Ofer Naaman

Ofer Naaman

Ofer Naaman received a B.Sc. degree in physics from Tel Aviv University in 1998, and a Ph.D. degree in physics from University of California, San Diego in 2003. From 2003 to 2007, he was a Post-Doctoral Researcher with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where he worked on superconducting single-electron transistors. From 2007 to 2009 he was a Research Associate at the University of California, Berekeley, where he worked on quantum information in superconducting qubits and parametric amplifiers. From 2009 to 2018 he was a Physicist with Northrop Grumman Mission Systems, working on quantum information, cryogenic memory, and superconducting digital and microwave circuits. In 2018 he joined Google where he is currently a Staff Research Scientist.

Research Areas

Authored Publications
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    Purification-Based Quantum Error Mitigation of Pair-Correlated Electron Simulations
    Thomas E O'Brien
    Gian-Luca R. Anselmetti
    Fotios Gkritsis
    Vincent Elfving
    Stefano Polla
    William J. Huggins
    Oumarou Oumarou
    Kostyantyn Kechedzhi
    Dmitry Abanin
    Rajeev Acharya
    Igor Aleiner
    Richard Ross Allen
    Trond Ikdahl Andersen
    Kyle Anderson
    Markus Ansmann
    Frank Carlton Arute
    Kunal Arya
    Juan Atalaya
    Michael Blythe Broughton
    Bob Benjamin Buckley
    Alexandre Bourassa
    Leon Brill
    Tim Burger
    Nicholas Bushnell
    Jimmy Chen
    Yu Chen
    Benjamin Chiaro
    Desmond Chun Fung Chik
    Josh Godfrey Cogan
    Roberto Collins
    Paul Conner
    William Courtney
    Alex Crook
    Ben Curtin
    Ilya Drozdov
    Andrew Dunsworth
    Daniel Eppens
    Lara Faoro
    Edward Farhi
    Reza Fatemi
    Ebrahim Forati
    Brooks Riley Foxen
    William Giang
    Dar Gilboa
    Alejandro Grajales Dau
    Steve Habegger
    Michael C. Hamilton
    Sean Harrington
    Jeremy Patterson Hilton
    Markus Rudolf Hoffmann
    Trent Huang
    Ashley Anne Huff
    Sergei Isakov
    Justin Thomas Iveland
    Cody Jones
    Pavol Juhas
    Marika Kieferova
    Andrey Klots
    Alexander Korotkov
    Fedor Kostritsa
    John Mark Kreikebaum
    Dave Landhuis
    Pavel Laptev
    Kim Ming Lau
    Lily MeeKit Laws
    Joonho Lee
    Kenny Lee
    Alexander T. Lill
    Wayne Liu
    Orion Martin
    Trevor Johnathan Mccourt
    Anthony Megrant
    Xiao Mi
    Masoud Mohseni
    Shirin Montazeri
    Alexis Morvan
    Ramis Movassagh
    Wojtek Mruczkiewicz
    Charles Neill
    Ani Nersisyan
    Michael Newman
    Jiun How Ng
    Murray Nguyen
    Alex Opremcak
    Andre Gregory Petukhov
    Rebecca Potter
    Kannan Aryaperumal Sankaragomathi
    Christopher Schuster
    Mike Shearn
    Aaron Shorter
    Vladimir Shvarts
    Jindra Skruzny
    Vadim Smelyanskiy
    Clarke Smith
    Rolando Diego Somma
    Doug Strain
    Marco Szalay
    Alfredo Torres
    Guifre Vidal
    Jamie Yao
    Ping Yeh
    Juhwan Yoo
    Grayson Robert Young
    Yaxing Zhang
    Ningfeng Zhu
    Christian Gogolin
    Nature Physics (2023)
    Preview abstract An important measure of the development of quantum computing platforms has been the simulation of increasingly complex physical systems. Prior to fault-tolerant quantum computing, robust error mitigation strategies are necessary to continue this growth. Here, we study physical simulation within the seniority-zero electron pairing subspace, which affords both a computational stepping stone to a fully correlated model, and an opportunity to validate recently introduced ``purification-based'' error-mitigation strategies. We compare the performance of error mitigation based on doubling quantum resources in time (echo verification) or in space (virtual distillation), on up to 20 qubits of a superconducting qubit quantum processor. We observe a reduction of error by one to two orders of magnitude below less sophisticated techniques (e.g. post-selection); the gain from error mitigation is seen to increase with the system size. Employing these error mitigation strategies enables the implementation of the largest variational algorithm for a correlated chemistry system to-date. Extrapolating performance from these results allows us to estimate minimum requirements for a beyond-classical simulation of electronic structure. We find that, despite the impressive gains from purification-based error mitigation, significant hardware improvements will be required for classically intractable variational chemistry simulations. View details
    Josephson parametric amplifier with Chebyshev gain profile and high saturation
    Ryan Kaufman
    Mark Dykman
    Andrea Iorio
    George Sterling
    Alex Opremcak
    Lara Faoro
    Tim Burger
    Robert Gasca
    Physical Review Applied, 20 (2023), pp. 054058
    Preview abstract We demonstrate a Josephson parametric amplifier design with a band-pass impedance matching network based on a third-order Chebyshev prototype. We measured eight amplifiers operating at 4.6~GHz that exhibit gains of 20~dB with less than 1~dB gain ripple and up to 500~MHz bandwidth. The amplifiers further achieve high input saturation powers around $-93$~dBm based on the use of rf-SQUID arrays as their nonlinear element. We characterize the amplifiers' readout efficiency and their signal-to-noise ratio near saturation using a Sycamore processor. In addition, we measure the amplifiers intermodulation distortion in two-tone experiments as a function of input power and inter-tone detuning, and observe excess distortion at small detuning with a pronounced dip as a function of signal power, which we interpret in terms of power-dependent dielectric losses. View details
    Preview abstract We demonstrate a 3-port Josephson parametric circulator, matched to 50 Ohm using second order Chebyshev networks. The device notably operates with two of its signal ports at the same frequency and uses only two out-of-phase pumps at a single frequency. As a consequence, When operated as an isolator it does not require phase coherence between the pumps and the signal, simplifying the requirements for its integration into standard dispersive qubit readout setups. The device utilizes parametric couplers based on a balanced bridge of rf-SQUID arrays, which offer purely parametric coupling and high dynamic range. We characterize the device by measuring its full 3x3 S-matrix as a function of frequency the relative phase between the two pumps. We find up to 15 dB nonreciprocity over a 200 MHz signal band, port match better than 10 dB, low insertion loss of 0.6 dB, and saturation power exceeding -80 dBm. View details
    Readout of a quantum processor with high dynamic range Josephson parametric amplifiers
    Aaron Shorter
    Alejandro Grajales Dau
    Alex Crook
    Alex Opremcak
    Alexander Korotkov
    Alexander Lill
    Alexandre Bourassa
    Alexis Morvan
    Alfredo Torres
    Andrew Dunsworth
    Ani Nersisyan
    Anthony Megrant
    Ashley Anne Huff
    Ben Curtin
    Benjamin Chiaro
    Bob Benjamin Buckley
    Brooks Riley Foxen
    Charles Neill
    Christopher Schuster
    Dave Landhuis
    Ebrahim Forati
    Fedor Kostritsa
    Frank Carlton Arute
    Grayson Robert Young
    Jamie Yao
    Jeremy Patterson Hilton
    Jimmy Chen
    JiunHow Ng
    John Mark Kreikebaum
    Josh Godfrey Cogan
    Juhwan Yoo
    Justin Thomas Iveland
    Kannan Aryaperumal Sankaragomathi
    Kenny Lee
    Kunal Arya
    Leon Brill
    Lily MeeKit Laws
    Marco Szalay
    Marika Kieferova
    Markus Ansmann
    Markus Rudolf Hoffmann
    Michael C. Hamilton
    Mike Shearn
    Murray Nguyen
    Nicholas Bushnell
    Ningfeng Zhu
    Pavel Laptev
    Ping Yeh
    Rajeev Acharya
    Rebecca Potter
    Reza Fatemi
    Roberto Collins
    Sean Harrington
    Shirin Montazeri
    Tim Burger
    Trent Huang
    Trevor Johnathan Mccourt
    Vladimir Shvarts
    Wayne Liu
    William Giang
    Xiao Mi
    Yu Chen
    Applied Physics Letters, 122 (2023), pp. 014001
    Preview abstract We demonstrate a high dynamic range Josephson parametric amplifier (JPA) in which the active nonlinear element is implemented using an array of rf-SQUIDs. The device is matched to the 50 $\Omega$ environment with a Klopfenstein-taper impedance transformer and achieves a bandwidth of 250-300 MHz, with input saturation powers up to $-95$~dBm at 20 dB gain. A 54-qubit Sycamore processor was used to benchmark these devices, providing a calibration for readout power, an estimate of amplifier added noise, and a platform for comparison against standard impedance matched parametric amplifiers with a single dc-SQUID. We find that the high power rf-SQUID array design has no adverse effect on system noise, readout fidelity, and qubit dephasing, and we estimate an upper bound on amplifier added noise at 1.6 times the quantum limit. Lastly, amplifiers with this design show no degradation in readout fidelity due to gain compression, which can occur in multi-tone multiplexed readout with traditional JPAs. View details
    Noise-resilient Majorana Edge Modes on a Chain of Superconducting Qubits
    Alejandro Grajales Dau
    Alex Crook
    Alex Opremcak
    Alexa Rubinov
    Alexander Korotkov
    Alexandre Bourassa
    Alexei Kitaev
    Alexis Morvan
    Andre Gregory Petukhov
    Andrew Dunsworth
    Andrey Klots
    Anthony Megrant
    Ashley Anne Huff
    Benjamin Chiaro
    Bernardo Meurer Costa
    Bob Benjamin Buckley
    Brooks Foxen
    Charles Neill
    Christopher Schuster
    Cody Jones
    Daniel Eppens
    Dar Gilboa
    Dave Landhuis
    Dmitry Abanin
    Doug Strain
    Ebrahim Forati
    Edward Farhi
    Emily Mount
    Fedor Kostritsa
    Frank Carlton Arute
    Guifre Vidal
    Igor Aleiner
    Jamie Yao
    Jeremy Patterson Hilton
    Joao Basso
    John Mark Kreikebaum
    Joonho Lee
    Juan Atalaya
    Juhwan Yoo
    Justin Thomas Iveland
    Kannan Aryaperumal Sankaragomathi
    Kenny Lee
    Kim Ming Lau
    Kostyantyn Kechedzhi
    Kunal Arya
    Lara Faoro
    Leon Brill
    Marco Szalay
    Markus Rudolf Hoffmann
    Masoud Mohseni
    Michael Blythe Broughton
    Michael Newman
    Michel Henri Devoret
    Mike Shearn
    Nicholas Bushnell
    Orion Martin
    Paul Conner
    Pavel Laptev
    Ping Yeh
    Rajeev Acharya
    Rebecca Potter
    Reza Fatemi
    Roberto Collins
    Sergei Isakov
    Shirin Montazeri
    Steve Habegger
    Thomas E O'Brien
    Trent Huang
    Trond Ikdahl Andersen
    Vadim Smelyanskiy
    Vladimir Shvarts
    Wayne Liu
    William Courtney
    William Giang
    William J. Huggins
    Wojtek Mruczkiewicz
    Xiao Mi
    Yaxing Zhang
    Yu Chen
    Yuan Su
    Zijun Chen
    Science (2022) (to appear)
    Preview abstract Inherent symmetry of a quantum system may protect its otherwise fragile states. Leveraging such protection requires testing its robustness against uncontrolled environmental interactions. Using 47 superconducting qubits, we implement the kicked Ising model which exhibits Majorana edge modes (MEMs) protected by a $\mathbb{Z}_2$-symmetry. Remarkably, we find that any multi-qubit Pauli operator overlapping with the MEMs exhibits a uniform decay rate comparable to single-qubit relaxation rates, irrespective of its size or composition. This finding allows us to accurately reconstruct the exponentially localized spatial profiles of the MEMs. Spectroscopic measurements further indicate exponentially suppressed hybridization between the MEMs over larger system sizes, which manifests as a strong resilience against low-frequency noise. Our work elucidates the noise sensitivity of symmetry-protected edge modes in a solid-state environment. View details
    Direct Measurement of Nonlocal Interactions in the Many-Body Localized Phase
    Amit Vainsencher
    Andrew Dunsworth
    Anthony Megrant
    Ben Chiaro
    Brooks Foxen
    Charles Neill
    Dave Landhuis
    Fedor Kostritsa
    Frank Carlton Arute
    Jimmy Chen
    John Martinis
    Josh Mutus
    Kostyantyn Kechedzhi
    Kunal Arya
    Rami Barends
    Roberto Collins
    Trent Huang
    Vadim Smelyanskiy
    Yu Chen
    Physical Review Research, 4 (2022), pp. 013148
    Preview abstract The interplay of interactions and strong disorder can lead to an exotic quantum many-body localized (MBL) phase of matter. Beyond the absence of transport, the MBL phase has distinctive signatures, such as slow dephasing and logarithmic entanglement growth; they commonly result in slow and subtle modifications of the dynamics, rendering their measurement challenging. Here, we experimentally characterize these properties of the MBL phase in a system of coupled superconducting qubits. By implementing phase sensitive techniques, we map out the structure of local integrals of motion in the MBL phase. Tomographic reconstruction of single and two-qubit density matrices allows us to determine the spatial and temporal entanglement growth between the localized sites. In addition, we study the preservation of entanglement in the MBL phase. The interferometric protocols implemented here detect affirmative quantum correlations and exclude artifacts due to the imperfect isolation of the system. By measuring elusive MBL quantities, our work highlights the advantages of phase sensitive measurements in studying novel phases of matter. View details
    Resolving catastrophic error bursts from cosmic rays in large arrays of superconducting qubits
    Lara Faoro
    Kunal Arya
    Andrew Dunsworth
    Trent Huang
    Frank Arute
    Bob B. Buckley
    Nicholas Bushnell
    Jimmy Chen
    Roberto Collins
    Alan R. Derk
    Sean Harrington
    Fedor Kostritsa
    Pavel Laptev
    Xiao Mi
    Shirin Montazeri
    Josh Mutus
    Charles Neill
    Alex Opremcak
    Nicholas Redd
    Vladimir Shvarts
    Jamie Yao
    Ping Yeh
    Juhwan Yoo
    Yu Chen
    Vadim Smelyanskiy
    John Martinis
    Anthony Megrant
    Rami Barends
    Nature Physics (2021)
    Preview abstract Scalable quantum computing can become a reality with error correction, provided that coherent qubits can be constructed in large arrays. The key premise is that physical errors can remain both small and sufficiently uncorrelated as devices scale, so that logical error rates can be exponentially suppressed. However, impacts from cosmic rays and latent radioactivity violate these assumptions. An impinging particle can ionize the substrate and induce a burst of quasiparticles that destroys qubit coherence throughout the device. High-energy radiation has been identified as a source of error in pilot superconducting quantum devices, but the effect on large-scale algorithms and error correction remains an open question. Elucidating the physics involved requires operating large numbers of qubits at the same rapid timescales necessary for error correction. Here, we use space- and time-resolved measurements of a large-scale quantum processor to identify bursts of quasiparticles produced by high-energy rays. We track the events from their initial localized impact as they spread, simultaneously and severely limiting the energy coherence of all qubits and causing chip-wide failure. Our results provide direct insights into the impact of these damaging error bursts and highlight the necessity of mitigation to enable quantum computing to scale. View details
    Removing leakage-induced correlated errors in superconducting quantum error correction
    Jimmy Chen
    Juan Atalaya
    Frank Carlton Arute
    Kunal Arya
    Bob Benjamin Buckley
    Nicholas Bushnell
    Benjamin Chiaro
    Roberto Collins
    Andrew Dunsworth
    Brooks Riley Foxen
    Trent Huang
    Kostyantyn Kechedzhi
    Fedor Kostritsa
    Pavel Laptev
    Anthony Megrant
    Xiao Mi
    Josh Mutus
    Charles Neill
    Alexandru Paler
    Nick Redd
    Jamie Yao
    Ping Yeh
    Yu Chen
    Vadim Smelyanskiy
    John Martinis
    Alexander Korotkov
    Andre Gregory Petukhov
    Rami Barends
    Nature Communications, 12 (2021), pp. 1761
    Preview abstract Quantum computing becomes scalable through error correction, but logical error rates only decrease with system size when physical errors are sufficiently uncorrelated. During computation, the unused high energy states of the qubits can become excited. In weakly nonlinear qubits, such as the superconducting transmon, these leakage states are long-lived and mobile, opening a path to errors that are correlated in space and time. The effects of leakage and its mitigation during quantum error correction remain an open question. Here, we report a reset protocol that returns a qubit to the ground state from all relevant higher level states. It requires no additional hardware and combines speed, fidelity, and resilience to noise. We test its performance with the bit-flip stabilizer code, a simplified version of the surface code scheme for quantum error correction. We investigate the accumulation and dynamics of leakage during the stabilizer codes. Using this protocol, we find lower rates of logical errors, and an improved scaling and stability of error suppression with qubits. This demonstration provides a key step on the path towards scalable quantum computing. View details
    Tuning Quantum Information Scrambling on a 53-Qubit Processor
    Alan Derk
    Alan Ho
    Alex Opremcak
    Alexander Korotkov
    Alexandre Bourassa
    Andre Gregory Petukhov
    Andrew Dunsworth
    Anthony Megrant
    Bálint Pató
    Benjamin Chiaro
    Brooks Riley Foxen
    Charles Neill
    Cody Jones
    Daniel Eppens
    Dave Landhuis
    Doug Strain
    Edward Farhi
    Eric Ostby
    Fedor Kostritsa
    Frank Carlton Arute
    Igor Aleiner
    Jamie Yao
    Jeffrey Marshall
    Jeremy Patterson Hilton
    Jimmy Chen
    Josh Mutus
    Juan Atalaya
    Kostyantyn Kechedzhi
    Kunal Arya
    Marco Szalay
    Masoud Mohseni
    Matt Trevithick
    Michael Blythe Broughton
    Michael Newman
    Nicholas Bushnell
    Nicholas Redd
    Orion Martin
    Pavel Laptev
    Ping Yeh
    Rami Barends
    Roberto Collins
    Salvatore Mandra
    Sean Harrington
    Sergei Isakov
    Thomas E O'Brien
    Trent Huang
    Trevor Mccourt
    Vadim Smelyanskiy
    Vladimir Shvarts
    William Courtney
    Wojtek Mruczkiewicz
    Xiao Mi
    Yu Chen
    arXiv (2021)
    Preview abstract As entanglement in a quantum system grows, initially localized quantum information is spread into the exponentially many degrees of freedom of the entire system. This process, known as quantum scrambling, is computationally intensive to study classically and lies at the heart of several modern physics conundrums. Here, we characterize scrambling of different quantum circuits on a 53-qubit programmable quantum processor by measuring their out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs). We observe that the spatiotemporal spread of OTOCs, as well as their circuit-to-circuit fluctuation, unravel in detail the time-scale and extent of quantum scrambling. Comparison with numerical results indicates a high OTOC measurement accuracy despite the large size of the quantum system. Our work establishes OTOC as an experimental tool to diagnose quantum scrambling at the threshold of being classically inaccessible. View details
    Realizing topologically ordered states on a quantum processor
    Y.-J. Liu
    A. Smith
    C. Knapp
    M. Newman
    N. C. Jones
    Z. Chen
    X. Mi
    A. Dunsworth
    I. Aleiner
    F. Arute
    K. Arya
    J. Atalaya
    R. Barends
    J. Basso
    M. Broughton
    B. B. Buckley
    N. Bushnell
    B. Chiaro
    R. Collins
    W. Courtney
    A. R Derk
    D. Eppens
    L. Faoro
    E. Farhi
    B. Foxen
    A. Greene
    S. D. Harrington
    J. Hilton
    T. Huang
    W. J. Huggins
    S. V. Isakov
    K. Kechedzhi
    A. N. Korotkov
    F. Kostritsa
    D. Landhuis
    P. Laptev
    O. Martin
    M. Mohseni
    S. Montazeri
    W. Mruczkiewicz
    J. Mutus
    C. Neill
    T. E. O'Brien
    A. Opremcak
    B. Pato
    A. Petukhov
    V. Shvarts
    D. Strain
    M. Szalay
    Z. Yao
    P. Yeh
    J. Yoo
    A. Megrant
    Y. Chen
    V. Smelyanskiy
    A. Kitaev
    M. Knap
    F. Pollmann
    Science, 374 (2021), pp. 1237-1241
    Preview abstract The discovery of topological order has revolutionized the understanding of quantum matter in modern physics and provided the theoretical foundation for many quantum error correcting codes. Realizing topologically ordered states has proven to be extremely challenging in both condensed matter and synthetic quantum systems. Here, we prepare the ground state of the emblematic toric code Hamiltonian using an efficient quantum circuit on a superconducting quantum processor. We measure a topological entanglement entropy of Stopo ≈ −0.95 × ln 2 and simulate anyon interferometry to extract the braiding statistics of the emergent excitations. Furthermore, we investigate key aspects of the surface code, including logical state injection and the decay of the non-local order parameter. Our results illustrate the topological nature of these states and demonstrate their potential for implementing the surface code. View details