38 research outputs found
Dynamics of a qubit while simultaneously monitoring its relaxation and dephasing
Decoherence originates from the leakage of quantum information into external
degrees of freedom. For a qubit the two main decoherence channels are
relaxation and dephasing. Here, we report an experiment on a superconducting
qubit where we retrieve part of the lost information in both of these channels.
We demonstrate that raw averaging the corresponding measurement records
provides a full quantum tomography of the qubit state where all three
components of the effective spin-1/2 are simultaneously measured. From single
realizations of the experiment, it is possible to infer the quantum
trajectories followed by the qubit state conditioned on relaxation and/or
dephasing channels. The incompatibility between these quantum measurements of
the qubit leads to observable consequences in the statistics of quantum states.
The high level of controllability of superconducting circuits enables us to
explore many regimes from the Zeno effect to underdamped Rabi oscillations
depending on the relative strengths of driving, dephasing and relaxation.Comment: Supplemental videos can be found at
http://physinfo.fr/publications/Ficheux1710.html and supplemental information
can be found as an ancillary file on arxi
Strong back-action of a linear circuit on a single electronic quantum channel
What are the quantum laws of electricity in mesoscopic circuits? This very
fundamental question has also direct implications for the quantum engineering
of nanoelectronic devices. Indeed, when a quantum coherent conductor is
inserted into a circuit, its transport properties are modified. In particular,
its conductance is reduced because of the circuit back-action. This phenomenon,
called environmental Coulomb blockade, results from the granularity of charge
transfers across the coherent conductor. Although extensively studied for a
tunnel junction in a linear circuit, it is only fully understood for arbitrary
short coherent conductors in the limit of small circuit impedances and small
conductance reduction. Here, we investigate experimentally the strong
back-action regime, with a conductance reduction of up to 90%. This is achieved
by embedding a single quantum channel of tunable transmission in an adjustable
on-chip circuit of impedance comparable to the resistance quantum
at microwave frequencies. The experiment reveals important deviations from
calculations performed in the weak back-action framework, and matches with
recent theoretical results. From these measurements, we propose a generalized
expression for the conductance of an arbitrary quantum channel embedded in a
linear circuit.Comment: 11 pages including supplementary information, to be published in
Nature Physic
Tomonaga-Luttinger physics in electronic quantum circuits
In one-dimensional conductors, interactions result in correlated electronic
systems. At low energy, a hallmark signature of the so-called
Tomonaga-Luttinger liquids (TLL) is the universal conductance curve predicted
in presence of an impurity. A seemingly different topic is the quantum laws of
electricity, when distinct quantum conductors are assembled in a circuit. In
particular, the conductances are suppressed at low energy, a phenomenon called
dynamical Coulomb blockade (DCB). Here we investigate the conductance of
mesoscopic circuits constituted by a short single-channel quantum conductor in
series with a resistance, and demonstrate a proposed link to TLL physics. We
reformulate and establish experimentally a recently derived phenomenological
expression for the conductance using a wide range of circuits, including carbon
nanotube data obtained elsewhere. By confronting both conductance data and
phenomenological expression with the universal TLL curve, we demonstrate
experimentally the predicted mapping between DCB and the transport across a TLL
with an impurity.Comment: 9p,6fig+SI; to be published in nature comm; v2: mapping extended to
finite range interactions, added discussion and SI material, added reference
Using Spontaneous Emission of a Qubit as a Resource for Feedback Control
Persistent control of a transmon qubit is performed by a feedback protocol
based on continuous heterodyne measurement of its fluorescence. By driving the
qubit and cavity with microwave signals whose amplitudes depend linearly on the
instantaneous values of the quadratures of the measured fluorescence field, we
show that it is possible to stabilize permanently the qubit in any targeted
state. Using a Josephson mixer as a phase-preserving amplifier, it was possible
to reach a total measurement efficiency =35%, leading to a maximum of 59%
of excitation and 44% of coherence for the stabilized states. The experiment
demonstrates multiple-input multiple-output analog Markovian feedback in the
quantum regime.Comment: Supplementary material can be found as an ancillary objec
Primary thermometry triad at 6 mK in mesoscopic circuits
Quantum physics emerge and develop as temperature is reduced. Although
mesoscopic electrical circuits constitute an outstanding platform to explore
quantum behavior, the challenge in cooling the electrons impedes their
potential. The strong coupling of such micrometer-scale devices with the
measurement lines, combined with the weak coupling to the substrate, makes them
extremely difficult to thermalize below 10 mK and imposes in-situ thermometers.
Here we demonstrate electronic quantum transport at 6 mK in micrometer-scale
mesoscopic circuits. The thermometry methods are established by the comparison
of three in-situ primary thermometers, each involving a different underlying
physics. The employed combination of quantum shot noise, quantum back-action of
a resistive circuit and conductance oscillations of a single-electron
transistor covers a remarkably broad spectrum of mesoscopic phenomena. The
experiment, performed in vacuum using a standard cryogen-free dilution
refrigerator, paves the way toward the sub-millikelvin range with additional
thermalization and refrigeration techniques.Comment: Article and Supplementar
Two-channel Kondo effect and renormalization flow with macroscopic quantum charge states
Many-body correlations and macroscopic quantum behaviors are fascinating
condensed matter problems. A powerful test-bed for the many-body concepts and
methods is the Kondo model which entails the coupling of a quantum impurity to
a continuum of states. It is central in highly correlated systems and can be
explored with tunable nanostructures. Although Kondo physics is usually
associated with the hybridization of itinerant electrons with microscopic
magnetic moments, theory predicts that it can arise whenever degenerate quantum
states are coupled to a continuum. Here we demonstrate the previously elusive
`charge' Kondo effect in a hybrid metal-semiconductor implementation of a
single-electron transistor, with a quantum pseudospin-1/2 constituted by two
degenerate macroscopic charge states of a metallic island. In contrast to other
Kondo nanostructures, each conduction channel connecting the island to an
electrode constitutes a distinct and fully tunable Kondo channel, thereby
providing an unprecedented access to the two-channel Kondo effect and a clear
path to multi-channel Kondo physics. Using a weakly coupled probe, we reveal
the renormalization flow, as temperature is reduced, of two Kondo channels
competing to screen the charge pseudospin. This provides a direct view of how
the predicted quantum phase transition develops across the symmetric quantum
critical point. Detuning the pseudospin away from degeneracy, we demonstrate,
on a fully characterized device, quantitative agreement with the predictions
for the finite-temperature crossover from quantum criticality.Comment: Letter (5 pages, 4 figures) and Methods (10 pages, 6 figures
One hundred second bit-flip time in a two-photon dissipative oscillator
Current implementations of quantum bits (qubits) continue to undergo too many
errors to be scaled into useful quantum machines. An emerging strategy is to
encode quantum information in the two meta-stable pointer states of an
oscillator exchanging pairs of photons with its environment, a mechanism shown
to provide stability without inducing decoherence. Adding photons in these
states increases their separation, and macroscopic bit-flip times are expected
even for a handful of photons, a range suitable to implement a qubit. However,
previous experimental realizations have saturated in the millisecond range. In
this work, we aim for the maximum bit-flip time we could achieve in a
two-photon dissipative oscillator. To this end, we design a Josephson circuit
in a regime that circumvents all suspected dynamical instabilities, and employ
a minimally invasive fluorescence detection tool, at the cost of a two-photon
exchange rate dominated by single-photon loss. We attain bit-flip times of the
order of 100 seconds for states pinned by two-photon dissipation and containing
about 40 photons. This experiment lays a solid foundation from which the
two-photon exchange rate can be gradually increased, thus gaining access to the
preparation and measurement of quantum superposition states, and pursuing the
route towards a logical qubit with built-in bit-flip protection
Towards quantum thermodynamics in electronic circuits
Electronic circuits operating at sub-kelvin temperatures are attractive candidates for studying classical and quantum thermodynamics: their temperature can be controlled and measured locally with exquisite precision, and they allow experiments with large statistical samples. The availability and rapid development of devices such as quantum dots, single-electron boxes and superconducting qubits only enhance their appeal. But although these systems provide fertile ground for studying heat transport, entropy production and work in the context of quantum mechanics, the field remains in its infancy experimentally. Here, we review some recent experiments on quantum heat transport, fluctuation relations and implementations of Maxwell’s demon, revealing the rich physics yet to be fully probed in these systems.Peer reviewe
Dynamics of a qubit while simultaneously monitoring its relaxation and dephasing
Information leaked by a quantum system into its environment causes decoherence but if it is recorded then it can be used to infer the quantum state. Ficheux et al. monitor the relaxation and dephasing of a qubit and show that this allows all three components of the qubit to be probed simultaneously