Doret Group

Bosonic modes constitute a central resource in a wide range of quantum technologies, providing long-lived degrees of freedom for the storage, processing, and transduction of quantum information. Such modes naturally arise in platforms including circuit quantum electrodynamics, quantum acoustodynamics, and trapped-ion systems. In these architectures, coherent control and high-fidelity readout of the bosonic degrees of freedom are achieved via coupling to an auxiliary qubit. When operated in the strong dispersive regime, this interaction enables parity measurements of the mode which, in combination with phase-space displacements, constitute a standard experimental tool for full Wigner-function tomography. Here, we propose a protocol based on displaced parity measurements that allows for the preparation of a variety of bosonic quantum states. As a first example, we demonstrate the generation of squeezed states, achieving up to ~9 dB of squeezing after only three parity measurements, and show that the protocol is robust against experimental imperfections. Finally, we generalize our approach to the preparation of other paradigmatic bosonic states, including cat and Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill states.

We report a precise measurement of the isotope shifts in the $4^2$S$_{1/2} \rightarrow 3^2$D$_{5/2}$ electric quadrupole transition at 729~nm in the $^{40 - 42,44,48}$Ca$^+$. The measurement has been made via high-resolution laser spectroscopy of co-trapped ions, finding measured shifts of 2,771,872,467.6(7.6), 5,340,887,394.6(7.8), and 9,990,382,525.0(4.9) Hz between $^{42,44,48}$Ca$^+$and $^{40}$Ca$^+$, respectively. By exciting the two isotopes simultaneously using frequency sidebands derived from a single laser systematic uncertainties resulting from laser frequency drifts are eliminated. This permits far greater precision than similar previously published measurements in other alkaline-earth systems. The resulting measurement precision provides a benchmark for tests of theoretical isotope shift calculations, and also offers a step towards probing New Physics via isotope shift spectroscopy.