Yvette de Sereville

One of the strengths of our recently proposed Walking Cat Architecture for a trapped-ion quantum computer is that it is straightforward to extend and optimize for a specific application. As a proof-of-concept, here we present such optimizations for solving the $256$-bit elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem (ECDLP) on $\mathtt{secp256k1}$, which is the elliptic curve used by blockchain technologies such as Bitcoin, using Shor's algorithm. We optimize the circuits from Schrottenloher's recent work and arrive at a logical quantum circuit for solving the ECDLP using about $1450$ qubits and $40\cdot 10^6$ Toffoli gates, with a rigorous lower bound on the logical-level success probability that holds with confidence at least $1-2^{-128}$. Using our compilation toolchain with manual optimization of the logical layout and integrated routing, we produce estimates for the logical measurement depth and the required number of physical qubits by compiling all components to measurement schedules that obey the architectural constraints. A key ingredient is a fast CCZ magic-state factory and a depth-one CCZ state injection, reducing the execution time of CCZ gates by a factor of $31$. We increase the logical-measurement parallelism using non-overlapping cat-based measurements in parallel, and we leverage the recently proposed logical CliNR protocol to speed up Clifford operations. To reduce the qubit overhead, we introduce a more efficient loss correction protocol, design a layout that allows us to recycle the CliNR ancilla qubits, and provision reusable cat-state resources according to the circuit's peak measurement parallelism. All results and optimizations combined, we conclude that a trapped-ion quantum computer based on our architecture can solve the ECDLP on $\mathtt{secp256k1}$ in approximately 25.7 days using 19,397 physical qubits with an estimated success probability of $63\%$.

We demonstrate an end-to-end workflow to model chemical reaction barriers with the quantum-classical auxiliary field quantum Monte Carlo (QC-AFQMC) algorithm with quantum tomography using matchgate shadows. The workflow operates within an accelerated quantum supercomputing environment with the IonQ Forte quantum computer and NVIDIA GPUs on Amazon Web Services. We present several algorithmic innovations and an efficient GPU-accelerated execution, which achieves a several orders of magnitude speedup over the state-of-the-art implementation of QC-AFQMC. We apply the algorithm to simulate the oxidative addition step of the nickel-catalyzed Suzuki-Miyaura reaction using 24 qubits of IonQ Forte with 16 qubits used to represent the trial state, plus 8 additional ancilla qubits for error mitigation, resulting in the largest QC-AFQMC with matchgate shadow experiments ever performed on quantum hardware. We achieve a $9\times$ speedup in collecting matchgate circuit measurements, and our distributed-parallel post-processing implementation attains a $656\times$ time-to-solution improvement over the prior state-of-the-art. Chemical reaction barriers for the model reaction evaluated with active-space QC-AFQMC are within the uncertainty interval of $\pm4$ kcal/mol from the reference CCSD(T) result when matchgates are sampled on the ideal simulator and within 10 kcal/mol from reference when measured on QPU. This work marks a step towards practical quantum chemistry simulations on quantum devices while identifying several opportunities for further development.

We present results from co-designed quantum simulations of the neutrinoless double-beta decay of a simple nucleus in 1+1D quantum chromodynamics using IonQ's Forte-generation trapped-ion quantum computers. Electrons, neutrinos, and up and down quarks are distributed across two lattice sites and mapped to 32 qubits, with an additional 4 qubits used for flag-based error mitigation. A four-fermion interaction is used to implement weak interactions, and lepton-number violation is induced by a neutrino Majorana mass. Quantum circuits that prepare the initial nucleus and time evolve with the Hamiltonian containing the strong and weak interactions are executed on IonQ Forte Enterprise. Enabled by tuned model parameters, lepton-number violation is observed in real time, providing a clear signal of neutrinoless double-beta decay. This was made possible by co-designing the simulation to maximally utilize the all-to-all connectivity and native gate-set available on IonQ's quantum computers. Quantum circuit compilation techniques and co-designed error-mitigation methods, informed from executing benchmarking circuits with up to 2,356 two-qubit gates, enabled observables to be extracted with high precision. We discuss the potential of future quantum simulations to provide yocto-second resolution of the reaction pathways in these, and other, nuclear processes.

The $^{133}\mathrm{Ba}^+$ ion is a promising candidate as a high-fidelity qubit, and the $^{137}\mathrm{Ba}^+$ isotope is promising as a high-fidelity qudit ($d>2$). Barium metal is very reactive, and $^{133}\mathrm{Ba}^+$ is radioactive and can only be sourced in small quantities, so the most commonly used loading method, oven heating, is less suited for barium, and is currently not possible for $^{133}\mathrm{Ba}^+$.Pulsed laser ablation solves both of these problems by utilizing compound barium sources, while also giving some distinct advantages, such as fast loading, less displaced material, and lower heat load near the ion trap. Because of the relatively low abundances of the isotopes of interest, a two-step photoionization technique is used, which gives us the ability to selectively load isotopes. Characterization of the ablation process for our $\mathrm{BaCl}_2$ targets are presented, including observation of neutral and ion ablation-fluence regimes, preparation/conditioning and lifetimes of ablation spots, and plume velocity distributions.We show that using laser ablation on $\mathrm{BaCl}_2$ salt targets with a two-step photoionization method, we can produce and trap barium ions reliably. Further, we demonstrate that with our photoionization method, we can trap $^{137}\mathrm{Ba}^+$ with an enhanced selectivity compared to its natural abundance.