Luke C. G. Govia

Theory of Josephson photomultipliers: Optimal working conditions and back action

We describe the back action of microwave-photon detection via a Josephson photomultiplier (JPM), a superconducting qubit coupled strongly to a high-quality microwave cavity. The back action operator depends qualitatively on the duration of the measurement interval, resembling the regular photon annihilation operator at short interaction times and approaching a variant of the photon subtraction operator at long times. The optimal operating conditions of the JPM differ from those considered optimal for processing and storing of quantum information, in that a short

Unitary-Feedback-Improved Qubit Initialization in the Dispersive Regime

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High-fidelity qubit measurement with a microwave-photon counter

of the JPM suppresses the cavity dephasing incurred during measurement. Understanding this back action opens the possibility to perform multiple JPM measurements on the same state, hence performing efficient state tomography.

Generating nonclassical states from classical radiation by subtraction measurements

Readout of the state of a superconducting qubit by homodyne detection of the output signal from a dispersively coupled microwave resonator is a common technique in circuit quantum electrodynamics, and is often claimed to be quantum non-demolition (QND) up to the same order of approximation as in the dispersive approximation. However, in this work we show that only in the limit of infinite measurement time is this protocol QND, as the formation of a dressed coherent state in the qubit-cavity system applies an effective rotation to the qubit state. We show how this rotation can be corrected by a coherent operation, leading to improved qubit initialization by measurement and coherent feedback.

Entanglement generated by the dispersive interaction: The dressed coherent state

High-fidelity, efficient quantum nondemolition readout of quantum bits is integral to the goal of quantum computation. As superconducting circuits approach the requirements of scalable, universal fault tolerance, qubit readout must also meet the demand of simplicity to scale with growing system size. Here we propose a fast, high-fidelity, scalable measurement scheme based on the state-selective ring-up of a cavity followed by photodetection with the recently introduced Josephson photomultiplier (JPM), a current-biased Josephson junction. This scheme maps qubit state information to the binary digital output of the JPM, circumventing the need for room-temperature heterodyne detection and offering the possibility of a cryogenic interface to superconducting digital control circuitry. Numerics show that measurement contrast in excess of 95% is achievable in a measurement time of 140 ns. We discuss perspectives to scale this scheme to enable readout of multiple qubit channels with a single JPM.

Enhancing cavity QED via anti-squeezing: synthetic ultra-strong coupling

We describe the creation of nonclassical states of microwave radiation via ideal dichotomic single photon detection, i.e., a detector that only indicates presence or absence of photons. Ideally, such a detector has a back action in the form of the subtraction operator (bare lowering operator). Using the non-linearity of this back action, it is possible to create a large family of nonclassical states of microwave radiation, including squeezed and multi-component cat states, starting from a coherent state. We discuss the applicability of this protocol to current experimental designs of Josephson photomultipliers.

Scalable two- and four-qubit parity measurement with a threshold photon counter

In the dispersive regime of qubit-cavity coupling, classical cavity drive populates the cavity, but leaves the qubit state unaffected. However, the dispersive Hamiltonian is derived after both a frame transformation and an approximation. Therefore, to connect to external experimental devices, the inverse frame transformation from the dispersive frame back to the lab frame is necessary. In this work, we show that in the lab frame the system is best described by an entangled state known as the dressed coherent state, and thus even in the dispersive regime, entanglement is generated between the qubit and the cavity. Also, we show that further qubit evolution depends on both the amplitude and phase of the dressed coherent state, and use the dressed coherent state to calculate the measurement contrast of a recently developed dispersive readout protocol.

Optimizing microwave photodetection: input–output theory

We present and analyze a method where parametric (two-photon) driving of a cavity is used to exponentially enhance the light-matter coupling in a generic cavity QED setup, with time-dependent control. Our method allows one to enhance weak-coupling systems, such that they enter the strong coupling regime (where the coupling exceeds dissipative rates) and even the ultrastrong coupling regime (where the coupling is comparable to the cavity frequency). As an example, we show how the scheme allows one to use a weak-coupling system to adiabatically prepare the highly entangled ground state of the ultrastrong coupling system. The resulting state could be used for remote entanglement applications.

Quantum simulation of a quantum stochastic walk

Parity measurement is a central tool to many quantum information processing tasks. In this Letter, we propose a method to directly measure two- and four-qubit parity with low overhead in hard- and software, while remaining robust to experimental imperfections. Our scheme relies on dispersive qubit-cavity coupling and photon counting that is sensitive only to intensity; both ingredients are widely realized in many different quantum computing modalities. For a leading technology in quantum computing, superconducting integrated circuits, we analyze the measurement contrast and the back action of the scheme and show that this measurement comes close enough to an ideal parity measurement to be applicable to quantum error correction.

Enhanced qubit readout using locally generated squeezing and inbuilt Purcell-decay suppression

High fidelity microwave photon counting is an important tool for various areas from background radiation analysis in astronomy to the implementation of circuit QED architectures for the realization of a scalable quantum information processor. In this work we describe a microwave photon counter coupled to a semi-infinite transmission line. We employ input-output theory to examine a continuously driven transmission line as well as traveling photon wave packets. Using analytic and numerical methods, we calculate the conditions on the system parameters necessary to optimize measurement and achieve high detection efficiency.