Parity switching and decoherence by quasiparticles in single-junction transmons

The transmon superconducting qubit is being intensely investigated as a promising approach for the physical implementation of quantum information processing, and high quality factors of order $10^6$ have been achieved both in two- and three-dimensional architectures. These high quality factors enable detailed investigations of decoherence mechanisms. An intrinsic decoherence process originates from the coupling between the qubit degree of freedom and the quasiparticles that tunnel across Josephson junctions. In a transmon, tunneling of a single quasiparticle is associated with a change in parity. Here we present the theory of the parity-switching rates in single-junction transmons and compare it with recent measurements. We also show that parity switching can have an important role in limiting the coherence time.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Collective modes in the fluxonium qubit

Superconducting qubit designs vary in complexity from single- and few-junction systems, such as the transmon and flux qubits, to the many-junction fluxonium. Here we consider the question of wether the many degrees of freedom in the fluxonium circuit can limit the qubit coherence time. Such a limitation is in principle possible, due to the interactions between the low-energy, highly anharmonic qubit mode and the higher-energy, weakly anharmonic collective modes. We show that so long as the coupling of the collective modes with the external electromagnetic environment is sufficiently weaker than the qubit-environment coupling, the qubit dephasing induced by the collective modes does not significantly contribute to decoherence. Therefore, the increased complexity of the fluxonium qubit does not constitute by itself a major obstacle for its use in quantum computation architectures.Comment: 22 pages, 15 figure

Dissipation in a superconducting artificial atom due to a single non-equilibrium quasiparticle

We study a superconducting artificial atom which is represented by a single Josephson junction or a Josephson junction chain, capacitively coupled to a coherently driven transmission line, and which contains exactly one residual quasiparticle (or up to one quasiparticle per island in a chain). We study the dissipation in the atom induced by the quasiparticle tunneling, taking into account the quasiparticle heating by the drive. We calculate the transmission coefficient in the transmission line for drive frequencies near resonance and show that, when the artificial atom spectrum is nearly harmonic, the intrinsic quality factor of the resonance increases with the drive power. This counterintuitive behavior is due to the energy dependence of the quasiparticle density of states

Interaction corrections: temperature and parallel field dependencies of the Lorentz number in two-dimensional disordered metals

The electron-electron interaction corrections to the transport coefficients are calculated for a two-dimensional disordered metal in a parallel magnetic field via the quantum kinetic equation approach. For the thermal transport, three regimes (diffusive, quasiballistic and truly ballistic) can be identified as the temperature increases. For the diffusive and quasiballistic regimes, the Lorentz number dependence on the temperature and on the magnetic field is studied. The electron-electron interactions induce deviations from the Wiedemann-Franz law, whose sign depend on the temperature: at low temperatures the long-range part of the Coulomb interaction gives a positive correction, while at higher temperature the inelastic collisions dominate the negative correction. By applying a parallel field, the Lorentz number becomes a non-monotonic function of field and temperature for all values of the Fermi-liquid interaction parameter in the diffusive regime, while in the quasiballistic case this is true only sufficiently far from the Stoner instability.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures. Appendix A revised, notes adde

Effect of Coulomb interaction on current noise in open quantum dots

We analyze the effect of Coulomb interaction on the noise of electric current through an open quantum dot. We demonstrate that the ensemble average value of the noise power acquires an interaction correction even for a dot coupled to the leads by reflectionless point contacts, when the ensemble average conductance is known to have no interaction corrections. To leading order, the correction to the noise originates from the formation of a nonequilibrium state of the Coulomb field describing the interaction between electrons. We find the dependence of the current noise power on the electron temperature, the applied voltage bias, and the strength of the Coulomb interaction.Comment: 4.5 pages, 2 figure