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Published on: November 11, 2013
Reversal of photon-scattering errors in atomic qubits
N Akerman1, S Kotler, Y Glickman
1Physics of Complex Systems, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
Abstract:
Spontaneous photon scattering by an atomic qubit is a notable example of environment-induced error and is a fundamental limit to the fidelity of quantum operations. In the scattering process, the qubit loses its distinctive and coherent character owing to its entanglement with the photon. Using a single trapped ion, we show that by utilizing the information carried by the photon, we are able to coherently reverse this process and correct for the scattering error. We further used quantum process tomography to characterize the photon-scattering error and its correction scheme and demonstrate a correction fidelity greater than 85% whenever a photon was measured.
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