Matthew Neeley

Matthew Neeley received a BS in Physics from Stanford University (2004) and a PhD in Physics from the University of California at Santa Barbara (2010), where he worked on superconducting qubits in the group of John Martinis. After graduate school he was a staff researcher at MIT Lincoln Laboratories working on superconducting qubits and resonators. In 2012 he joined Nest Labs as a software engineer and subsequently moved to Google's Quantum AI team with the goal of building the first useful quantum computer.
Authored Publications
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    Dynamics of magnetization at infinite temperature in a Heisenberg spin chain
    Tomaž Prosen
    Vedika Khemani
    Rhine Samajdar
    Jesse Hoke
    Sarang Gopalakrishnan
    Andrew Dunsworth
    Bill Huggins
    Markus Hoffmann
    Alexis Morvan
    Josh Cogan
    Ben Curtin
    Guifre Vidal
    Bob Buckley
    Tom O'Brien
    John Mark Kreikebaum
    Rajeev Acharya
    Joonho Lee
    Ningfeng Zhu
    Shirin Montazeri
    Sergei Isakov
    Jamie Yao
    Clarke Smith
    Rebecca Potter
    Sean Harrington
    Jeremy Hilton
    Paula Heu
    Alexei Kitaev
    Alex Crook
    Fedor Kostritsa
    Kim Ming Lau
    Dmitry Abanin
    Trent Huang
    Aaron Shorter
    Steve Habegger
    Steven Martin
    Gina Bortoli
    Seun Omonije
    Richard Ross Allen
    Charles Rocque
    Vladimir Shvarts
    Alfredo Torres
    Anthony Megrant
    Charles Neill
    Michael Hamilton
    Dar Gilboa
    Lily Laws
    Nicholas Bushnell
    Kyle Anderson
    Ramis Movassagh
    David Rhodes
    Mike Shearn
    Wojtek Mruczkiewicz
    Desmond Chik
    Leonid Pryadko
    Xiao Mi
    Brooks Foxen
    Frank Arute
    Alejo Grajales Dau
    Yaxing Zhang
    Lara Faoro
    Alexander Lill
    Gordon Hill
    JiunHow Ng
    Justin Iveland
    Marco Szalay
    Orion Martin
    Juan Campero
    Juhwan Yoo
    Michael Newman
    William Giang
    Gonzalo Garcia
    Alex Opremcak
    Amanda Mieszala
    William Courtney
    Andrey Klots
    Wayne Liu
    Pavel Laptev
    Paul Conner
    Rolando Somma
    Vadim Smelyanskiy
    Benjamin Chiaro
    Grayson Young
    Tim Burger
    ILYA Drozdov
    Agustin Di Paolo
    Jimmy Chen
    Marika Kieferova
    Hung-Shen Chang
    Michael Broughton
    Negar Saei
    Juan Atalaya
    Markus Ansmann
    Pavol Juhas
    Murray Ich Nguyen
    Yuri Lensky
    Roberto Collins
    Élie Genois
    Jindra Skruzny
    Yu Chen
    Reza Fatemi
    Leon Brill
    Seneca Meeks
    Ashley Huff
    Doug Strain
    Monica Hansen
    Noah Shutty
    Ebrahim Forati
    Doug Thor
    Dave Landhuis
    Kenny Lee
    Ping Yeh
    Kunal Arya
    Henry Schurkus
    Cheng Xing
    Cody Jones
    Edward Farhi
    Vlad Sivak
    Raja Gosula
    Andre Petukhov
    Clint Earle
    Alexander Korotkov
    Ani Nersisyan
    Christopher Schuster
    George Sterling
    Trond Andersen
    Alexandre Bourassa
    Salvatore Mandra
    Kannan Sankaragomathi
    Vinicius Ferreira
    Science, 384 (2024), pp. 48-53
    Preview abstract Understanding universal aspects of quantum dynamics is an unresolved problem in statistical mechanics. In particular, the spin dynamics of the one-dimensional Heisenberg model were conjectured as to belong to the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class based on the scaling of the infinite-temperature spin-spin correlation function. In a chain of 46 superconducting qubits, we studied the probability distribution of the magnetization transferred across the chain’s center, P(M). The first two moments of P(M) show superdiffusive behavior, a hallmark of KPZ universality. However, the third and fourth moments ruled out the KPZ conjecture and allow for evaluating other theories. Our results highlight the importance of studying higher moments in determining dynamic universality classes and provide insights into universal behavior in quantum systems. View details
    Stable quantum-correlated many-body states through engineered dissipation
    Sara Shabani
    Dripto Debroy
    Jerome Lloyd
    Alexios Michailidis
    Andrew Dunsworth
    Bill Huggins
    Markus Hoffmann
    Alexis Morvan
    Josh Cogan
    Ben Curtin
    Guifre Vidal
    Bob Buckley
    Tom O'Brien
    John Mark Kreikebaum
    Rajeev Acharya
    Joonho Lee
    Ningfeng Zhu
    Shirin Montazeri
    Sergei Isakov
    Jamie Yao
    Clarke Smith
    Rebecca Potter
    Sean Harrington
    Jeremy Hilton
    Paula Heu
    Alexei Kitaev
    Alex Crook
    Fedor Kostritsa
    Kim Ming Lau
    Dmitry Abanin
    Trent Huang
    Aaron Shorter
    Steve Habegger
    Gina Bortoli
    Charles Rocque
    Vladimir Shvarts
    Alfredo Torres
    Anthony Megrant
    Charles Neill
    Michael Hamilton
    Dar Gilboa
    Lily Laws
    Nicholas Bushnell
    Ramis Movassagh
    Mike Shearn
    Wojtek Mruczkiewicz
    Desmond Chik
    Leonid Pryadko
    Xiao Mi
    Brooks Foxen
    Frank Arute
    Alejo Grajales Dau
    Yaxing Zhang
    Lara Faoro
    Alexander Lill
    JiunHow Ng
    Justin Iveland
    Marco Szalay
    Orion Martin
    Juhwan Yoo
    Michael Newman
    William Giang
    Alex Opremcak
    Amanda Mieszala
    William Courtney
    Andrey Klots
    Wayne Liu
    Pavel Laptev
    Charina Chou
    Paul Conner
    Rolando Somma
    Vadim Smelyanskiy
    Benjamin Chiaro
    Grayson Young
    Tim Burger
    ILYA Drozdov
    Agustin Di Paolo
    Jimmy Chen
    Marika Kieferova
    Michael Broughton
    Negar Saei
    Juan Atalaya
    Markus Ansmann
    Pavol Juhas
    Murray Ich Nguyen
    Yuri Lensky
    Roberto Collins
    Élie Genois
    Jindra Skruzny
    Igor Aleiner
    Yu Chen
    Reza Fatemi
    Leon Brill
    Ashley Huff
    Doug Strain
    Monica Hansen
    Noah Shutty
    Ebrahim Forati
    Dave Landhuis
    Kenny Lee
    Ping Yeh
    Kunal Arya
    Henry Schurkus
    Cheng Xing
    Cody Jones
    Edward Farhi
    Raja Gosula
    Andre Petukhov
    Alexander Korotkov
    Ani Nersisyan
    Christopher Schuster
    George Sterling
    Kostyantyn Kechedzhi
    Trond Andersen
    Alexandre Bourassa
    Kannan Sankaragomathi
    Vinicius Ferreira
    Science, 383 (2024), pp. 1332-1337
    Preview abstract Engineered dissipative reservoirs have the potential to steer many-body quantum systems toward correlated steady states useful for quantum simulation of high-temperature superconductivity or quantum magnetism. Using up to 49 superconducting qubits, we prepared low-energy states of the transverse-field Ising model through coupling to dissipative auxiliary qubits. In one dimension, we observed long-range quantum correlations and a ground-state fidelity of 0.86 for 18 qubits at the critical point. In two dimensions, we found mutual information that extends beyond nearest neighbors. Lastly, by coupling the system to auxiliaries emulating reservoirs with different chemical potentials, we explored transport in the quantum Heisenberg model. Our results establish engineered dissipation as a scalable alternative to unitary evolution for preparing entangled many-body states on noisy quantum processors. View details
    Measurement-induced entanglement and teleportation on a noisy quantum processor
    Vedika Khemani
    Matteo Ippoliti
    Andrew Dunsworth
    Bill Huggins
    Markus Hoffmann
    Alexis Morvan
    Josh Cogan
    Ben Curtin
    Guifre Vidal
    Bob Buckley
    Tom O'Brien
    John Mark Kreikebaum
    Rajeev Acharya
    Joonho Lee
    Ningfeng Zhu
    Shirin Montazeri
    Sergei Isakov
    Jamie Yao
    Clarke Smith
    Rebecca Potter
    Jeremy Hilton
    Paula Heu
    Alexei Kitaev
    Alex Crook
    Fedor Kostritsa
    Kim Ming Lau
    Dmitry Abanin
    Trent Huang
    Aaron Shorter
    Steve Habegger
    Gina Bortoli
    Seun Omonije
    Charles Rocque
    Vladimir Shvarts
    Alfredo Torres
    Anthony Megrant
    Charles Neill
    Michael Hamilton
    Dar Gilboa
    Lily Laws
    Nicholas Bushnell
    Ramis Movassagh
    Mike Shearn
    Wojtek Mruczkiewicz
    Desmond Chik
    Leonid Pryadko
    Xiao Mi
    Brooks Foxen
    Frank Arute
    Alejo Grajales Dau
    Yaxing Zhang
    Alexander Lill
    JiunHow Ng
    Justin Iveland
    Marco Szalay
    Orion Martin
    Juhwan Yoo
    Michael Newman
    William Giang
    Alex Opremcak
    Amanda Mieszala
    William Courtney
    Andrey Klots
    Wayne Liu
    Pavel Laptev
    Paul Conner
    Rolando Somma
    Vadim Smelyanskiy
    Jesse Hoke
    Benjamin Chiaro
    Grayson Young
    Tim Burger
    ILYA Drozdov
    Agustin Di Paolo
    Jimmy Chen
    Marika Kieferova
    Michael Broughton
    Negar Saei
    Juan Atalaya
    Markus Ansmann
    Pavol Juhas
    Murray Ich Nguyen
    Yuri Lensky
    Daniel Eppens
    Roberto Collins
    Jindra Skruzny
    Yu Chen
    Reza Fatemi
    Leon Brill
    Ashley Huff
    Doug Strain
    Monica Hansen
    Noah Shutty
    Ebrahim Forati
    Dave Landhuis
    Kenny Lee
    Ping Yeh
    Kunal Arya
    Henry Schurkus
    Cheng Xing
    Cody Jones
    Edward Farhi
    Raja Gosula
    Andre Petukhov
    Alexander Korotkov
    Ani Nersisyan
    Christopher Schuster
    George Sterling
    Kostyantyn Kechedzhi
    Trond Andersen
    Alexandre Bourassa
    Kannan Sankaragomathi
    Vinicius Ferreira
    Nature, 622 (2023), 481–486
    Preview abstract Measurement has a special role in quantum theory: by collapsing the wavefunction, it can enable phenomena such as teleportation and thereby alter the ‘arrow of time’ that constrains unitary evolution. When integrated in many-body dynamics, measurements can lead to emergent patterns of quantum information in space–time that go beyond the established paradigms for characterizing phases, either in or out of equilibrium. For present-day noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) processors, the experimental realization of such physics can be problematic because of hardware limitations and the stochastic nature of quantum measurement. Here we address these experimental challenges and study measurement-induced quantum information phases on up to 70 superconducting qubits. By leveraging the interchangeability of space and time, we use a duality mapping to avoid mid-circuit measurement and access different manifestations of the underlying phases, from entanglement scaling to measurement-induced teleportation. We obtain finite-sized signatures of a phase transition with a decoding protocol that correlates the experimental measurement with classical simulation data. The phases display remarkably different sensitivity to noise, and we use this disparity to turn an inherent hardware limitation into a useful diagnostic. Our work demonstrates an approach to realizing measurement-induced physics at scales that are at the limits of current NISQ processors. View details
    Readout of a quantum processor with high dynamic range Josephson parametric amplifiers
    Andrew Dunsworth
    Markus Rudolf Hoffmann
    Alexis Morvan
    Josh Godfrey Cogan
    Ben Curtin
    Bob Benjamin Buckley
    Trevor Johnathan Mccourt
    John Mark Kreikebaum
    Rajeev Acharya
    Ningfeng Zhu
    Shirin Montazeri
    Jamie Yao
    Rebecca Potter
    Sean Harrington
    Jeremy Patterson Hilton
    Alex Crook
    Fedor Kostritsa
    Trent Huang
    Aaron Shorter
    Vladimir Shvarts
    Alfredo Torres
    Anthony Megrant
    Charles Neill
    Michael C. Hamilton
    Lily MeeKit Laws
    Nicholas Bushnell
    Mike Shearn
    Xiao Mi
    Brooks Riley Foxen
    Frank Carlton Arute
    Alejandro Grajales Dau
    Alexander Lill
    JiunHow Ng
    Justin Thomas Iveland
    Marco Szalay
    Juhwan Yoo
    William Giang
    Alex Opremcak
    Wayne Liu
    Pavel Laptev
    Benjamin Chiaro
    Grayson Robert Young
    Tim Burger
    Jimmy Chen
    Marika Kieferova
    Markus Ansmann
    Murray Nguyen
    Roberto Collins
    Yu Chen
    Reza Fatemi
    Leon Brill
    Ashley Anne Huff
    Ebrahim Forati
    Dave Landhuis
    Kenny Lee
    Ping Yeh
    Kunal Arya
    Alexander Korotkov
    Ani Nersisyan
    Christopher Schuster
    Alexandre Bourassa
    Kannan Aryaperumal Sankaragomathi
    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
    Purification-Based Quantum Error Mitigation of Pair-Correlated Electron Simulations
    Christian Gogolin
    Vincent Elfving
    Fotios Gkritsis
    Oumarou Oumarou
    Gian-Luca R. Anselmetti
    Masoud Mohseni
    Andrew Dunsworth
    William J. Huggins
    Markus Rudolf Hoffmann
    Alexis Morvan
    Josh Godfrey Cogan
    Ben Curtin
    Guifre Vidal
    Bob Benjamin Buckley
    Trevor Johnathan Mccourt
    Thomas E O'Brien
    John Mark Kreikebaum
    Rajeev Acharya
    Joonho Lee
    Ningfeng Zhu
    Shirin Montazeri
    Sergei Isakov
    Jamie Yao
    Clarke Smith
    Rebecca Potter
    Sean Harrington
    Jeremy Patterson Hilton
    Alex Crook
    Fedor Kostritsa
    Kim Ming Lau
    Dmitry Abanin
    Trent Huang
    Aaron Shorter
    Steve Habegger
    Richard Ross Allen
    Vladimir Shvarts
    Alfredo Torres
    Stefano Polla
    Anthony Megrant
    Charles Neill
    Michael C. Hamilton
    Dar Gilboa
    Lily MeeKit Laws
    Nicholas Bushnell
    Kyle Anderson
    Ramis Movassagh
    Mike Shearn
    Wojtek Mruczkiewicz
    Desmond Chun Fung Chik
    Xiao Mi
    Brooks Riley Foxen
    Frank Carlton Arute
    Alejandro Grajales Dau
    Yaxing Zhang
    Lara Faoro
    Alexander T. Lill
    Jiun How Ng
    Justin Thomas Iveland
    Marco Szalay
    Orion Martin
    Juhwan Yoo
    Michael Newman
    William Giang
    Alex Opremcak
    William Courtney
    Andrey Klots
    Wayne Liu
    Pavel Laptev
    Paul Conner
    Rolando Diego Somma
    Vadim Smelyanskiy
    Benjamin Chiaro
    Grayson Robert Young
    Tim Burger
    Ilya Drozdov
    Jimmy Chen
    Marika Kieferova
    Michael Blythe Broughton
    Juan Atalaya
    Markus Ansmann
    Pavol Juhas
    Murray Nguyen
    Daniel Eppens
    Roberto Collins
    Jindra Skruzny
    Igor Aleiner
    Yu Chen
    Reza Fatemi
    Leon Brill
    Ashley Anne Huff
    Doug Strain
    Ebrahim Forati
    Dave Landhuis
    Kenny Lee
    Ping Yeh
    Kunal Arya
    Cody Jones
    Edward Farhi
    Andre Gregory Petukhov
    Alexander Korotkov
    Ani Nersisyan
    Christopher Schuster
    Kostyantyn Kechedzhi
    Trond Ikdahl Andersen
    Alexandre Bourassa
    Kannan Aryaperumal Sankaragomathi
    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
    Noise-resilient Majorana Edge Modes on a Chain of Superconducting Qubits
    Zijun Chen
    Brooks Foxen
    Masoud Mohseni
    Emily Mount
    Joao Basso
    Andrew Dunsworth
    William J. Huggins
    Yuan Su
    Markus Rudolf Hoffmann
    Alexis Morvan
    Guifre Vidal
    Bob Benjamin Buckley
    Thomas E O'Brien
    John Mark Kreikebaum
    Rajeev Acharya
    Joonho Lee
    Shirin Montazeri
    Sergei Isakov
    Jamie Yao
    Rebecca Potter
    Jeremy Patterson Hilton
    Alexei Kitaev
    Alex Crook
    Fedor Kostritsa
    Kim Ming Lau
    Dmitry Abanin
    Trent Huang
    Steve Habegger
    Alexa Rubinov
    Vladimir Shvarts
    Anthony Megrant
    Charles Neill
    Dar Gilboa
    Nicholas Bushnell
    Mike Shearn
    Wojtek Mruczkiewicz
    Xiao Mi
    Frank Carlton Arute
    Alejandro Grajales Dau
    Yaxing Zhang
    Lara Faoro
    Justin Thomas Iveland
    Marco Szalay
    Orion Martin
    Juhwan Yoo
    Michael Newman
    William Giang
    Alex Opremcak
    William Courtney
    Andrey Klots
    Wayne Liu
    Pavel Laptev
    Paul Conner
    Vadim Smelyanskiy
    Benjamin Chiaro
    Bernardo Meurer Costa
    Michael Blythe Broughton
    Juan Atalaya
    Daniel Eppens
    Roberto Collins
    Igor Aleiner
    Yu Chen
    Reza Fatemi
    Leon Brill
    Ashley Anne Huff
    Doug Strain
    Ebrahim Forati
    Dave Landhuis
    Kenny Lee
    Ping Yeh
    Kunal Arya
    Michel Henri Devoret
    Cody Jones
    Edward Farhi
    Andre Gregory Petukhov
    Alexander Korotkov
    Christopher Schuster
    Kostyantyn Kechedzhi
    Trond Ikdahl Andersen
    Alexandre Bourassa
    Kannan Aryaperumal Sankaragomathi
    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
    Brooks Foxen
    Ben Chiaro
    Andrew Dunsworth
    Rami Barends
    Amit Vainsencher
    John Martinis
    Josh Mutus
    Fedor Kostritsa
    Trent Huang
    Anthony Megrant
    Charles Neill
    Frank Carlton Arute
    Vadim Smelyanskiy
    Jimmy Chen
    Roberto Collins
    Yu Chen
    Dave Landhuis
    Kunal Arya
    Kostyantyn Kechedzhi
    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
    Realizing topologically ordered states on a quantum processor
    A. Greene
    F. Pollmann
    L. Faoro
    C. Knapp
    B. Pato
    Y.-J. Liu
    R. Barends
    J. Mutus
    M. Knap
    A. Smith
    M. Mohseni
    J. Basso
    A. Dunsworth
    W. J. Huggins
    A. R Derk
    B. B. Buckley
    T. E. O'Brien
    S. Montazeri
    S. V. Isakov
    Z. Yao
    S. D. Harrington
    J. Hilton
    A. Kitaev
    F. Kostritsa
    T. Huang
    V. Shvarts
    A. Megrant
    C. Neill
    N. Bushnell
    W. Mruczkiewicz
    X. Mi
    B. Foxen
    F. Arute
    M. Szalay
    O. Martin
    J. Yoo
    M. Newman
    A. Opremcak
    W. Courtney
    P. Laptev
    V. Smelyanskiy
    B. Chiaro
    Z. Chen
    M. Broughton
    J. Atalaya
    D. Eppens
    R. Collins
    I. Aleiner
    Y. Chen
    D. Strain
    D. Landhuis
    P. Yeh
    K. Arya
    N. C. Jones
    E. Farhi
    A. Petukhov
    A. N. Korotkov
    K. Kechedzhi
    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
    Removing leakage-induced correlated errors in superconducting quantum error correction
    Alexandru Paler
    Andrew Dunsworth
    Rami Barends
    John Martinis
    Josh Mutus
    Bob Benjamin Buckley
    Jamie Yao
    Fedor Kostritsa
    Trent Huang
    Nick Redd
    Anthony Megrant
    Charles Neill
    Nicholas Bushnell
    Xiao Mi
    Brooks Riley Foxen
    Frank Carlton Arute
    Pavel Laptev
    Vadim Smelyanskiy
    Benjamin Chiaro
    Jimmy Chen
    Juan Atalaya
    Roberto Collins
    Yu Chen
    Ping Yeh
    Kunal Arya
    Andre Gregory Petukhov
    Alexander Korotkov
    Kostyantyn Kechedzhi
    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
    Quantum Approximate Optimization of Non-Planar Graph Problems on a Planar Superconducting Processor
    Michael Streif
    Florian Neukart
    Andrea Skolik
    Martin Leib
    Ben Chiaro
    Bryan O'Gorman
    A.G. Petukhov
    Masoud Mohseni
    Andrew Dunsworth
    Rami Barends
    Amit Vainsencher
    John Martinis
    Josh Mutus
    Bob Benjamin Buckley
    Thomas E O'Brien
    Sergei Isakov
    Jamie Yao
    Fedor Kostritsa
    Steve Habegger
    Anthony Megrant
    Charles Neill
    Nicholas Bushnell
    Harry Putterman
    Wojtek Mruczkiewicz
    Xiao Mi
    Leo Zhou
    Brooks Riley Foxen
    Frank Carlton Arute
    Marco Szalay
    Orion Martin
    William Courtney
    Pavel Laptev
    Vadim Smelyanskiy
    Jimmy Chen
    Mike Lindmark
    Michael Blythe Broughton
    Juan Atalaya
    Roberto Collins
    Yu Chen
    Kevin Jeffery Sung
    Doug Strain
    Rob Graff
    Dave Landhuis
    Kunal Arya
    Cody Jones
    Edward Farhi
    Alexander Korotkov
    Kostyantyn Kechedzhi
    Nature Physics (2021)
    Preview abstract Faster algorithms for combinatorial optimization could prove transformative for diverse areas such as logistics, finance and machine learning. Accordingly, the possibility of quantum enhanced optimization has driven much interest in quantum technologies. Here we demonstrate the application of the Google Sycamore superconducting qubit quantum processor to combinatorial optimization problems with the quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA). Like past QAOA experiments, we study performance for problems defined on the planar connectivity graph native to our hardware; however, we also apply the QAOA to the Sherrington–Kirkpatrick model and MaxCut, non-native problems that require extensive compilation to implement. For hardware-native problems, which are classically efficient to solve on average, we obtain an approximation ratio that is independent of problem size and observe that performance increases with circuit depth. For problems requiring compilation, performance decreases with problem size. Circuits involving several thousand gates still present an advantage over random guessing but not over some efficient classical algorithms. Our results suggest that it will be challenging to scale near-term implementations of the QAOA for problems on non-native graphs. As these graphs are closer to real-world instances, we suggest more emphasis should be placed on such problems when using the QAOA to benchmark quantum processors. View details