Biyao Yang

We investigate the exact effect on ion trap quantum computation after field quantization. First an exact expression of failure probability from field quantization after many CNOT operations in Cirac-Zoller scheme is given. It is proportional to operation number and the amplitude of $|1\rangle_x |0\rangle_y$ or $|1\rangle_x |1\rangle_y$ in initial state, and inverse proportional to mean number of photons and amplitude of $|0\rangle_x |0\rangle_y$ or $|0\rangle_x |1\rangle_y$ in initial state. Then we calculate the failure probability when the limitation to mean number of photons in sideband transition is considered. When the initial state is $|1\rangle_x |0\rangle_y$ or $|1\rangle_x |1\rangle_y$, after about $10^2$ times of CNOT operations, failure probability is no less than $10^{-2}$, while $10^{-2}$ is the known maximum threshold in fault-tolerant quantum computation. Then when the initial state is $|1\rangle_x |0\rangle_y$ or $|1\rangle_x |1\rangle_y$, the number of CNOT gates on the same pair of physical qubits should be no more than $10^2$ in one error-correction period, or else the computation cannot be implemented reliably. This conclusion can help to determine the number of CNOT operations between coding and decoding in one error-correction period in fault-tolerant quantum computation.

Rabi oscillation of a two-level system driven by a pulse train is a basic process involved in quantum computation. We present a full quantum treatment of this process and show that the population inversion of this process collapses exponentially, has no revival phenomenon, and has a dual-pulse structure in every period. As an application, we investigate the properties of this process in ion-trap quantum computation. We find that in the Cirac--Zoller computation scheme, when the wavelength of the driving field is of the order $10^{-6}$ m, the lower bound of failure probability is of the order $10^{-2}$ after about $10^2$ controlled-NOT gates. This value is approximately equal to the generally-accepted threshold in fault-tolerant quantum computation.