Strongly correlated quantum walks with a 12-qubit superconducting processor

Zhiguang Yan; Yu-Ran Zhang; Ming Gong; Yulin Wu; Yarui Zheng; Shaowei Li; Can Wang; Futian Liang; Jin Lin; Yu Xu; Cheng Guo; Lihua Sun; Cheng-Zhi Peng; Keyu Xia; Hui Deng; Hao Rong; J Q You; Franco Nori; Heng Fan; Xiaobo Zhu; Jian-Wei Pan

doi:10.1126/science.aaw1611

Strongly correlated quantum walks with a 12-qubit superconducting processor

Science. 2019 May 24;364(6442):753-756. doi: 10.1126/science.aaw1611. Epub 2019 May 2.

Authors

Zhiguang Yan^#^{1

2}, Yu-Ran Zhang^#^{3

4

5}, Ming Gong^#^{1

2}, Yulin Wu^{1

2}, Yarui Zheng^{1

2}, Shaowei Li^{1

2}, Can Wang^{1

2}, Futian Liang^{1

2}, Jin Lin^{1

2}, Yu Xu^{1

2}, Cheng Guo^{1

2}, Lihua Sun^{1

2}, Cheng-Zhi Peng^{1

2}, Keyu Xia^{6

7

4}, Hui Deng^{1

2}, Hao Rong^{1

2}, J Q You^{8

3}, Franco Nori^{4

9}, Heng Fan^{10

11}, Xiaobo Zhu^{12

2}, Jian-Wei Pan^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale and Department of Modern Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
² Shanghai Branch, CAS Center for Excellence and Synergetic Innovation Center in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Shanghai 201315, China.
³ Beijing Computational Science Research Center, Beijing 100094, China.
⁴ Theoretical Quantum Physics Laboratory, RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research, Wako-shi, Saitama 351-0198, Japan.
⁵ Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
⁶ National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and School of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.
⁷ Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.
⁸ Department of Physics and State Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Instrumentation, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310027, China.
⁹ Physics Department, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1040, USA.
¹⁰ Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China. hfan@iphy.ac.cn xbzhu16@ustc.edu.cn.
¹¹ CAS Center for Excellence in Topological Quantum Computation, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
¹² Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale and Department of Modern Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China. hfan@iphy.ac.cn xbzhu16@ustc.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 31048551
DOI: 10.1126/science.aaw1611

Abstract

Quantum walks are the quantum analogs of classical random walks, which allow for the simulation of large-scale quantum many-body systems and the realization of universal quantum computation without time-dependent control. We experimentally demonstrate quantum walks of one and two strongly correlated microwave photons in a one-dimensional array of 12 superconducting qubits with short-range interactions. First, in one-photon quantum walks, we observed the propagation of the density and correlation of the quasiparticle excitation of the superconducting qubit and quantum entanglement between qubit pairs. Second, when implementing two-photon quantum walks by exciting two superconducting qubits, we observed the fermionization of strongly interacting photons from the measured time-dependent long-range anticorrelations, representing the antibunching of photons with attractive interactions. The demonstration of quantum walks on a quantum processor, using superconducting qubits as artificial atoms and tomographic readout, paves the way to quantum simulation of many-body phenomena and universal quantum computation.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't