Roderich Moessner

A crucial ingredient for scalable fault-tolerant quantum computing is the construction of logical qubits with low error rates and intrinsic noise protection. We propose a cross-platform construction for such hardware-level noise-protection in which the qubits are protected from depolarizing (relaxation) and dephasing errors induced by local noise. These logical qubits arise from the entanglement between two internal degrees of freedom, hence - entanglemons. Our construction is based on the emergence of collective degrees of freedom from a generalized coherent state construction, similar in spirit to spin coherent states, of a set of such internally entangled units. These degrees of freedom, for a finite number of units, parametrize the quantized version of complex projective space $\mathbb{C}$P(3). The noise protection of the entanglemon qubit is then a consequence of a weakly coupled emergent degree of freedom arising due to the non-linear geometry of complex projective space. We present two simple models for entanglemons which are platform agnostic, provide varying levels of protection and in which the qubit basis states are the two lowest energy states with a higher energy gap to other states. We end by commenting on how entanglemons could be realized in platforms ranging from superconducting circuits and trapped ion platforms to possibly also quantum Hall skyrmions in graphene and quantum dots in semiconductors. The inherent noise protection in our models combined with the platform agnosticism highlights the potential of encoding information in additional weakly coupled emergent degrees of freedom arising in non-linear geometrical spaces and curved phase spaces, thereby proposing a different route to achieve scalable fault-tolerance.

The Letter by N. Y. Yao et. al. [1,2] presents three models for realizing a many-body localized discrete time-crystal (MBL DTC): a short-ranged model [1], its revised version [2], as well as a long-range model of a trapped ion experiment [1,3]. We show that none of these realize an MBL DTC for the parameter ranges quoted in Refs. [1,2]. The central phase diagrams in [1] therefore cannot be reproduced. The models show rapid decay of oscillations from generic initial states, in sharp contrast to the robust period doubling dynamics characteristic of an MBL DTC. Long-lived oscillations from special initial states (such as polarized states) can be understood from the familiar low-temperature physics of a static transverse field Ising model, rather than the nonequilibrium physics of an eigenstate-ordered MBL DTC. Our results on the long-range model also demonstrate, by extension, the absence of an MBL DTC in the trapped ion experiment of Ref. [3].

Recent progress in the realm of noisy, intermediate scale quantum (NISQ) devices represents an exciting opportunity for many-body physics, by introducing new laboratory platforms with unprecedented control and measurement capabilities. We explore the implications of NISQ platforms for many-body physics in a practical sense: we ask which {\it physical phenomena}, in the domain of quantum statistical mechanics, they may realize more readily than traditional experimental platforms. As a particularly well-suited target, we identify discrete time crystals (DTCs), novel non-equilibrium states of matter that break time translation symmetry. These can only be realized in the intrinsically out-of-equilibrium setting of periodically driven quantum systems stabilized by disorder induced many-body localization. While precursors of the DTC have been observed across a variety of experimental platforms - ranging from trapped ions to nitrogen vacancy centers to NMR crystals - none have \emph{all} the necessary ingredients for realizing a fully-fledged incarnation of this phase, and for detecting its signature long-range \emph{spatiotemporal order}. We show that a new generation of quantum simulators can be programmed to realize the DTC phase and to experimentally detect its dynamical properties, a task requiring extensive capabilities for programmability, initialization and read-out. Specifically, the architecture of Google's Sycamore processor is a remarkably close match for the task at hand. We also discuss the effects of environmental decoherence, and how they can be distinguished from `internal' decoherence coming from closed-system thermalization dynamics. Already with existing technology and noise levels, we find that DTC spatiotemporal order would be observable over hundreds of periods, with parametric improvements to come as the hardware advances.