Tom Manovitz

Autonomous quantum machines (AQMs) execute tasks without requiring time-dependent external control. Motivations for AQMs include the restrictions imposed by classical control on quantum machines' coherence times and geometries. Most AQM work is theoretical and abstract; yet an experiment recently demonstrated AQMs' usefulness in qubit reset, crucial to quantum computing. To further reduce quantum computing's classical control, we propose realizations of (fully and partially) quantum-autonomous gates on three platforms: Rydberg atoms, trapped ions, and superconducting qubits. First, we show that a Rydberg-blockade interaction or an ultrafast transition can quantum-autonomously effect entangling gates on Rydberg atoms. One can perform $Z$ or entangling gates on trapped ions mostly quantum-autonomously, by sculpting a linear Paul trap or leveraging a ring trap. Passive lasers control these gates, as well as the Rydberg-atom gates, quantum-autonomously. Finally, circuit quantum electrodynamics can enable quantum-autonomous $Z$ and $XY$ gates on superconducting qubits. The gates can serve as building blocks for (fully or partially) quantum-autonomous circuits, which may reduce classical-control burdens.

Many-body systems of quantum interacting particles in which time-reversal symmetry is broken give rise to a variety of rich collective behaviors, and are therefore a major target of research in modern physics. Quantum simulators can potentially be used to explore and understand such systems, which are often beyond the computational reach of classical simulation. Of these, platforms with universal quantum control can experimentally access a wide range of physical properties. However, simultaneously achieving strong programmable interactions, strong time-reversal symmetry breaking, and high fidelity quantum control in a scalable manner is challenging. Here we realized quantum simulations of interacting, time-reversal broken quantum systems in a universal trapped-ion quantum processor. Using a scalable scheme that was recently proposed we implemented time-reversal breaking synthetic gauge fields, shown for the first time in a trapped ion chain, along with unique coupling geometries, potentially extendable to simulation of multi dimensional systems. Our high fidelity single-site resolution in control and measurement, along with highly programmable interactions, allow us to perform full state tomography of a ground state showcasing persistent current, and to observe dynamics of a time-reversal broken system with nontrivial interactions. Our results open a path towards simulation of time-reversal broken many-body systems with a wide range of features and coupling geometries.

Quantum computers are expected to achieve a significant speed-up over classical computers in solving a range of computational problems. Chains of ions held in a linear Paul trap are a promising platform for constructing such quantum computers, due to their long coherence times and high quality of control. Here we report on the construction of a small, five-qubit, universal quantum computer using $^{88}\text{Sr}^{+}$ ions in an RF trap. All basic operations, including initialization, quantum logic operations, and readout, are performed with high fidelity. Selective two-qubit and single-qubit gates, implemented using a narrow linewidth laser, comprise a universal gate set, allowing realization of any unitary on the quantum register. We review the main experimental tools, and describe in detail unique aspects of the computer: the use of robust entangling gates and the development of a quantum coherent feedback system through EMCCD camera acquisition. The latter is necessary for carrying out quantum error correction protocols in future experiments.

In some quantum computing (QC) architectures, entanglement of an arbitrary number of qubits can be generated in a single operation. This property has many potential applications, and may specifically be useful for quantum error correction (QEC). Stabilizer measurements can then be implemented using a single multi-qubit gate instead of several two-qubit gates, thus reducing circuit depth. In this study, the toric code is used as a benchmark to compare the performance of two-qubit and five-qubit gates within parity-check circuits. We consider trapped ion qubits that are controlled via Raman transitions, where the primary source of error is assumed to be spontaneous photon scattering. We show that a five-qubit Mølmer-Sørensen gate offers an approximately $40\%$ improvement over two-qubit gates in terms of the fault tolerance threshold. This result indicates an advantage of using multi-qubit gates in the context of QEC.

In recent years, arrays of atomic ions in a linear RF trap have proven to be a particularly successful platform for quantum simulation. However, a wide range of quantum models and phenomena have, so far, remained beyond the reach of such simulators. In this work we introduce a technique that can substantially extend this reach using an external field gradient along the ion chain and a global, uniform driving field. The technique can be used to generate both static and time-varying synthetic gauge fields in a linear chain of trapped ions, and enables continuous simulation of a variety of coupling geometries and topologies, including periodic boundary conditions and high dimensional Hamiltonians. We describe the technique, derive the corresponding effective Hamiltonian, propose a number of variations, and discuss the possibility of scaling to quantum-advantage sized simulators. Additionally, we suggest several possible implementations and briefly examine two: the Aharonov-Bohm ring and the frustrated triangular ladder.

The prevalent approach to executing quantum algorithms on quantum computers is to break-down the algorithms to a concatenation of universal gates, typically single and two-qubit gates. However such a decomposition results in long gate sequences which are exponential in the qubit register size. Furthermore, gate fidelities tend to decrease when acting in larger qubit registers. Thus high-fidelity implementations in large qubit registers is still a prominent challenge. Here we propose and investigate multi-qubit entangling gates for trapped-ions. Our gates couple many qubits at once, allowing to decrease the total number of gates used while retaining a high gate fidelity. Our method employs all of the normal-modes of motion of the ion chain, which allows to operate outside of the adiabatic regime and at rates comparable to the secular ion-trapping frequency. Furthermore we extend our method for generating Hamiltonians which are suitable for quantum analog simulations, such as a nearest-neighbour spin Hamiltonian or the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger Hamiltonian.

Atomic isotope shifts (ISs) are the isotope-dependent energy differences in the atomic electron energy levels. These shifts serve an important role in atomic and nuclear physics, and particularly in the latter as signatures of nuclear structure. Recently ISs have been suggested as unique probes of beyond Standard Model (SM) physics, under the condition that they be determined significantly more precisely than current state of the art. In this work we present a simple and robust method for measuring ISs with ions in a Paul trap, by taking advantage of Hilbert subspaces that are insensitive to common-mode noise yet sensitive to the IS. Using this method we evaluate the IS of the $5S_{1/2}\leftrightarrow4D_{5/2}$ transition in $^{86}\text{Sr}^+$ and $^{88}\text{Sr}^+$ with a $1.6\times10^{-11}$ relative uncertainty to be 570,264,063.435(9) Hz. Furthermore, we detect a relative difference of $3.46(23)\times10^{-8}$ between the orbital g-factors of the electrons in the $4D_{5/2}$ level of the two isotopes. Our method is relatively easy to implement and is indifferent to element or isotope, paving the way for future tabletop searches for new physics and posing interesting prospects for testing quantum many-body calculations and for the study of nuclear structure.

We present a method that uses radio-frequency pulses to cancel the quadrupole shift in optical clock transitions. Quadrupole shifts are an inherent inhomogeneous broadening mechanism in trapped ion crystals, limiting current optical ion clocks to work with a single probe ion. Cancelling this shift at each interrogation cycle of the ion frequency allows the use of $N>1$ ions in clocks, thus reducing the uncertainty in the clock frequency by $\sqrt{N}$ according to the standard quantum limit. Our sequence relies on the tensorial nature of the quadrupole shift, and thus also cancels other tensorial shifts, such as the tensor ac stark shift. We experimentally demonstrate our sequence on three and seven $^{88}\mathrm{Sr}^{+}$ ions trapped in a linear Paul trap, using correlation spectroscopy. We show a reduction of the quadrupole shift difference between ions to $\approx20$ mHz's level where other shifts, such as the relativistic 2$^{\mathrm{nd}}$ order Doppler shift, are expected to limit our spectral resolution. In addition, we show that using radio-frequency dynamic decoupling we can also cancel the effect of 1$^{\mathrm{st}}$ order Zeeman shifts.

High-fidelity two-qubit entangling gates play an important role in many quantum information processing tasks and are a necessary building block for constructing a universal quantum computer. Such high-fidelity gates have been demonstrated on trapped-ion qubits, however, control errors and noise in gate parameters may still lead to reduced fidelity. Here we propose and demonstrate a general family of two-qubit entangling gates which are robust to different sources of noise and control errors. These gates generalize the celebrated Mølmer-Sørensen gate by using multi-tone drives. We experimentally implemented several of the proposed gates on $^{88}\text{Sr}^{+}$ ions trapped in a linear Paul trap, and verified their resilience.

Engineering entanglement between quantum systems often involves coupling through a bosonic mediator, which should be disentangled from the systems at the operation's end. The quality of such an operation is generally limited by environmental and control noise. One of the prime techniques for suppressing noise is by dynamical decoupling, where one actively applies pulses at a rate that is faster than the typical time scale of the noise. However, for boson-mediated gates, current dynamical decoupling schemes require executing the pulses only when the boson and the quantum systems are disentangled. This restriction implies an increase of the gate time by a factor of $\sqrt{N}$, with $N$ being the number of pulses applied. Here we propose and realize a method that enables dynamical decoupling in a boson mediated system where the pulses can be applied while spin-boson entanglement persists, resulting in an increase in time that is at most a factor of $\fracπ{2}$, independently of the number of pulses applied. We experimentally demonstrate the robustness of our fast dynamically decoupled entangling gate to $σ_z$ noise with ions in a Paul trap.