All-Microwave Leakage Reduction Units for Quantum Error Correction with Superconducting Transmon Qubits.

Minimizing leakage from computational states is a challenge when using many-level systems like superconducting quantum circuits as qubits. We realize and extend the quantum-hardware-efficient, all-microwave leakage reduction unit (LRU) for transmons in a circuit QED architecture proposed by Battistel et al. This LRU effectively reduces leakage in the second- and third-excited transmon states with up to 99% efficacy in 220 ns, with minimum impact on the qubit subspace. As a first application in the context of quantum error correction, we show how multiple simultaneous LRUs can reduce the error detection rate and suppress leakage buildup within 1% in data and ancilla qubits over 50 cycles of a weight-2 stabilizer measurement.

High-Fidelity Controlled-Z Gate with Maximal Intermediate Leakage Operating at the Speed Limit in a Superconducting Quantum Processor.

Simple tuneup of fast two-qubit gates is essential for the scaling of quantum processors. We introduce the sudden variant (SNZ) of the net zero scheme realizing controlled-Z (CZ) gates by flux control of transmon frequency. SNZ CZ gates realized in a multitransmon processor operate at the speed limit of transverse coupling between computational and noncomputational states by maximizing intermediate leakage. Beyond speed, the key advantage of SNZ is tuneup simplicity, owing to the regular structure of conditional phase and leakage as a function of two control parameters. SNZ is compatible with scalable schemes for quantum error correction and adaptable to generalized conditional-phase gates useful in intermediate-scale applications.

Protecting quantum entanglement from leakage and qubit errors via repetitive parity measurements.

Protecting quantum information from errors is essential for large-scale quantum computation. Quantum error correction (QEC) encodes information in entangled states of many qubits and performs parity measurements to identify errors without destroying the encoded information. However, traditional QEC cannot handle leakage from the qubit computational space. Leakage affects leading experimental platforms, based on trapped ions and superconducting circuits, which use effective qubits within many-level physical systems. We investigate how two-transmon entangled states evolve under repeated parity measurements and demonstrate the use of hidden Markov models to detect leakage using only the record of parity measurement outcomes required for QEC. We show the stabilization of Bell states over up to 26 parity measurements by mitigating leakage using postselection and correcting qubit errors using Pauli-frame transformations. Our leakage identification method is computationally efficient and thus compatible with real-time leakage tracking and correction in larger quantum processors.

Fast, High-Fidelity Conditional-Phase Gate Exploiting Leakage Interference in Weakly Anharmonic Superconducting Qubits.

Conditional-phase (cz) gates in transmons can be realized by flux pulsing computational states towards resonance with noncomputational ones. We present a 40 ns cz gate based on a bipolar flux pulse suppressing leakage (0.1%) by interference and approaching the speed limit set by exchange coupling. This pulse harnesses a built-in echo to enhance fidelity (99.1%) and is robust to long-timescale distortion in the flux-control line, ensuring repeatability. Numerical simulations matching experiment show that fidelity is limited by high-frequency dephasing and leakage by short-timescale distortion.