QUROPE Quantum Information Processing and Communication in Europe

We systematically study the fundamental competition between quantum error correction (QEC) and continuous symmetries, two key notions in quantum information and physics, in a quantitative manner. Three meaningful measures of approximate symmetries in quantum channels and in particular QEC codes, respectively based on the violation of covariance conditions over the entire symmetry group or at a local point, and the violation of charge conservation, are introduced and studied. Each measure induces a corresponding characterization of approximately covariant codes. We explicate a host of different ideas and techniques that enable us to derive various forms of trade-off relations between the QEC inaccuracy and all symmetry violation measures. More specifically, we introduce two frameworks for understanding and establishing the trade-offs respectively based on the notions of charge fluctuation and gate implementation error, and employ methods including the Knill--Laflamme conditions as well as quantum metrology and quantum resource theory for the derivation. From the perspective of fault-tolerant quantum computing, our bounds on symmetry violation indicate limitations on the precision or density of transversally implementable logical gates for general QEC codes, refining the Eastin--Knill theorem. To exemplify nontrivial approximately covariant codes and understand the achievability of the above fundamental limits, we analyze the behaviors of two explicit types of codes: a parametrized extension of the thermodynamic code (which gives a construction of a code family that continuously interpolates between exact QEC and exact symmetry), and the quantum Reed--Muller codes. We show that both codes can saturate the scaling of the bounds for group-global covariance and charge conservation asymptotically, indicating the near-optimality of these bounds and codes.

A new quantum link microstructure was proposed for the lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD) Hamiltonian, replacing the Wilson gauge links with a bilinear of fermionic qubits, later generalized to D-theory. This formalism provides a general framework for building lattice field theory algorithms for quantum computing. We focus mostly on the simplest case of a quantum rotor for a single compact $U(1)$ field. We also make some progress for non-Abelian setups, making it clear that the ideas developed in the $U(1)$ case extend to other groups. These in turn are building blocks for $1 + 0$-dimensional ($1 + 0$-D) matrix models, $1 + 1$-D sigma models and non-Abelian gauge theories in $2+1$ and $3+1$ dimensions. By introducing multiple flavors for the $U(1)$ field, where the flavor symmetry is gauged, we can efficiently approach the infinite-dimensional Hilbert space of the quantum $O(2)$ rotor with increasing flavors. The emphasis of the method is on preserving the symplectic algebra exchanging fermionic qubits by sigma matrices (or hard bosons) and developing a formal strategy capable of generalization to $SU(3)$ field for lattice QCD and other non-Abelian $1 + 1$-D sigma models or $3 +3$-D gauge theories. For $U(1)$, we discuss briefly the qubit algorithms for the study of the discrete $1+1$-D Sine-Gordon equation.

We show how coupling an ensemble of bistable systems to a common cavity field affects the collective stochastic behavior of this ensemble. In particular, the cavity provides an effective interaction between the systems, and parametrically modifies the transition rates between the metastable states. We predict that the cavity induces a collective phase transition at a critical temperature which depends linearly on the number of systems. It shows up as a spontaneous symmetry breaking where the stationary states of the bistable system bifurcate. We observe that the transition rates slow down independently of the phase transition, but the rate modification vanishes for alternating signs of the system-cavity couplings, corresponding to a disordered ensemble of dipoles. Our results are of particular relevance in polaritonic chemistry where the presence of a cavity has been suggested to affect chemical reactions.

We give a novel procedure for approximating general single-qubit unitaries from a finite universal gate set by reducing the problem to a novel magnitude approximation problem, achieving an immediate improvement in sequence length by a factor of 7/9. Extending the works arXiv:1612.01011 and arXiv:1612.02689, we show that taking probabilistic mixtures of channels to solve fallback (arXiv:1409.3552) and magnitude approximation problems saves factor of two in approximation costs. In particular, over the Clifford+$\sqrt{\mathrm{T}}$ gate set we achieve an average non-Clifford gate count of $0.23\log_2(1/\varepsilon)+2.13$ and T-count $0.56\log_2(1/\varepsilon)+5.3$ with mixed fallback approximations for diamond norm accuracy $\varepsilon$.

This paper provides a holistic overview of gate approximation, in addition to these new insights. We give an end-to-end procedure for gate approximation for general gate sets related to some quaternion algebras, providing pedagogical examples using common fault-tolerant gate sets (V, Clifford+T and Clifford+$\sqrt{\mathrm{T}}$). We also provide detailed numerical results for Clifford+T and Clifford+$\sqrt{\mathrm{T}}$ gate sets. In an effort to keep the paper self-contained, we include an overview of the relevant algorithms for integer point enumeration and relative norm equation solving. We provide a number of further applications of the magnitude approximation problems, as well as improved algorithms for exact synthesis, in the Appendices.

A quantitative quantum field approach for a very weakly interacting, dilute Bose gas is presented. Within the presented model, which assumes the constraint of particle number conservation at constant average energy in the canonical ensemble, both coherent oscillations, as well as decay times of quantum coherence for a quantum field created by the atomic cloud of a Bose-Einstein condensate, are modeled simultaneously by a unique complex time variable and two different characteristic frequencies for the oscillation and decoherence of the field. Within the present theory, it is illustrated that the occurrence of coherence and a macroscopic ground state population has its origin in finite coherence times of the ensemble of quantum particles in the Bose gas, which - in contrast to the incoherent interactions between the different particles - leads to the preparation of a thermodynamically stable many-body quantum state with coherent superpositions of discrete and quantized condensate and non-condensate atom number states at constant total atom number.

Recently, a theory has been proposed that classifies cyclic processes of symmetry protected topological (SPT) quantum states. For the case of spin chains, i.e.\ one-dimensional bosonic SPT's, this theory implies that cyclic processes are classified by zero-dimensional SPT's. This is often described as a generalization of Thouless pumps, with the original Thouless pump corresponding to the case where the symmetry group is $U(1)$ and pumps are classified by an integer that corresponds to the charge pumped per cycle. In this paper, we review this one-dimensional theory in an explicit and rigorous setting and we provide a proof for the completeness of the proposed classification for compact symmetry groups $G$.

Quantum control is a ubiquitous research field that has enabled physicists to delve into the dynamics and features of quantum systems, delivering powerful applications for various atomic, optical, mechanical, and solid-state systems. In recent years, traditional control techniques based on optimization processes have been translated into efficient artificial intelligence algorithms. Here, we introduce a computational method for optimal quantum control problems via physics-informed neural networks (PINNs). We apply our methodology to open quantum systems by efficiently solving the state-to-state transfer problem with high probabilities, short-time evolution, and using low-energy consumption controls. Furthermore, we illustrate the flexibility of PINNs to solve the same problem under changes in physical parameters and initial conditions, showing advantages in comparison with standard control techniques.

Photons are the physical system of choice for performing experimental tests of the foundations of quantum mechanics. Furthermore, photonic quantum technology is a main player in the second quantum revolution, promising the development of better sensors, secure communications, and quantum-enhanced computation. These endeavors require generating specific quantum states or efficiently performing quantum tasks. The design of the corresponding optical experiments was historically powered by human creativity but is recently being automated with advanced computer algorithms and artificial intelligence. While several computer-designed experiments have been experimentally realized, this approach has not yet been widely adopted by the broader photonic quantum optics community. The main roadblocks consist of most systems being closed-source, inefficient, or targeted to very specific use-cases that are difficult to generalize. Here, we overcome these problems with a highly-efficient, open-source digital discovery framework PyTheus, which can employ a wide range of experimental devices from modern quantum labs to solve various tasks. This includes the discovery of highly entangled quantum states, quantum measurement schemes, quantum communication protocols, multi-particle quantum gates, as well as the optimization of continuous and discrete properties of quantum experiments or quantum states. PyTheus produces interpretable designs for complex experimental problems which human researchers can often readily conceptualize. PyTheus is an example of a powerful framework that can lead to scientific discoveries -- one of the core goals of artificial intelligence in science. We hope it will help accelerate the development of quantum optics and provide new ideas in quantum hardware and technology.

Trade-off relations place fundamental limits on the operations that physical systems can perform. This Letter presents a trade-off relation that bounds the correlation function, which measures the relationship between a system's current and future states, in Markov processes. The obtained bound, referred to as the thermodynamic correlation inequality, states that the change in the correlation function has an upper bound comprising the dynamical activity, a thermodynamic measure of the activity of a Markov process. Moreover, by applying the obtained relation to the linear response function, it is demonstrated that the effect of perturbation can be bounded from above by the dynamical activity.

We introduce a framework for constructing quantum codes defined on spheres by recasting such codes as quantum analogues of the classical spherical codes. We apply this framework to bosonic coding, obtaining multimode extensions of the cat codes that can outperform previous constructions while requiring a similar type of overhead. Our polytope-based cat codes consist of sets of points with large separation that at the same time form averaging sets known as spherical designs. We also recast concatenations of CSS codes with cat codes as quantum spherical codes, revealing a new way to autonomously protect against dephasing noise.

We derive field theory descriptions for measurement-induced phase transitions in free fermion systems. We focus on a multi-flavor Majorana chain, undergoing Hamiltonian evolution with continuous monitoring of local fermion parity operators. Using the replica trick, we map the dynamics to the imaginary time evolution of an effective spin chain, and use the number of flavors as a large parameter for a controlled derivation of the effective field theory. This is a nonlinear sigma model for an orthogonal $N\times N$ matrix, in the replica limit $N\to 1$. (On a boundary of the phase diagram, another sigma model with higher symmetry applies.) Together with known results for the renormalization-group beta function, this derivation establishes the existence of stable phases -- nontrivially entangled and disentangled respectively -- in the physically-relevant replica limit $N\to 1$. In the nontrivial phase, an asymptotically exact calculation shows that the bipartite entanglement entropy for a system of size $L$ scales as $(\log L)^2$, in contrast to findings in previously-studied models. Varying the relative strength of Hamiltonian evolution and monitoring, as well as a dimerization parameter, the model's phase diagram contains transitions out of the nontrivial phase, which we map to vortex-unbinding transitions in the sigma model, and also contains separate critical points on the measurement-only axis. We highlight the close analogies as well as the differences with the replica approach to Anderson transitions in disordered systems.

Kerr-cat qubits are a promising candidate for fault-tolerant quantum computers owing to the biased nature of their errors. The $ZZ$ coupling between the qubits can be utilized for a two-qubit entangling gate, but the residual coupling called $ZZ$ crosstalk is detrimental to precise computing. In order to resolve this problem, we propose a tunable $ZZ$-coupling scheme using two transmon couplers. By setting the detunings of the two couplers at opposite values, the residual $ZZ$ couplings via the two couplers cancel each other out. We also apply our scheme to the $R_{zz}(\Theta)$ gate ($ZZ$ rotation with angle $\Theta$), one of the two-qubit entangling gates. We numerically show that the fidelity of the $R_{zz}(-\pi/2)$ gate is higher than 99.9% in a case of $16$-ns gate time and without decoherence.

The presence of gauge symmetry in 1+1D is known to be redundant, since it does not imply the existence of dynamical gauge bosons. As a consequence, in the continuum, the Abelian-Higgs model, the theory of bosonic matter interacting with photons, just possesses a single phase, as the higher dimensional Higgs and Coulomb phases are connected via non-perturbative effects. However, recent research published in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 090601 (2022)] has revealed an unexpected phase transition when the system is discretized on the lattice. This transition is described by a conformal field theory with a central charge of $c=3/2$. In this paper, we aim to characterize the two components of this $c=3/2$ theory -- namely the free Majorana fermionic and bosonic parts -- through equilibrium and out-of-equilibrium spectral analyses.

The fission of a string connecting two charges is an astounding phenomenon in confining gauge theories. The dynamics of this process have been studied intensively in recent years, with plenty of numerical results yielding a dichotomy: the confining string can decay relatively fast or persist up to extremely long times. Here, we put forward a dynamical localization transition as the mechanism underlying this dichotomy. To this end, we derive an effective string breaking description in the light-meson sector of a confined spin chain and show that the problem can be regarded as a dynamical localization transition in Fock space. Fast and suppressed string breaking dynamics are identified with delocalized and localized behavior, respectively. We then provide a further reduction of the dynamical string breaking problem onto a quantum impurity model, where the string is represented as an "impurity" immersed in a meson bath. It is shown that this model features a localization-delocalization transition, giving a general and simple physical basis to understand the qualitatively distinct string breaking regimes. These findings are directly relevant for a wider class of confining lattice models in any dimension and could be realized on present-day Rydberg quantum simulators.

The multiple-valued quantum logic is formulated systematically such that the truth values are represented naturally as unique roots of unity placed on the unit circle. Consequently, multi-valued quantum neuron (MVQN) is based on the principles of multiple-valued threshold logic over the field of complex numbers. The training of MVQN is reduced to the movement along the unit circle. A quantum neural network (QNN) based on multi-valued quantum neurons can be constructed with complex weights, inputs, and outputs encoded by roots of unity and an activation function that maps the complex plane into the unit circle. Such neural networks enjoy fast convergence and higher functionalities compared with quantum neural networks based on binary input with the same number of neurons and layers. Our construction can be used in analyzing the energy spectrum of quantum systems. Possible practical applications can be found using the quantum neural networks built from orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light or multi-level systems such as molecular spin qudits.

Single-atom imaging resolution of many-body quantum systems in optical lattices is routinely achieved with quantum-gas microscopes. Key to their great versatility as quantum simulators is the ability to use engineered light potentials at the microscopic level. Here, we employ dynamically varying microscopic light potentials in a quantum-gas microscope to study commensurate and incommensurate 1D systems of interacting bosonic Rb atoms. Such incommensurate systems are analogous to doped insulating states that exhibit atom transport and compressibility. Initially, a commensurate system with unit filling and fixed atom number is prepared between two potential barriers. We deterministically create an incommensurate system by dynamically changing the position of the barriers such that the number of available lattice sites is reduced while retaining the atom number. Our systems are characterised by measuring the distribution of particles and holes as a function of the lattice filling, and interaction strength, and we probe the particle mobility by applying a bias potential. Our work provides the foundation for preparation of low-entropy states with controlled filling in optical-lattice experiments.

We analyze the probability density distribution in a topological insulator slab of finite thickness, where the bulk and surface states are allowed to hybridize. By using an effective continuum Hamiltonian approach as a theoretical framework, we analytically obtained the wave functions for each state near the $\Gamma$-point. Our results reveal that, under particular combinations of the hybridized bulk and surface states, the spatial symmetry of the electronic probability density with respect to the center of the slab can be spontaneously broken. This symmetry breaking arises as a combination of the parity of the solutions, their spin projection, and the material constants.

We prove that the stabilizer fidelity is multiplicative for the tensor product of an arbitrary number of single-qubit states. We also show that the relative entropy of magic becomes additive if all the single-qubit states but one belong to a symmetry axis of the stabilizer octahedron. We extend the latter results to include all the $\alpha$-$z$ R\'enyi relative entropy of magic. This allows us to identify a continuous set of magic monotones that are additive for single-qubit states. We also show that all the monotones mentioned above are additive for several standard two and three-qubit states subject to depolarizing noise. Finally, we obtain closed-form expressions for several states and tighter lower bounds for the overhead of probabilistic one-shot magic state distillation.

Research progress in quantum computing has, thus far, focused on a narrow set of application domains. Expanding the suite of quantum application domains is vital for the discovery of new software toolchains and architectural abstractions. In this work, we unlock a new class of applications ripe for quantum computing research -- computational cognitive modeling. Cognitive models are critical to understanding and replicating human intelligence. Our work connects computational cognitive models to quantum computer architectures for the first time. We release QUATRO, a collection of quantum computing applications from cognitive models. The development and execution of QUATRO shed light on gaps in the quantum computing stack that need to be closed to ease programming and drive performance. Among several contributions, we propose and study ideas pertaining to quantum cloud scheduling (using data from gate- and annealing-based quantum computers), parallelization, and more. In the long run, we expect our research to lay the groundwork for more versatile quantum computer systems in the future.

Competing measurements alone can give rise to distinct phases characterized by entanglement entropy$\unicode{x2013}$such as the volume law phase, symmetry-breaking (SB) phase, and symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phase$\unicode{x2013}$that can only be discerned through quantum trajectories, making them challenging to observe experimentally. In another burgeoning area of research, recent studies have demonstrated that steering can give rise to additional phases within quantum circuits. In this work, we show that new phases can appear in measurement-only quantum circuit with steering. Unlike conventional steering methods that rely solely on local information, the steering scheme we introduce requires the circuit's structure as an additional input. These steering induced phases are termed as "informative" phases. They are distinguished by the intrinsic dimension of the bitstrings measured in each circuit run, making them substantially easier to detect in experimental setups. We explicitly show this phase transition by numerical simulation in three circuit models that are previously well-studied: projective transverse field Ising model, lattice gauge-Higgs model and XZZX model. When the informative phase coincides with the SB phase, our steering mechanism effectively serves as a "pre-selection" routine, making the SB phase more experimentally accessible. Additionally, an intermediate phase may manifest, where a discrepancy arises between the quantum information captured by entanglement entropy and the classical information conveyed by bitstrings. Our findings demonstrate that steering not only adds theoretical richness but also offers practical advantages in the study of measurement-only quantum circuits.