Trapped-Ion Quantum Information with Metastable Qubits

ORAL

Abstract

Most quantum information experiments with trapped ions rely on encoding the qubit in two Zeeman or hyperfine sublevels of the ground electronic state or between the ground state and a long-lived metastable state. We report work investigating another category of qubits: the metastable qubit, in which the qubit is encoded in sublevels of a long-lived metastable state. Qubits in this metastable manifold would be largely insensitive to scattered laser light addressing a neighboring qubit in the ground state manifold and vice versa. This could enable quasi-dual species operation, in which many of the applications of dual-species ion trapping, such as sympathetic cooling or ancilla qubits in quantum error correcting codes, could be implemented in a chain of identical ions. This would improve the vibrational mode structure and potentially reduce experimental complexity. We present experimental progress towards metastable qubit operations using 88Sr+ and 133Ba+ ions, which have accessible visible and infrared transition wavelengths and an appropriate atomic structure for encoding quantum information in a metastable qubit.

*We acknowledge support from the Army Research Office. SLT acknowledges support from the Intelligence Community Post-Doctoral Fellowship.

Presenters

  • Susanna Todaro

    • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • MIT, Research Laboratory for Electronics
    • Massachusetts Institute of Technology MI
    • University of Colorado Boulder; National Institute of Standards and Technology Boulder

Authors

  • Susanna Todaro

    • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • MIT, Research Laboratory for Electronics
    • Massachusetts Institute of Technology MI
    • University of Colorado Boulder; National Institute of Standards and Technology Boulder
  • Kyle DeBry

    • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • MIT, Research Laboratory for Electronics
    • Ohio State Univ - Columbus
  • Felix W Knollmann

    • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • MIT, Research Laboratory for Electronics
    • MIT, Department of Physics
  • Gabriel Mintzer

    • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • MIT, Research Laboratory for Electronics
    • MIT
  • Xiaoyang Shi

    • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • MIT, Research Laboratory for Electronics
    • University of California, Santa Barbara
  • Jasmine Sinanan-Singh

    • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • MIT, Research Laboratory for Electronics
    • MIT, Department of Physics
  • Jules M Stuart

    • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • MIT, Research Laboratory for Electronics; MIT Lincoln Laboratory
    • Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT
  • Colin D Bruzewicz

    • MIT Lincoln Lab
    • MIT Lincoln Laboratory
  • Jeremy Sage

    • IonQ
    • Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT
  • John Chiaverini

    • MIT Lincoln Lab
    • MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • MIT, Research Laboratory for Electronics; MIT Lincoln Laboratory
  • Isaac Chuang

    • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • MIT, Research Laboratory for Electronics
    • MIT