Nikita Semenin

High-fidelity two-qubit entangling gates are essential for the realization of useful quantum algorithms on quantum processors. The Mølmer-Sørensen (MS) gate has become a common choice for trapped-ion quantum computing due to its resilience to ion temperature and its demonstrated record fidelities. However, the spectral impurity of the driving laser field impacts gate performance, with phase noise influencing the qubit dynamics through mechanisms operating on different timescales. In this work, we present a comprehensive theoretical analysis of laser phase noise in the MS gate, identifying two spectral ranges which influence the gate fidelity the most: "fast" noise at frequencies near the motional mode spectrum, and "slow" noise at frequencies on the order of the inverse gate time. We derive the noise Hamiltonians for two common laser beam geometries and obtain analytical expressions for the average gate error in terms of the laser noise power spectral density and gate parameters. For slowly varying noise spectra, we provide simplified error estimates. In addition, we validate our findings against previously published numerical simulations.

Qudits, or multi-level quantum information carriers, present a promising path for scaling quantum computers. However, their use introduces increased complexity in quantum logic, necessitating careful control of relative phases between different qudit levels. In trapped-ion systems, entangling operations accumulate phases on specific levels that are no longer global, unlike in qubit architectures. Furthermore, the structure of multi-level gates becomes increasingly intricate with higher-dimensional Hilbert spaces. This work explores the theory of these additional entangling and non-entangling phases, accumulated in Mølmer--Sørensen and Light-shift gates. We propose methods to actively compensate for these phases, enhance gate robustness against parameter fluctuations, and simplify native gates for more efficient circuit decomposition. Our results pave the way toward the practical and scalable implementation of qudit-based quantum processors.