Physics
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2269
Browse
4 results
Search Results
Item Experiments with Frequency Converted Photons from a Trapped Atomic Ion(2022) Hannegan, John Michael; Quraishi, Qudsia; Linke, Norbert; Physics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Trapped atomic ions excel as local quantum information processing nodes, given their long qubit coherence times combined with high fidelity single-qubit and multi-qubit gate operations. Trapped ion systems also readily emit photons as flying qubits, making efforts towards construction of large-scale and long-distance trapped-ion-based quantum networks very appealing. Two-node trapped-ion quantum networks have demonstrated a desirable combination of high-rate and high-fidelity remote entanglement generation, but these networks have been limited to only a few meters in length. This limitation is primarily due to large fiber-optic propagation losses experienced by the ultraviolet and visible photons typically emitted by trapped ions. These wavelengths are also incompatible with existing telecommunications technology and infrastructure, as well as being incompatible with many other emerging quantum technologies designed for useful tasks such as single photon storage, measurement, and routing, limiting the scalability of ion-based networks. In this thesis, I discuss a series of experiments where we introduce quantum frequency conversion to convert single photons at 493 nm, produced by and entangled with a single trapped $^{138}$Ba$^+$ ion, to near infrared wavelengths for reduced network transmission losses and improved quantum networking capabilities. This work is the first-ever to frequency convert Ba$^+$ photons, being one of three nearly concurrent demonstrations of frequency converted photons from any trapped ion. After discussing our experimental techniques and laboratory setup, I first showcase our quantum frequency converters that convert ion-produced single photons to both 780 nm and 1534 nm for improved quantum networking range, whilst preserving the photons' quantum properties. Following this, I present two hybrid quantum networking experiments where we interact converted ion-photons near 780 nm with neutral $^{87}$Rb systems. In the initial experiment, we observe, for the first time, interactions between converted ion-photons and neutral Rb vapor via slow light. The following experiment is a multi-laboratory project where we observe Hong-Ou-Mandel interference between converted ion-photons and photons produced by an ensemble of neutral Rb atoms, where notably these sources are located in different buildings and are connected and synchronized via optical fiber. Finally, I describe an experiment in which we verify entanglement between a $^{138}$Ba$^+$ ion and converted photons near 780 nm. These results are critical steps towards producing remote entanglement between trapped ion and neutral atom quantum networking nodes. Motivated by these experimental results, I conclude by presenting a theoretical hybrid-networking architecture where neutral-atomic based nondestructive single photon measurement and storage can be integrated into a long-distance trapped-ion based quantum network to potentially improve remote entanglement rates.Item Non-Integrable Dynamics in a Trapped-Ion Quantum Simulator(2021) Becker, Patrick Michael; Monroe, Christopher; Physics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)From the first demonstration of a quantum logic gate in 1995 to the actualizationof a “quantum advantage” over classical technology a few years ago, the field of quantum information has made remarkable progress during my lifetime. Multiple quantum technology platforms have developed to the point that companies and governments are investing heavily in the industry. A primary focus is the development of fault-tolerant error correction, a technology expected to be necessary for large-scale digital quantum computers. Meanwhile analog quantum simulators, a subclass of quantum computers that apply unitary evolutions instead of digitized gates, are at the forefront of controllable quantum system sizes. In place of algorithms, analog quantum simulators are naturally suited to study many-body physics and model certain materials and transport phenomena. In this thesis I discuss an analog quantum simulator based on trapped +Yb171 ions and its use for studying dynamics and thermalizing properties of the non-integrable long-range Ising model with system sizes near the limit of classical tractability. In addition to the technical properties of the simulator, I present three select experiments that I worked on during my PhD. The first is an observation of a phenomenon in nonequilibrium physics, a dynamical phase transition (DPT). While equilibrium phase transitions follow robust universal principles, DPTs are challenging to describe with conventional thermodynamics. We present an experimental observation and characterization of a DPT with up to 53 qubits. We also explore the system’s ability to simulate physics beyond its own by implementing a quasiparticle confinement Hamiltonian. Here we see that the natural long-range interactions present in the simulator induce an effective confining potential on pairs of domain-wall quasiparticles, which behave similarly to quarks bound into mesons. We measure post-quench dynamics to identify how confinement introduces low-energy bound states and inhibits thermalization. Lastly, we use the individual-addressing capabilities of our simulator to implement Stark many-body localization (MBL) with a linear potential gradient. Stark MBL provides a novel, disorder-free method for localizing a quantum system that would otherwise thermalize under evolution. We explore how the localized phase depends on the gradient strength and uncover the presence of correlations using interferrometric double electron-electron resonance (DEER) measurements. These experiments show the capability of our experiment to study complex quantum dynamics in systems near 50 qubits and above.Item CRYOGENIC TRAPPED-ION SYSTEM FOR LARGE SCALE QUANTUM SIMULATION(2021) Tan, Wen Lin; Monroe, Christopher; Physics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)One of the useful applications of a quantum computer is quantum simulation. While the quest for a universal quantum computer is still undergoing research, analog quantum simulators can study specific quantum models that are classically challenging or even intractable. These quantum simulators provide the opportunity to test particular quantum models and scale up the system size to gain insight into more exciting physics. The analog quantum simulator featured in this thesis is a cryogenic trapped-ion system. It serves the purpose of a large-scale quantum simulation by reducing the background pressure for storing a large ion chain with a long lifetime. This work presents the construction and characterization of this cryogenic apparatus and its performance as a trapped-ion quantum simulator. Quantum information is encoded in the atomic state of the ion chain. The entangling operation in trapped ions uses the collective motion of the ion chain for quantum simulation. Therefore, it is imperative to develop a cooling mechanism to prepare the ion chain to near motional ground-state for achieving high fidelity operations. Here, with this system, we explore another ground-state cooling mechanism with electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a four-level system (171Yb+). EIT cooling allows simultaneous ground-state cooling across a bandwidth of motional modes, which it is useful in a large ion chain. Finally, we report the observation of magnetic domain-wall confinement in interacting spins chains. Such confinement is analogous to the color confinement in quantum chromodynamics (QCD), where hadrons are produced by quark confinement. We study the implications of such confinement in many-body spin system by observing the information propagation after applying a quantum quench of the confinement Hamiltonian. We also measure the excitation energy of domain-wall bound states from non-equilibrium quench dynamics. At the end of this experiment, we explore the number of domain wall excitations created with different quench parameters, which can be challenging to model with classical computers.Item INITIAL STATE PREPARATION FOR SIMULATION OF QUANTUM FIELD THEORIES ON A QUANTUM COMPUTER(2020) Hamed Moosavian, Ali; Childs, Andrew; Physics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this thesis, we begin by reviewing some of the most important Hamiltonian simulation algorithms that are applied in simulation of quantum field theories. Then we focus on state preparation which has been the slowest subroutine in previously known algorithms. We present two distinct methods that improve upon prior results. The first method utilizes classical computational tools such as Density Matrix Renormalization Group to produce an efficient quantum algorithm for simulating fermionic quantum field theories in 1+1 dimensions. The second method presented is a heuristic algorithm that can prepare the vacuum of fermionic systems in more general cases and more efficiently than previous methods. With our last method, state preparation is no longer the bottleneck, as its runtime has the same asymptotic scaling with the desired precision as the remainder of the simulation algorithm. We then numerically demonstrate the effectiveness of this last method for the 1+1 dimensional Gross-Neveu model.