Erasure conversion in a high-fidelity Rydberg quantum simulator

Area of Science:

• Quantum Information Science
• Atomic Physics
• Quantum Computing

Background:

• Minimizing errors is crucial for quantum science, especially in noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices and fault-tolerant quantum computation.
• Rydberg atom arrays are a promising platform for quantum computing, but two-qubit entanglement fidelities have historically lagged.
• Detecting leakage errors with single-atom resolution offers a path to improved error correction through erasure conversion.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate erasure conversion and high-fidelity Bell state generation in Rydberg atom arrays.
• To assess the impact of erasure conversion on quantum simulation outcomes.
• To show the potential of these techniques for NISQ devices and quantum error correction.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a Rydberg quantum simulator with alkaline-earth atoms for fast imaging and error detection.
• Implemented erasure conversion by excising data with observed erasure errors.
• Generated Bell states and measured their fidelity, both with and without corrections for state-preparation errors.

Main Results:

• Achieved a Bell state fidelity of [Formula: see text], improving to [Formula: see text] after correcting for state-preparation errors.
• Successfully applied erasure conversion in a quantum simulation of a phase transition, revealing the impact of errors.
• Demonstrated Rydberg-based entanglement fidelities approaching the 0.999 regime.

Conclusions:

• Rydberg atom arrays can achieve high-fidelity entanglement suitable for quantum error correction.
• Erasure conversion is a viable technique for mitigating errors in NISQ devices.
• These methods can be extended to quantum error-correction codes with long-lived qubits.