In atomic physics and chemistry, an atomic electron transition is an electron changing from one energy level to another within an atom or artificial atom. The time scale of a quantum jump has not been measured experimentally. However, the Franck–Condon principle binds the upper limit of this parameter to the order of attoseconds.
In logic circuits, the Toffoli gate, also known as the CCNOT gate (“controlled-controlled-not”), invented by Tommaso Toffoli, is a CNOT gate with two control qubits and one target qubit. That is, the target qubit will be inverted if the first and second qubits are both 1. It is a universal reversible logic gate, which means that any classical reversible circuit can be constructed from Toffoli gates.
Quantum error correction (QEC) is a set of techniques used in quantum computing to protect quantum information from errors due to decoherence and other quantum noise. Quantum error correction is theorised as essential to achieve fault tolerant quantum computing that can reduce the effects of noise on stored quantum information, faulty quantum gates, faulty quantum state preparation, and faulty measurements. Effective quantum error correction would allow quantum computers with low qubit fidelity to execute algorithms of higher complexity or greater circuit depth.
In quantum computing, a charge qubit is a qubit whose basis states are charge states. In superconducting quantum computing, a charge qubit is formed by a tiny superconducting island coupled by a Josephson junction to a superconducting reservoir. The state of the qubit is determined by the number of Cooper pairs that have tunneled across the junction. In contrast with the charge state of an atomic or molecular ion, the charge states of such an "island" involve a macroscopic number of conduction electrons of the island. The quantum superposition of charge states can be achieved by tuning the gate voltage U that controls the chemical potential of the island. The charge qubit is typically read-out by electrostatically coupling the island to an extremely sensitive electrometer such as the radio-frequency single-electron transistor.
A qutrit is a unit of quantum information that is realized by a 3-level quantum system, that may be in a superposition of three mutually orthogonal quantum states.
Superconducting quantum computing is a branch of solid state physics and quantum computing that implements superconducting electronic circuits using superconducting qubits as artificial atoms, or quantum dots. For superconducting qubits, the two logic states are the ground state and the excited state, denoted respectively. Research in superconducting quantum computing is conducted by companies such as Google, IBM, IMEC, BBN Technologies, Rigetti, and Intel. Many recently developed QPUs use superconducting architecture.
In physics, quantum acoustics is the study of sound under conditions such that quantum mechanical effects are relevant. For most applications, classical mechanics are sufficient to accurately describe the physics of sound. However very high frequency sounds, or sounds made at very low temperatures may be subject to quantum effects.
In quantum computing, more specifically in superconducting quantum computing, flux qubits are micrometer sized loops of superconducting metal that is interrupted by a number of Josephson junctions. These devices function as quantum bits. The flux qubit was first proposed by Terry P. Orlando et al. at MIT in 1999 and fabricated shortly thereafter. During fabrication, the Josephson junction parameters are engineered so that a persistent current will flow continuously when an external magnetic flux is applied. Only an integer number of flux quanta are allowed to penetrate the superconducting ring, resulting in clockwise or counter-clockwise mesoscopic supercurrents in the loop to compensate a non-integer external flux bias. When the applied flux through the loop area is close to a half integer number of flux quanta, the two lowest energy eigenstates of the loop will be a quantum superposition of the clockwise and counter-clockwise currents. The two lowest energy eigenstates differ only by the relative quantum phase between the composing current-direction states. Higher energy eigenstates correspond to much larger (macroscopic) persistent currents, that induce an additional flux quantum to the qubit loop, thus are well separated energetically from the lowest two eigenstates. This separation, known as the "qubit non linearity" criteria, allows operations with the two lowest eigenstates only, effectively creating a two level system. Usually, the two lowest eigenstates will serve as the computational basis for the logical qubit.
A quantum bus is a device which can be used to store or transfer information between independent qubits in a quantum computer, or combine two qubits into a superposition. It is the quantum analog of a classical bus.
In quantum computing, and more specifically in superconducting quantum computing, a transmon is a type of superconducting charge qubit designed to have reduced sensitivity to charge noise. The transmon was developed by Robert J. Schoelkopf, Michel Devoret, Steven M. Girvin, and their colleagues at Yale University in 2007. Its name is an abbreviation of the term transmission line shunted plasma oscillation qubit; one which consists of a Cooper-pair box "where the two superconductors are also [capacitively] shunted in order to decrease the sensitivity to charge noise, while maintaining a sufficient anharmonicity for selective qubit control".
In quantum mechanics, the cat state, named after Schrödinger's cat, refers to a quantum state composed of a superposition of two other states of flagrantly contradictory aspects. Generalizing Schrödinger's thought experiment, any other quantum superposition of two macroscopically distinct states is also referred to as a cat state. A cat state could be of one or more modes or particles, therefore it is not necessarily an entangled state. Such cat states have been experimentally realized in various ways and at various scales.
Robert J. Schoelkopf III is an American physicist, most noted for his work on quantum computing as one of the inventors of superconducting qubits. Schoelkopf's main research areas are quantum transport, single-electron devices, and charge dynamics in nanostructures. His research utilizes quantum-effect and single-electron devices, both for fundamental physical studies and for applications. Techniques often include high-speed, high-sensitivity measurements performed on nanostructures at low temperatures. Schoelkopf serves as director of the Yale Center for Microelectronic Materials and Structures and as associate director of the Yale Institute for Nanoscience and Quantum Engineering. Since 2014, Schoelkopf is also the Director of the Yale Quantum Institute. He is Professor of Physics and Sterling Professor of Applied Physics at Yale University. The title of Sterling Professor is the highest honor bestowed upon Yale faculty.
Michel Devoret is a French physicist and F. W. Beinecke Professor of Applied Physics at Yale University. He also holds a position as the Director of the Applied Physics Nanofabrication Lab at Yale. He is known for his pioneering work on macroscopic quantum tunneling, and the single-electron pump as well as in groundbreaking contributions to initiating the fields of circuit quantum electrodynamics and quantronics.
Andreas Wallraff is a German physicist who conducts research in quantum information processing and quantum optics. He has taught as a professor at ETH Zurich in Zurich, Switzerland since 2006. He worked as a research scientist with Robert J. Schoelkopf at Yale University from 2002 to 2005, during which time he performed experiments in which the coherent interaction of a single photon with a single quantum electronic circuit was observed for the first time. His current work at ETH Zurich focuses on hybrid quantum systems combining superconducting electronic circuits with semiconductor quantum dots and individual Rydberg atoms as well as quantum error correction with superconducting qubits.
Jerry M. Chow is a physicist who conducts research in quantum information processing. He has worked as the manager of the Experimental Quantum Computing group at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York since 2014 and is the primary investigator of the IBM team for the IARPA Multi-Qubit Coherent Operations and Logical Qubits programs. After graduating magna cum laude with a B.A. in physics and M.S. in applied mathematics from Harvard University, he went on to earn his Ph.D. in 2010 under Robert J. Schoelkopf at Yale University. While at Yale, he participated in experiments in which superconducting qubits were coupled via a cavity bus for the first time and two-qubit algorithms were executed on a superconducting quantum processor.
In quantum computing, a qubit is a unit of information analogous to a bit in classical computing, but it is affected by quantum mechanical properties such as superposition and entanglement which allow qubits to be in some ways more powerful than classical bits for some tasks. Qubits are used in quantum circuits and quantum algorithms composed of quantum logic gates to solve computational problems, where they are used for input/output and intermediate computations.
Quantum Trajectory Theory (QTT) is a formulation of quantum mechanics used for simulating open quantum systems, quantum dissipation and single quantum systems. It was developed by Howard Carmichael in the early 1990s around the same time as the similar formulation, known as the quantum jump method or Monte Carlo wave function (MCWF) method, developed by Dalibard, Castin and Mølmer. Other contemporaneous works on wave-function-based Monte Carlo approaches to open quantum systems include those of Dum, Zoller and Ritsch, and Hegerfeldt and Wilser.
Dale J. Van Harlingen was an American condensed matter physicist.
Andrew A. Houck is an American physicist, quantum information scientist, and professor of electrical and computer engineering at Princeton University. He is director of the Co-Design Center for Quantum Advantage, a national research center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, as well as co-director of the Princeton Quantum Initiative. His research focuses on superconducting electronic circuits to process and store information for quantum computing and to simulate and study many-body physics. He is a pioneer of superconducting qubits.
