Laetitia Bomble

Vibrational computing: Simulation of a full adder by optimal control

Within the context of vibrational molecular quantum computing, we investigate the implementation of a full addition of two binary digits and a carry that provides the sum and the carry out. Four qubits are necessary and they are encoded into four different normal vibrational modes of a molecule. We choose the bromoacetyl chloride molecule because it possesses four bright infrared active modes. The ground and first excited states of each mode form the one-qubit computational basis set. Two approaches are proposed for the realization of the full addition. In the first one, we optimize a pulse that implements directly the entire addition by a single unitary transformation. In the second one, we decompose the full addition in elementary quantum gates, following a scheme proposed by Vedral et al. [Phys. Rev. A 54, 147 (1996)]. Four elementary quantum gates are necessary, two two-qubit CNOT gates (controlled NOT) and two three-qubit TOFFOLI gates (controlled-controlled NOT). All the logic operations consist in one-qubit flip. The logic implementation is therefore quasiclassical and the readout is based on a population analysis of the vibrational modes that does not take the phases into account. The fields are optimized by the multitarget extension of the optimal control theory involving all the transformations among the 2(4) qubit states. A single cycle of addition without considering the preparation or the measure or copy of the result can be carried out in a very competitive time, on a picosecond time scale.

Toward scalable information processing with ultracold polar molecules in an electric field: A numerical investigation

We numerically investigate the possibilities of driving quantum algorithms with laser pulses in a register of ultracold NaCs polar molecules in a static electric field. We focus on the possibilities of performing scalable logical operations by considering circuits that involve intermolecular gates (implemented on adjacent interacting molecules) to enable the transfer of information from one molecule to another during conditional laser-driven population inversions. We study the implementation of an arithmetic operation (the addition of 0 or 1 on a binary digit and a carry in) which requires population inversions only and the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm which requires a control of the phases. Under typical experimental conditions, our simulations show that high-fidelity logical operations involving several qubits can be performed in a time scale of a few hundreds of microseconds, opening promising perspectives for the manipulation of a large number of qubits in these systems.

NOT gate in a cis-trans photoisomerization model

We numerically study the implementation of a NOT gate by laser pulses in a model molecular system presenting two electronic surfaces coupled by nonadiabatic interactions. The two states of the bit are the fundamental states of the cis-trans isomers of the molecule. The gate is classical in the sense that it involves a one-qubit flip so that the encoding of the outputs is based on population analysis which does not take the phases into account. This gate can also be viewed as a double photoswitch process with the property that the same electric field controls the two isomerizations. As an example, we consider one-dimensional cuts in a model of the retinal in rhodopsin already proposed in the literature. The laser pulses are computed by the multitarget optimal control theory with chirped pulses as trial fields. Very high fidelities are obtained. We also examine the stability of the control when the system is coupled to a bath of oscillators modeled by an ohmic spectral density. The bath correlation time scale being smaller than the pulse duration, the dynamics is carried out in the Markovian approximation.

Local control of non-adiabatic dissociation dynamics.

We present a theoretical approach which consists of applying the strategy of local control to projectors based on asymptotic scattering states. This allows to optimize final state distributions upon laser excitation in cases where strong non-adiabatic effects are present. The approach, despite being based on a time-local formulation, can take non-adiabatic transitions that appear at later times fully into account and adopt a corresponding control strategy. As an example, we show various dissociation channels of HeH(+), a system where the ultrafast dissociation dynamics is determined by strong non-Born-Oppenheimer effects.

Computational investigation and experimental considerations for the classical implementation of a full adder on SO2 by optical pump-probe schemes

Following the scheme recently proposed by Remacle and Levine [Phys. Rev. A 73, 033820 (2006)], we investigate the concrete implementation of a classical full adder on two electronic states (X 1A1 and C 1B2) of the SO2 molecule by optical pump-probe laser pulses using intuitive and counterintuitive (stimulated Raman adiabatic passage) excitation schemes. The resources needed for providing the inputs and reading out are discussed, as well as the conditions for achieving robustness in both the intuitive and counterintuitive pump-dump sequences. The fidelity of the scheme is analyzed with respect to experimental noise and two kinds of perturbations: The coupling to the neighboring rovibrational states and a finite rotational temperature that leads to a mixture for the initial state. It is shown that the logic processing of a full addition cycle can be realistically experimentally implemented on a picosecond time scale while the readout takes a few nanoseconds.

Implementing Quantum Gates and Algorithms in Ultracold Polar Molecules

We numerically investigate the implementation of small quantum algorithms, an arithmetic adder and the Grover search algorithm, in registers of ultracold polar molecules trapped in a lattice by concatenating intramolecular and intermolecular gates. The molecular states are modulated by the exposition to static electric and magnetic fields different for each molecule. The examples are carried out in a two-molecule case. Qubits are encoded either in rovibrational or in hyperfine states, and intermolecular gates involve states of neighboring molecules. Here we use π pulses (i.e., laser pulses such that the integral of the product of the transition dipole moment and their envelope is equal to π, thus ensuring a total population inversion between two states) and pulses designed by optimal control theory adapted to a multi-target problem to drive unitary transformations between the qubit states.

Local control of nonadiabatic photodissociation dynamics using Moller operators

We implement a local control strategy based on the use of Moller operators and use it to control the photodissociation of diatomic molecules in the presence of nonadiabatic interactions.