Nonadiabatic dynamics and geometric phase of an ultrafast rotating electron spin

Quantum control and Berry phase of electron spins in rotating levitated diamonds in high vacuum

Levitated diamond particles in high vacuum with internal spin qubits have been proposed for exploring macroscopic quantum mechanics, quantum gravity, and precision measurements. The coupling between spins and particle rotation can be utilized to study quantum geometric phase, create gyroscopes and rotational matter-wave interferometers. However, previous efforts in levitated diamonds struggled with vacuum level or spin state readouts. To address these gaps, we fabricate an integrated surface ion trap with multiple stabilization electrodes. This facilitates on-chip levitation and, for the first time, optically detected magnetic resonance measurements of a nanodiamond levitated in high vacuum. The internal temperature of our levitated nanodiamond remains moderate at pressures below 10-5 Torr. We have driven a nanodiamond to rotate up to 20 MHz (1.2 × 109 rpm), surpassing typical nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center electron spin dephasing rates. Using these NV spins, we observe the effect of the Berry phase arising from particle rotation. In addition, we demonstrate quantum control of spins in a rotating nanodiamond. These results mark an important development in interfacing mechanical rotation with spin qubits, expanding our capacity to study quantum phenomena.

Levitated optomechanics: From single to many-body physics

The levitated optomechanics, because of its ultra-high mechanical Q > 1010, is considered to be one of the best testbeds for macroscopic quantum superpostions. In this perspective, we give a brief review on the development of the levitated optomechanics, focusing on the macroscopic quantum phenomena, and the applications in quantum precision measurement. The levitated nanodiamond with built-in nitrogen-vacancy centers is discussed as an example. Finally, we discuss the future dirctions of the levtated optomechanics, such as the space-based experiments, the arrays of levitated optomechanics and applications in quantum simulation.

Distributed geometric quantum computation based on the optimized-control-technique in a cavity-atom system via exchanging virtual photons

We propose a scheme for quantum geometric computation on a fiber-cavity-fiber system, in which two atoms are located in two single-mode cavities, respectively, connected with each other by optical fiber. This scheme not only has the feature of virtual excitation of photons in the cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED) that can reduce the effect of decay effectively but also has the advantage of geometric phase to withstand noises due to its built-in noise-resilience feature and robust merit. Specifically, our proposal combined with optimized-control-technology (OCT) can reduce gate operation error by adjusting the time-dependent amplitude and phase of the resonant field which further enhances the robustness of the quantum operation. The robustness against decoherence is demonstrated numerically and the scheme may be applied in the remote quantum information processing tasks and quantum computation.

Digital Quantum Simulation of Nonadiabatic Geometric Gates via Shortcuts to Adiabaticity

Geometric phases are used to construct quantum gates since it naturally resists local noises, acting as the modularized units of geometric quantum computing. Meanwhile, fast nonadiabatic geometric gates are required for reducing the information loss induced by decoherence. Here, we propose a digital simulation of nonadiabatic geometric quantum gates in terms of shortcuts to adiabaticity (STA). More specifically, we combine the invariant-based inverse engineering with optimal control theory for designing the fast and robust Abelian geometric gates against systematic error, in the context of two-level qubit systems. We exemplify X and T gates, in which the fidelities and robustness are evaluated by simulations in ideal quantum circuits. Our results can also be extended to constructing two-qubit gates, for example, a controlled-PHASE gate, which shares the equivalent effective Hamiltonian with rotation around the Z-axis of a single qubit. These STA-inspired nonadiabatic geometric gates can realize quantum error correction physically, leading to fault-tolerant quantum computing in the Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) era.

Ultrasensitive torque detection with an optically levitated nanorotor

Torque sensors such as the torsion balance enabled the first determination of the gravitational constant by Henri Cavendish¹ and the discovery of Coulomb's law. Torque sensors are also widely used in studying small-scale magnetism^2,3, the Casimir effect⁴ and other applications⁵. Great effort has been made to improve the torque detection sensitivity by nanofabrication and cryogenic cooling. Until now, the most sensitive torque sensor has achieved a remarkable sensitivity of 2.9 × 10^-24 N m Hz^-1/2 at millikelvin temperatures in a dilution refrigerator⁶. Here, we show a torque sensor reaching sensitivity of (4.2 ± 1.2) × 10^-27 N m Hz^-1/2 at room temperature. It is created by an optically levitated nanoparticle in vacuum. Our system does not require complex nanofabrication. Moreover, we drive a nanoparticle to rotate at a record high speed beyond 5 GHz (300 billion r.p.m.). Our calculations show that this system will be able to detect the long sought after vacuum friction^7-10 near a surface under realistic conditions. The optically levitated nanorotor will also have applications in studying nanoscale magnetism^2,3 and the quantum geometric phase¹¹.

Experimental demonstration of suppressing residual geometric dephasing

The geometric phase is regarded as a promising strategy in fault tolerance quantum information processing (QIP) domain due to its phase only depending on the geometry of the path executed. However, decoherence caused by environmental noise will destroy the geometric phase. Traditional dynamic decoupling sequences can eliminate dynamic dephasing but can not reduce residual geometric dephasing, which is still vital for high-precision quantum manipulation. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate effective suppression of residual geometric dephasing with modified dynamic decoupling schemes, using a single trapped ¹⁷¹Yb⁺ ion. The experimental results show that the modified schemes can reduce dephasing rate up to more than one order of magnitude compared with traditional dynamic decoupling schemes, where residual geometric dephasing dominates. Besides, we also investigate the impact of intensity and correlation time of the low-frequency noise on coherence of the quantum system. And we confirm these methods can be used in many cases.