328 research outputs found
Implementation of a Toffoli Gate with Superconducting Circuits
The quantum Toffoli gate allows universal reversible classical computation.
It is also an important primitive in many quantum circuits and quantum error
correction schemes. Here we demonstrate the realization of a Toffoli gate with
three superconducting transmon qubits coupled to a microwave resonator. By
exploiting the third energy level of the transmon qubit, the number of
elementary gates needed for the implementation of the Toffoli gate, as well as
the total gate time can be reduced significantly in comparison to theoretical
proposals using two-level systems only. We characterize the performance of the
gate by full process tomography and Monte Carlo process certification. The gate
fidelity is found to be %.Comment: 4 pages, 5figure
Computing prime factors with a Josephson phase qubit quantum processor
A quantum processor (QuP) can be used to exploit quantum mechanics to find
the prime factors of composite numbers[1]. Compiled versions of Shor's
algorithm have been demonstrated on ensemble quantum systems[2] and photonic
systems[3-5], however this has yet to be shown using solid state quantum bits
(qubits). Two advantages of superconducting qubit architectures are the use of
conventional microfabrication techniques, which allow straightforward scaling
to large numbers of qubits, and a toolkit of circuit elements that can be used
to engineer a variety of qubit types and interactions[6, 7]. Using a number of
recent qubit control and hardware advances [7-13], here we demonstrate a
nine-quantum-element solid-state QuP and show three experiments to highlight
its capabilities. We begin by characterizing the device with spectroscopy.
Next, we produces coherent interactions between five qubits and verify bi- and
tripartite entanglement via quantum state tomography (QST) [8, 12, 14, 15]. In
the final experiment, we run a three-qubit compiled version of Shor's algorithm
to factor the number 15, and successfully find the prime factors 48% of the
time. Improvements in the superconducting qubit coherence times and more
complex circuits should provide the resources necessary to factor larger
composite numbers and run more intricate quantum algorithms.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Trapped electron coupled to superconducting devices
We propose to couple a trapped single electron to superconducting structures
located at a variable distance from the electron. The electron is captured in a
cryogenic Penning trap using electric fields and a static magnetic field in the
Tesla range. Measurements on the electron will allow investigating the
properties of the superconductor such as vortex structure, damping and
decoherence. We propose to couple a superconducting microwave resonator to the
electron in order to realize a circuit QED-like experiment, as well as to
couple superconducting Josephson junctions or superconducting quantum
interferometers (SQUIDs) to the electron. The electron may also be coupled to a
vortex which is situated in a double well potential, realized by nearby pinning
centers in the superconductor, acting as a quantum mechanical two level system
that can be controlled by a transport current tilting the double well
potential. When the vortex is trapped in the interferometer arms of a SQUID,
this would allow its detection both by the SQUID and by the electron.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure
OpenFermion: The Electronic Structure Package for Quantum Computers
Quantum simulation of chemistry and materials is predicted to be an important
application for both near-term and fault-tolerant quantum devices. However, at
present, developing and studying algorithms for these problems can be difficult
due to the prohibitive amount of domain knowledge required in both the area of
chemistry and quantum algorithms. To help bridge this gap and open the field to
more researchers, we have developed the OpenFermion software package
(www.openfermion.org). OpenFermion is an open-source software library written
largely in Python under an Apache 2.0 license, aimed at enabling the simulation
of fermionic models and quantum chemistry problems on quantum hardware.
Beginning with an interface to common electronic structure packages, it
simplifies the translation between a molecular specification and a quantum
circuit for solving or studying the electronic structure problem on a quantum
computer, minimizing the amount of domain expertise required to enter the
field. The package is designed to be extensible and robust, maintaining high
software standards in documentation and testing. This release paper outlines
the key motivations behind design choices in OpenFermion and discusses some
basic OpenFermion functionality which we believe will aid the community in the
development of better quantum algorithms and tools for this exciting area of
research.Comment: 22 page
On the distance of the globular cluster M4 (NGC 6121) using RR Lyrae stars: I. optical and near-infrared Period-Luminosity and Period-Wesenheit relations
We present new distance determinations to the nearby globular M4 (NGC~6121)
based on accurate optical and Near Infrared (NIR) mean magnitudes for
fundamental (FU) and first overtone (FO) RR Lyrae variables (RRLs), and new
empirical optical and NIR Period-Luminosity (PL) and Period-Wesenheit (PW)
relations. We have found that optical-NIR and NIR PL and PW relations are
affected by smaller standard deviations than optical relations. The difference
is the consequence of a steady decrease in the intrinsic spread of cluster RRL
apparent magnitudes at fixed period as longer wavelengths are considered. The
weighted mean visual apparent magnitude of 44 cluster RRLs is
\left=13.329\pm0.001 (standard error of the mean) 0.177
(weighted standard deviation) mag. Distances were estimated using RR Lyr itself
to fix the zero-point of the empirical PL and PW relations. Using the entire
sample (FUFO) we found weighted mean true distance moduli of
11.350.030.05 mag and 11.320.020.07 mag. Distances were
also evaluated using predicted metallicity dependent PLZ and PWZ relations. We
found weighted mean true distance moduli of 11.2830.0100.018 mag (NIR
PLZ) and 11.2720.0050.019 mag (optical--NIR and NIR PWZ). The above
weighted mean true distance moduli agree within 1. The same result is
found from distances based on PWZ relations in which the color index is
independent of the adopted magnitude (11.2720.0040.013 mag). These
distances agree quite well with the geometric distance provided by
\citep{kaluzny2013} based on three eclipsing binaries. The available evidence
indicates that this approach can provide distances to globulars hosting RRLs
with a precision better than 2--3\%.Comment: Accepted for publication on Ap
On the Use of Field RR Lyrae as Galactic Probes. V. Optical and radial velocity curve templates
We collected the largest spectroscopic catalog of RR Lyrae (RRLs) including
20,000 high-, medium- and low-resolution spectra for 10,000
RRLs. We provide the analytical forms of radial velocity curve (RVC) templates.
These were built using 36 RRLs (31 fundamental -- split into three period bins
-- and 5 first overtone pulsators) with well-sampled RVCs based on three groups
of metallic lines (Fe, Mg, Na) and four Balmer lines (H, H,
H, H).
We tackled the long-standing problem of the reference epoch to anchor light
curve and RVC templates. For the -band, we found that the residuals of the
templates anchored to the phase of the mean magnitude along the rising branch
are 35\% to 45\% smaller than those anchored to the phase of
maximum light. For the RVC, we used two independent reference epochs for
metallic and Balmer lines and we verified that the residuals of the RVC
templates anchored to the phase of mean RV are from 30\% (metallic lines) up to
45\% (Balmer lines) smaller than those anchored to the phase of minimum RV.
We validated our RVC templates by using both the single- and the three-phase
points approach. We found that barycentric velocities based on our RVC
templates are two-three times more accurate than those available in the
literature. We applied the current RVC templates to Balmer lines RVs of RRLs in
the globular NGC~3201 collected with MUSE at VLT. We found the cluster
barycentric RV of =496.898.37(error)3.43 (standard
deviation) km/s, which agrees well with literature estimates
Mister Mary Somerville: Husband and Secretary
Mary Somerville’s life as a mathematician and savant in nineteenth-century Great Britain was heavily influenced by her gender; as a woman, her access to the ideas and resources developed and circulated in universities and scientific societies was highly restricted. However, her engagement with learned institutions was by no means nonexistent, and although she was 90 before being elected a full member of any society (Società Geografica Italiana, 1870), Somerville (Figure 1) nevertheless benefited from the resources and social networks cultivated by such institutions from as early as 1812. A key intermediary between Somerville and these societies was her husband, Dr. William Somerville, whose mediation was vital to her access to knowledge and her subsequent career as a scientific author. In this paper we will consider how spousal cooperation enabled the overcoming of gendered barriers to scientific institutions in the nineteenth century
Phytoplankton composition from sPACE: Requirements, opportunities, and challenges
Ocean color satellites have provided a synoptic view of global phytoplankton for over 25 years through near surface measurements of the concentration of chlorophyll a. While remote sensing of ocean color has revolutionized our understanding of phytoplankton and their role in the oceanic and freshwater ecosystems, it is important to consider both total phytoplankton biomass and changes in phytoplankton community composition in order to fully understand the dynamics of the aquatic ecosystems. With the upcoming launch of NASA\u27s Plankton, Aerosol, Clouds, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission, we will be entering into a new era of global hyperspectral data, and with it, increased capabilities to monitor phytoplankton diversity from space. In this paper, we analyze the needs of the user community, review existing approaches for detecting phytoplankton community composition in situ and from space, and highlight the benefits that the PACE mission will bring. Using this three-pronged approach, we highlight the challenges and gaps to be addressed by the community going forward, while offering a vision of what global phytoplankton community composition will look like through the “eyes” of PACE
Removing leakage-induced correlated errors in superconducting quantum error correction
Quantum computing can become scalable through error correction, but logical
error rates only decrease with system size when physical errors are
sufficiently uncorrelated. During computation, unused high energy levels of the
qubits can become excited, creating leakage states that are long-lived and
mobile. Particularly for superconducting transmon qubits, this leakage opens a
path to errors that are correlated in space and time. Here, we report a reset
protocol that returns a qubit to the ground state from all relevant higher
level states. We test its performance with the bit-flip stabilizer code, a
simplified version of the surface code for quantum error correction. We
investigate the accumulation and dynamics of leakage during error correction.
Using this protocol, we find lower rates of logical errors and an improved
scaling and stability of error suppression with increasing qubit number. This
demonstration provides a key step on the path towards scalable quantum
computing
- …