Topics
The most frequent field-map topics among the PI' tracked papers.
- Feedback 27
- Open systems 4
- Sensing 3
- Photonics 3
- Reservoir engineering 2
- Linear systems 2
- QEC 2
Recent papers
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Optimized mitigation of random-telegraph-noise dephasing by spectator-qubit sensing and control
Abstract
Spectator qubits (SQs) are a tool to mitigate noise in hard-to-access data qubits. The SQ, designed to be much more sensitive to the noise, is measured frequently, and the accumulated results used rarely to correct the data qubits. For the hardware-relevant example of dephasing from random telegraph noise, we introduce a Bayesian method employing complex linear maps which leads to a plausibly optimal adaptive measurement and control protocol. The suppression of the decoherence rate is quadratic in the SQ sensitivity, establishing that the SQ paradigm works arbitrarily well in the right regime.
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Implementation of a canonical phase measurement with quantum feedback
Abstract
Much of modern metrology and communication technology encodes information in electromagnetic waves, typically as an amplitude or phase. While current hardware can perform near-ideal measurements of photon number or field amplitude, to date no device exists that can even in principle perform an ideal phase measurement. In this work, we implement a single-shot canonical phase measurement on a one-photon wave packet, which surpasses the current standard of heterodyne detection and is optimal for single-shot phase estimation. By applying quantum feedback to a Josephson parametric amplifier, our system adaptively changes its measurement basis during photon arrival and allows us to validate the detector's performance by tracking the quantum state of the photon source. These results provide an important capability for optical quantum computing, and demonstrate that quantum feedback can both enhance the precision of a detector and enable it to measure new classes of physical observables.
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Stochastic feedback control of quantum transport to realize a dynamical ensemble of two nonorthogonal pure states
Abstract
A Markovian open quantum system which relaxes to a unique steady state $ρ_{ss}$ of finite rank can be decomposed into a finite physically realizable ensemble (PRE) of pure states. That is, as shown by Karasik and Wiseman [Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 020406 (2011)], in principle there is a way to monitor the environment so that in the long time limit the conditional state jumps between a finite number of possible pure states. In this paper we show how to apply this idea to the dynamics of a double quantum dot arising from the feedback control of quantum transport, as previously considered by one of us and co-workers [Phys. Rev. B 84, 085302 (2011)]. Specifically, we consider the limit where the system can be described as a qubit, and show that while the control scheme can always realize a two-state PRE, in the incoherent tunneling regime there are infinitely many PREs compatible with the dynamics that cannot be so realized. For the two-state PREs that are realized, we calculate the counting statistics and see a clear distinction between the coherent and incoherent regimes.
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Rapid readout of a register of qubits using open loop quantum control
Abstract
Measurements are a primitive for characterizing quantum systems. Reducing the time taken to perform a measurement may be beneficial in many areas of quantum information processing. We show that permuting the eigenvalues of the state matrix in the logical basis, using open loop control, provides a $O(n)$ reduction in the measurement time, where $n$ is the number of qubits in the register. This reduction is of the same order as the (previously introduced) locally optimal feedback protocol. The advantage of the open loop protocol is that it is far less difficult experimentally. Because the control commutes with the measured observable at all times, our rapid measurement protocol could be used for characterizing a quantum system, by state or process tomography, or to implement measurement-based quantum error correction.
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The pointer basis and the feedback stabilization of quantum systems
Abstract
The dynamics for an open quantum system can be `unravelled' in infinitely many ways, depending on how the environment is monitored, yielding different sorts of conditioned states, evolving stochastically. In the case of ideal monitoring these states are pure, and the set of states for a given monitoring forms a basis (which is overcomplete in general) for the system. It has been argued elsewhere [D. Atkins et al., Europhys. Lett. 69, 163 (2005)] that the `pointer basis' as introduced by Zurek and Paz [Phys. Rev. Lett 70, 1187(1993)], should be identified with the unravelling-induced basis which decoheres most slowly. Here we show the applicability of this concept of pointer basis to the problem of state stabilization for quantum systems. In particular we prove that for linear Gaussian quantum systems, if the feedback control is assumed to be strong compared to the decoherence of the pointer basis, then the system can be stabilized in one of the pointer basis states with a fidelity close to one (the infidelity varies inversely with the control strength). Moreover, if the aim of the feedback is to maximize the fidelity of the unconditioned system state with a pure state that is one of its conditioned states, then the optimal unravelling for stabilizing the system in this way is that which induces the pointer basis for the conditioned states. We illustrate these results with a model system: quantum Brownian motion. We show that even if the feedback control strength is comparable to the decoherence, the optimal unravelling still induces a basis very close to the pointer basis. However if the feedback control is weak compared to the decoherence, this is not the case.
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Global versus local optimality in feedback-controlled qubit purification: new insights from minimizing Rényi entropies
Abstract
It was first shown by Jacobs, in 2003, that the process of qubit state purification by continuous measurement of one observable can be enhanced, on average, by unitary feedback control. Here, we quantify this by the reduction in any one of the family of Rényi entropies $S_α$, with $0< α< \infty$, at some terminal time, revealing the rich structure of stochastic quantum control even for this simple problem. We generalize Jacobs' original argument, which was for (the unique) impurity measure with a linear evolution map under his protocol, by replacing linearity with convexity, thereby making it applicable to Rényi entropies $S_α$ for $α$ in a finite interval about $1$. Even with this generalization, Jacobs' argument fails to identify the surprising fact, which we prove by Bellman's principle of dynamic programming, that his protocol is globally optimal for all Rényi entropies whose decrease is locally maximized by that protocol. Also surprisingly, even though there is a range of Rényi entropies whose decrease is always locally maximized by the null-control protocol, that null-control protocol cannot be shown to be globally optimal in any instance. These results highlight the non-intuitive relation between local and global optimality in stochastic quantum control.
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Unavoidable decoherence in the quantum control of an unknown state
Abstract
A common objective for quantum control is to force a quantum system, initially in an unknown state, into a particular target subspace. We show that if the subspace is required to be a decoherence-free subspace of dimension greater than 1, then such control must be decoherent. That is, it will take almost any pure state to a mixed state. We make no assumptions about the control mechanism, but our result implies that for this purpose coherent control offers no advantage, in principle, over the obvious measurement-based feedback protocol.
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Coherent feedback that beats all measurement-based feedback protocols
Abstract
We show that when the speed of control is bounded, there is a widely applicable minimal-time control problem for which a coherent feedback protocol is optimal, and is faster than all measurement-based feedback protocols, where the latter are defined in a strict sense. The superiority of the coherent protocol is due to the fact that it can exploit a geodesic path in Hilbert space, a path that measurement-based protocols cannot follow.
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Maximum information gain in weak or continuous measurements of qudits: complementarity is not enough
Abstract
To maximize average information gain for a classical measurement, all outcomes of an observation must be equally likely. The condition of equally likely outcomes may be enforced in quantum theory by ensuring that one's state $ρ$ is maximally different, or complementary, to the measured observable. This requires the ability to perform unitary operations on the state, conditioned on the results of prior measurements. We consider the case of measurement of a component of angular momentum for a qudit (a $D$-dimensional system, with $D=2J+1$). For weak or continuous-in-time (i.e. repeated weak) measurements, we show that the complementarity condition ensures an average improvement, in the rate of purification, of only 2. However, we show that by choosing the optimal control protocol of this type, one can attain the best possible scaling, $O(D^{2})$, for the average improvement. For this protocol the acquisition of information is nearly deterministic. Finally we contrast these results with those for complementarity-based protocols in a register of qbits.
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Efficient tracking of the state of a qubit
Abstract
We study resource requirements for tracking the state of an open qubit subject to continuous observation. This problem is of great importance for quantum control.