Workshop on Quantum Algorithms and Devices – Part 2

10:50AM – 11:30AMUsing Cat States in a Microwave Cavity for Quantum Information Rob Schoelkopf (Yale University)

Abstract: Dramatic progress has been made in the last decade and a half towards realizing solid-state systems for quantum information processing with superconducting quantum circuits. Artificial atoms (or qubits) based on Josephson junctions have improved their coherence times more than 100,000-fold, have been entangled, and used to perform simple quantum algorithms. The next challenge for the field is demonstrating quantum error correction that actually improves the lifetimes, a necessary step for building more complex systems. I will describe recent experiments with superconducting circuits, where we store quantum information in the form of Schrodinger cat states of a microwave cavity, containing up to 100 photons. Using an ancilla qubit, we then monitor the gradual death of these cats, photon by photon, by observing the first jumps of photon number parity. This represents the first continuous observation of a quantum error syndrome, and may enable new approaches to quantum information based on photonic qubits.

10:50AM – 11:30AMUsing Cat States in a Microwave Cavity for Quantum Information Rob Schoelkopf (Yale University)

Abstract: Dramatic progress has been made in the last decade and a half towards realizing solid-state systems for quantum information processing with superconducting quantum circuits. Artificial atoms (or qubits) based on Josephson junctions have improved their coherence times more than 100,000-fold, have been entangled, and used to perform simple quantum algorithms. The next challenge for the field is demonstrating quantum error correction that actually improves the lifetimes, a necessary step for building more complex systems. I will describe recent experiments with superconducting circuits, where we store quantum information in the form of Schrodinger cat states of a microwave cavity, containing up to 100 photons. Using an ancilla qubit, we then monitor the gradual death of these cats, photon by photon, by observing the first jumps of photon number parity. This represents the first continuous observation of a quantum error syndrome, and may enable new approaches to quantum information based on photonic qubits.

12:10AM – 1:10PMLunch

Speaker Details

Robert Schoelkopf is the Sterling Professor of Applied Physics and Physics at Yale University. His research focuses on the development of superconducting devices for quantum information processing, which might eventually lead to revolutionary advances in computing.

His group is a leader in the development of solid-state quantum bits (qubits) for quantum computing, and the advancement of their performance to practical levels. Together with his collaborators at Yale, his group created the new field of “circuit quantum electrodynamics,” where quantum information is distributed by microwave signals on wires. His lab has produced many firsts in the field, including the development of a “quantum bus” for information, and the first demonstrations of quantum algorithms and quantum error correction with integrated circuits.

A graduate of Princeton University, Schoelkopf earned his Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology in 1995. From 1986 to 1988 he was an electrical/cryogenic engineer in the Laboratory for High-Energy Astrophysics at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Professor David Reilly is an experimental physicist working at the interface of quantum science, nanoscale condensed matter systems, and cryogenic electronics and hardware. Professor Reilly completed his Ph.D. at University of New South Wales (UNSW) in 2002 on correlated electron phenomena in low-dimensional nanoelectronic devices. From 2005 to 2008, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University, working on spin qubits. He returned to Australia in 2008 to lead a new research group, the Quantum Nanoscience Laboratory, in the School of Physics at Sydney. He is a member of the Quantum Science Group in the School and a CI in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems. Reilly is currently the Academic Director of Strategy for the Australian Institute of Nanoscience.

Date:
Speakers:
Robert Schoelkopf and David Reilly
Affiliation:
Yale University, University of Sydney