Andrew Risinger

We entangle two co-trapped atomic barium ion qubits by collecting single visible photons from each ion through in-vacuo 0.8 NA objectives, interfering them through an integrated fiber-beamsplitter and detecting them in coincidence. This projects the qubits into an entangled Bell state with an observed fidelity lower bound of F > 94%. We also introduce an ytterbium ion for sympathetic cooling to remove the need for recooling interruptions and achieve a continuous entanglement rate of 250 1/s.

A test of quantumness is a protocol where a classical user issues challenges to a quantum device to determine if it exhibits non-classical behavior, under certain cryptographic assumptions. Recent attempts to implement such tests on current quantum computers rely on either interactive challenges with efficient verification, or non-interactive challenges with inefficient (exponential time) verification. In this paper, we execute an efficient non-interactive test of quantumness on an ion-trap quantum computer. Our results significantly exceed the bound for a classical device's success.

Quantum processors use the native interactions between effective spins to simulate Hamiltonians or execute quantum gates. In most processors, the native interactions are pairwise, limiting the efficiency of controlling entanglement between many qubits. Here we experimentally demonstrate a new class of native interactions between trapped-ion qubits, extending conventional pairwise interactions to higher order. We realize three- and four-body spin interactions as examples, showing that high-order spin polynomials may serve as a new toolbox for quantum information applications.

Achieving quantum computational advantage requires solving a classically intractable problem on a quantum device. Natural proposals rely upon the intrinsic hardness of classically simulating quantum mechanics; however, verifying the output is itself classically intractable. On the other hand, certain quantum algorithms (e.g. prime factorization via Shor's algorithm) are efficiently verifiable, but require more resources than what is available on near-term devices. One way to bridge the gap between verifiability and implementation is to use "interactions" between a prover and a verifier. By leveraging cryptographic functions, such protocols enable the classical verifier to enforce consistency in a quantum prover's responses across multiple rounds of interaction. In this work, we demonstrate the first implementation of an interactive quantum advantage protocol, using an ion trap quantum computer. We execute two complementary protocols -- one based upon the learning with errors problem and another where the cryptographic construction implements a computational Bell test. To perform multiple rounds of interaction, we implement mid-circuit measurements on a subset of trapped ion qubits, with subsequent coherent evolution. For both protocols, the performance exceeds the asymptotic bound for classical behavior; maintaining this fidelity at scale would conclusively demonstrate verifiable quantum advantage.

Simulations of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments can be an important tool for extracting information about molecular structure and optimizing experimental protocols but are often intractable on classical computers for large molecules such as proteins and for protocols such as zero-field NMR. We demonstrate the first quantum simulation of an NMR spectrum, computing the zero-field spectrum of the methyl group of acetonitrile using four qubits of a trapped-ion quantum computer. We reduce the sampling cost of the quantum simulation by an order of magnitude using compressed sensing techniques. We show how the intrinsic decoherence of NMR systems may enable the zero-field simulation of classically hard molecules on relatively near-term quantum hardware and discuss how the experimentally demonstrated quantum algorithm can be used to efficiently simulate scientifically and technologically relevant solid-state NMR experiments on more mature devices. Our work opens a practical application for quantum computation.

Many-body open quantum systems balance internal dynamics against decoherence from interactions with an environment. Here, we explore this balance via random quantum circuits implemented on a trapped ion quantum computer, where the system evolution is represented by unitary gates with interspersed projective measurements. As the measurement rate is varied, a purification phase transition is predicted to emerge at a critical point akin to a fault-tolerent threshold. We probe the "pure" phase, where the system is rapidly projected to a deterministic state conditioned on the measurement outcomes, and the "mixed" or "coding" phase, where the initial state becomes partially encoded into a quantum error correcting codespace. We find convincing evidence of the two phases and show numerically that, with modest system scaling, critical properties of the transition clearly emerge.

We study variants of Shor's code that are adept at handling single-axis correlated idling errors, which are commonly observed in many quantum systems. By using the repetition code structure of the Shor's code basis states, we calculate the logical channel applied to the encoded information when subjected to coherent and correlated single qubit idling errors, followed by stabilizer measurement. Changing the signs of the stabilizer generators allows us to change how the coherent errors interfere, leading to a quantum error correcting code which performs as well as a classical repetition code of equivalent distance against these errors. We demonstrate a factor of 4 improvement of the logical memory in a distance-3 logical qubit implemented on a trapped-ion quantum computer. Even-distance versions of our Shor code variants are decoherence-free subspaces and fully robust to identical and independent coherent idling noise.

Quantum error correction protects fragile quantum information by encoding it into a larger quantum system. These extra degrees of freedom enable the detection and correction of errors, but also increase the operational complexity of the encoded logical qubit. Fault-tolerant circuits contain the spread of errors while operating the logical qubit, and are essential for realizing error suppression in practice. While fault-tolerant design works in principle, it has not previously been demonstrated in an error-corrected physical system with native noise characteristics. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate fault-tolerant preparation, measurement, rotation, and stabilizer measurement of a Bacon-Shor logical qubit using 13 trapped ion qubits. When we compare these fault-tolerant protocols to non-fault tolerant protocols, we see significant reductions in the error rates of the logical primitives in the presence of noise. The result of fault-tolerant design is an average state preparation and measurement error of 0.6% and a Clifford gate error of 0.3% after error correction. Additionally, we prepare magic states with fidelities exceeding the distillation threshold, demonstrating all of the key single-qubit ingredients required for universal fault-tolerant operation. These results demonstrate that fault-tolerant circuits enable highly accurate logical primitives in current quantum systems. With improved two-qubit gates and the use of intermediate measurements, a stabilized logical qubit can be achieved.