Rikizo Ikuta

Much like classical supercomputers, scaling up quantum computers requires an optical interconnect. However, signal attenuation leads to irreversible qubit loss, making quantum interconnect design guidelines and metrics different from conventional computing. Inspired by the classical Dragonfly topology, we propose a multi-group structure where the group switch routes photons emitted by computational end nodes to the group's shared pool of Bell state analyzers (which conduct the entanglement swapping that creates end-to-end entanglement) or across a low-diameter path to another group. We present a full-stack analysis of system performance, a combination of distributed and centralized protocols, and a resource scheduler that plans qubit placement and communications for large-scale, fault-tolerant systems. We implement a prototype three-node switched interconnect to justify hardware-side scalability and to expose low-level architectural challenges. We create two-hop entanglement with fidelities of 0.6-0.76. Our design emphasizes reducing network hops and optical components to simplify system stabilization while flexibly adjusting optical path lengths. Based on evaluated loss and infidelity budgets, we find that moderate-radix switches enable systems meeting expected near-term needs, and large systems are feasible. Our design is expected to be effective for a variety of quantum computing technologies, including ion traps and neutral atoms.

Trapped atomic ions are ideal single photon emitters with long lived internal states which can be entangled with emitted photons. Coupling the ion to an optical cavity enables efficient emission of single photons into a single spatial mode and grants control over their temporal shape. These features are key for quantum information processing and quantum communication. However, the photons emitted by these systems are unsuitable for long-distance transmission due to their wavelengths. Here we report the transmission of single photons from a single $^{40}\text{Ca}^{+}$ ion coupled to an optical cavity over a 10 km optical fibre via frequency conversion from 866 nm to the telecom C-band at 1,530 nm. We observe non-classical photon statistics of the direct cavity emission, the converted photons and the 10 km transmitted photons, as well as the preservation of the photons' temporal shape throughout. This telecommunication ready system can be a key component for long-distance quantum communication as well as future cloud quantum computation.

We determine the minimal number of qubits that it is necessary to have access to in order to transform Dicke states into other Dicke states. In general, the number of qubits in Dicke states cannot be increased via transformation gates by accessing only a single qubit, in direct contrast to other multipartite entangled states such as GHZ, W and cluster states. We construct a universal optimal gate which adds spin-up qubits or spin-down qubits to any Dicke state by minimal access. We also show the existence of a universal gate which transforms any size of Dicke state as long as it has access to at least the required number of qubits. Our results have important consequences for the generation of Dicke states in physical systems such as ion traps, all-optical setups and cavity-QED settings where they can be used for a variety of quantum information processing tasks.