity fluctuations. We also find that, in order to reduce the errors due to photon scattering below the fault-tolerance threshold, very intense laser beams are required to allow for large detunings in the Raman configuration without compromising the gate speed.
We present an alternative scheme for the generation of a 2-qubit quantum gate interaction between laser-cooled trapped ions. The scheme is based on the AC Stark shift (lightshift) induced by laser light resonant with the ionic transition frequency. At {\it specific} laser intensities, the shift of the ionic levels allows the resonant excitation of transitions involving the exchange of motional quanta. We compare the performance of this scheme with respect to that of related ion-trap proposals and find that, for an experimental realisation using travelling-wave radiation and working in the Lamb…
In the framework of ion-trap quantum computing, we develop a characterization of experimentally realistic imperfections which may affect the Cirac-Zoller implementation of the CNOT gate. The CNOT operation is performed by applying a protocol of five laser pulses of appropriate frequency and polarization. The laser-pulse protocol exploits auxiliary levels, and its imperfect implementation leads to unitary as well as non-unitary errors affecting the CNOT operation. We provide a characterization of such imperfections, which are physically realistic and have never been considered before to the bes…
Internal states of polar molecules can be controlled by microwave-frequency electric dipole transitions. If the applied microwave electric field has a spatial gradient, these transitions also affect the motion of these dipolar particles. This capability can be used to engineer phonon-mediated quantum gates between e.g. trapped polar molecular ion qubits without laser illumination and without the need for cooling near the motional ground state. The result is a high-speed quantum processing toolbox for dipoles in thermal motion that combines the precision microwave control of solid-state qubits …
Oscillating magnetic fields and field gradients can be used to implement single-qubit rotations and entangling multi-qubit quantum gates for trapped-ion quantum information processing (QIP). With fields generated by currents in microfabricated surface-electrode traps, it should be possible to achieve gate speeds that are comparable to those of optically induced gates for realistic distances between the ion crystal and the electrode surface. Magnetic-field-mediated gates have the potential to significantly reduce the overhead in laser beam control and motional state initialization compared to c…
We propose an implementation scheme for holonomic, i.e., geometrical, quantum information processing based on semiconductor nanostructures. Our quantum hardware consists of coupled semiconductor macroatoms addressed/controlled by ultrafast multicolor laser-pulse sequences. More specifically, logical qubits are encoded in excitonic states with different spin polarizations and manipulated by adiabatic time-control of the laser amplitudes . The two-qubit gate is realized in a geometric fashion by exploiting dipole-dipole coupling between excitons in neighboring quantum dots.
We analyze the error in trapped-ion, hyperfine qubit, quantum gates due to spontaneous scattering of photons from the gate laser beams. We investigate single-qubit rotations that are based on stimulated Raman transitions and two-qubit entangling phase-gates that are based on spin-dependent optical dipole forces. This error is compared between different ion species currently being investigated as possible quantum information carriers. For both gate types we show that with realistic laser powers the scattering error can be reduced to below current estimates of the fault-tolerance error threshold…
We apply techniques of subriemannian geometry on Lie groups and of optimal synthesis on 2-D manifolds to the population transfer problem in a three-level quantum system driven by two laser pulses, of arbitrary shape and frequency. In the rotating wave approximation, we consider a nonisotropic model i.e. a model in which the two coupling constants of the lasers are different. The aim is to induce transitions from the first to the third level, minimizing 1) the time of the transition (with bounded laser amplitudes), 2) the energy of lasers (with fixed final time). After reducing the problem to r…
Necessary conditions for generating phase controllable asymmetry in spatially symmetric systems using lasers are identified and are shown to be identical in quantum and classical mechanics. First, by studying the exact dynamics of harmonic systems in the presence of an arbitrary radiation field, it is demonstrated that anharmonicities in the system's potential are a necessary requirement for phase controllability. Then, by analyzing the space-time symmetries of the laser-driven Liouville dynamics for classical and quantum systems, a common set of temporal symmetries for the driving field that …
We derive an algebraic framework which identifies the minimal information required to assess how well a quantum device implements a desired quantum operation. Our approach is based on characterizing only the unitary part of an open system's evolution. We show that a reduced set of input states is sufficient to estimate the average fidelity of a quantum gate, avoiding a sampling over the full Liouville space. Surprisingly, the minimal set consists of only two input states, independent of the Hilbert space dimension. The minimal set is, however, impractical for device characterization since one …
We identify time-optimal laser pulses to implement the controlled-Z gate and its three qubit generalization, the C$_2$Z gate, for Rydberg atoms in the blockade regime. Pulses are optimized using a combination of numerical and semi-analytical quantum optimal control techniques that result in smooth Ansätze with just a few variational parameters. For the CZ gate, the time-optimal implementation corresponds to a global laser pulse that does not require single site addressability of the atoms, simplifying experimental implementation of the gate. We employ quantum optimal control techniques to miti…
We propose a new system for implementing quantum logic gates: neutral atoms trapped in a very far-off-resonance optical lattice. Pairs of atoms are made to occupy the same well by varying the polarization of the trapping lasers, and then a near-resonant electric dipole is induced by an auxiliary laser. A controlled-NOT can be implemented by conditioning the target atomic resonance on a resolvable level shift induced by the control atom. Atoms interact only during logical operations, thereby suppressing decoherence.
We propose a scalable design of entangling quantum gates for large ion crystals with the following desirable features: 1) The gate design is universal and applicable for large ion crystals of arbitrary sizes; 2) The gate has no speed limitation and can work outside of the Lamb-Dicke region; 3) The gate operates by driving from either continuous-wave or pulsed laser beams; 4) The gate is insensitive to slow variation of the laser optical phase and works under a thermal state for the ions' motion; 5) The intrinsic gate infidelity can be reduced to a level well below the threshold for fault-toler…
Several sequential operations are usually needed for implementing controlled quantum gates and generating entanglement between a pair of quantum bits. Based on the conditional quantum dynamics for a two-ion system beyond the Lamb-Dicke limit, here we propose a theoretical scheme for manipulating two-qubit quantum information, i.e., implementing a universal two-qubit quantum gate and generating a two-qubit entangled state, by using a pair of simultaneous laser pulses. Neither the Lamb-Dicke approximation nor the auxiliary atomic level are required. The experimental realizability of this simple …
Most attempts to produce a scalable quantum information processing platform based on ion traps have focused on the shuttling of ions in segmented traps. We show that an architecture based on an array of microtraps with fast gates will outperform architectures based on ion shuttling. This system requires higher power lasers, but does not require the manipulation of potentials or shuttling of ions. This improves optical access, reduces the complexity of the trap, and reduces the number of conductive surfaces close to the ions. The use of fast gates also removes limitations on gate time. The perf…
A scheme is proposed to generate an entangled state between two (Lambda-type) four-level atoms that interact effectively by means of a detuned optical cavity and a laser beam that acts perpendicularly to the cavity axis. It is shown how the degree of entanglement for two atoms passing through the cavity can be controlled by manipulating their velocity and the (initial) distance between the atoms. In addition, three realistic schemes are suggested to implement the two-qubit gates within the framework of the suggested atom-cavity-laser setup, namely, the i-swap gate, controlled-Z gate and the co…
We propose an implementation of holonomic (geometrical) quantum gates by means of semiconductor nanostructures. Our quantum hardware consists of semiconductor macroatoms driven by sequences of ultrafast laser pulses ({\it all optical control}). Our logical bits are Coulomb-correlated electron-hole pairs (excitons) in a four-level scheme selectively addressed by laser pulses with different polarization. A universal set of single and two-qubit gates is generated by adiabatic change of the Rabi frequencies of the lasers and by exploiting the dipole coupling between excitons.
