Nonpairwise multi-qubit interactions present a useful resource for quantum
information processors. Their implementation would facilitate more efficient
quantum simulations of molecules and combinatorial optimization problems, and
they could simplify error suppression and error correction schemes. Here we
present a superconducting circuit architecture in which a coupling module
mediates 2-local and 3-local interactions between three flux qubits by design.
The system Hamiltonian is estimated via multi-qubit pulse sequences that
implement Ramsey-type interferometry between all neighboring excitation
manifolds in the system. The 3-local interaction is coherently tunable over
several MHz via the coupler flux biases and can be turned off, which is
important for applications in quantum annealing, analog quantum simulation, and
gate-model quantum computation.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figure