Olivier Landon-Cardinal

Efficient quantum state tomography

Quantum state tomography--deducing quantum states from measured data--is the gold standard for verification and benchmarking of quantum devices. It has been realized in systems with few components, but for larger systems it becomes unfeasible because the number of measurements and the amount of computation required to process them grows exponentially in the system size. Here, we present two tomography schemes that scale much more favourably than direct tomography with system size. One of them requires unitary operations on a constant number of subsystems, whereas the other requires only local measurements together with more elaborate post-processing. Both rely only on a linear number of experimental operations and post-processing that is polynomial in the system size. These schemes can be applied to a wide range of quantum states, in particular those that are well approximated by matrix product states. The accuracy of the reconstructed states can be rigorously certified without any a priori assumptions.

Practical Characterization of Quantum Devices without Tomography

Quantum tomography is the main method used to assess the quality of quantum information processing devices. However, the amount of resources needed for quantum tomography is exponential in the device size. Part of the problem is that tomography generates much more information than is usually sought. Taking a more targeted approach, we develop schemes that enable (i) estimating the fidelity of an experiment to a theoretical ideal description, (ii) learning which description within a reduced subset best matches the experimental data. Both these approaches yield a significant reduction in resources compared to tomography. In particular, we demonstrate that fidelity can be estimated from a number of simple experiments that is independent of the system size, removing an important roadblock for the experimental study of larger quantum information processing units.

Local topological order inhibits thermal stability in 2D.

We study the robustness of quantum information stored in the degenerate ground space of a local, frustration-free Hamiltonian with commuting terms on a 2D spin lattice. On one hand, a macroscopic energy barrier separating the distinct ground states under local transformations would protect the information from thermal fluctuations. On the other hand, local topological order would shield the ground space from static perturbations. Here we demonstrate that local topological order implies a constant energy barrier, thus inhibiting thermal stability.

Practical learning method for multi-scale entangled states

We describe two related methods for reconstructing multi-scale entangled states from a small number of efficiently-implementable measurements and fast post-processing. Both methods only require single-particle measurements and the total number of measurements is polynomial in the number of particles. Data post-processing for state reconstruction uses standard tools, namely matrix diagonalization and conjugate gradient method, and scales polynomially with the number of particles. Both methods prevent the build-up of errors from both numerical and experimental imperfections. The first method is conceptually simpler but requires unitary control. The second method circumvents the need for unitary control but requires more measurements and produces an estimated state of lower fidelity.

Perturbative instability of quantum memory based on effective long-range interactions

A two-dimensional topologically ordered quantum memory is well protected against error if the energy gap is large compared to the temperature, but this protection does not improve as the system size increases. We review and critique some recent proposals for improving the memory time by introducing long-range interactions among anyons, noting that instability with respect to small local perturbations of the Hamiltonian is a generic problem for such proposals. We also discuss some broader issues regarding the prospects for scalable quantum memory in two-dimensional systems.

Necessity of an energy barrier for self-correction of Abelian quantum doubles

We rigorously establish an Arrhenius law for the mixing time of quantum doubles based on any Abelian groupZd. We have made the concept of the energy barrier therein mathe tically well-defined, it is related to the minimum energy cost the environment has to provide to t he system in order to produce a generalized Pauli error, maximized for any generalized Pauli errors, no t o ly logical operators. We evaluate this generalized energy barrier in Abelian quantum double models and find it to be a constant independent of system size. Thus, we rule out the possibility of entropic protection for this b road group of models.

Anyons are not energy eigenspaces of quantum double Hamiltonians

Kitaevs quantum double models, including the toric code, are canonical examples of quantum topological models on a 2D spin lattice. Their Hamiltonian defines the groundspace by imposing an energy penalty to any nontrivial flux or charge, but does not distinguish among those. We generalize this construction by introducing a novel family of Hamiltonians made of commuting four-body projectors that provide an intricate splitting of the Hilbert space by discriminating among non-trivial charges and fluxes. Our construction highlights that anyons are not in one-to-one correspondence with energy eigenspaces, a feature already present in Kitaevs construction. This discrepancy is due to the presence of local degrees of freedom in addition to topological ones on a lattice.

Decoherence of a quantum gyroscope

We study the behavior of a quantum gyroscope, that is, a quantum system which singles out a direction in space in order to measure certain properties of incoming particles such as the orientation of their spins. We show that repeated Heisenberg interactions of the gyroscope with several incoming spin-

Efficient Direct Tomography for Matrix Product States

\frac{1}{2}

Topological phase diagram of

particles provides a simple model of decoherence which exhibits both relaxation and dephasing. Focusing on the semiclassical limit, we derive equations of motion for the evolution of a coherent state and investigate the evolution of a superposition of such states. While a coherent state evolves on a time scale given by the classical ratio of the angular momentum of the gyroscope to that of the incoming particles, dephasing acts on a much shorter time scale that depends only on the angular difference of the states in the superposition.