CAS Center for Excellence in Topological Quantum Computation
In recent years, efficient quantum circuit simulations incorporating ideal noise assumptions have relied on tensor network simulators, particularly leveraging the matrix product density operator (MPDO) framework. However, experiments on real noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices often involve complex noise profiles, encompassing uncontrollable elements and instrument-specific effects such as crosstalk. To address these challenges, we employ quantum process tomography (QPT) techniques to directly capture the operational characteristics of the experimental setup and integrate them into numerical simulations using MPDOs. Our QPT-assisted MPDO simulator is then applied to explore a variational approach for generating noisy entangled states, comparing the results with standard noise numerical simulations and demonstrations conducted on the Quafu cloud quantum computation platform. Additionally, we investigate noisy MaxCut problems, as well as the effects of crosstalk and noise truncation. Our results provide valuable insights into the impact of noise on NISQ devices and lay the foundation for enhanced design and assessment of quantum algorithms in complex noise environments.
The S=1/2S=1/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg chain is a paradigmatic quantum system hosting exotic excitations such as spinons and solitons, and forming random singlet state in the presence of quenched disorder. Realizing and distinguishing these excitations in a single material remains a significant challenge. Using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) on a high-quality single crystal of copper benzoate, we identify and characterize all three excitation types by tuning the magnetic field at ultra-low temperatures. At a low field of 0.2 T, a temperature-independent spin-lattice relaxation rate (1/T11/T_1) over more than a decade confirms the presence of spinons. Below 0.4 K, an additional relaxation channel emerges, characterized by 1/T1T1/T_1 \propto T and a spectral weight growing as ln(T/T0)-\ln(T/T_0), signaling a random-singlet ground state induced by weak quenched disorder. At fields above 0.5 T, a field-induced spin gap ΔH2/3\Delta \propto H^{2/3} observed in both 1/T11/T_1 and the Knight shift signifies soliton excitations. Our results establish copper benzoate as a unique experimental platform for studying one-dimensional quantum integrability and the interplay of disorder and correlations.
We develop a unified viscous hydrodynamics for charge and valley transport in gapped graphene in the quantum Hall regime. We redefine Hall viscosity as a response to static electric-field gradients instead of strain, establishing a derivative hierarchy that fundamentally links it to nonlocal Hall conductivity. The theory predicts quantized Hall viscosity for charge and valley, including a ground-state contribution. Crucially, the valley current is unaffected by the Lorentz force and is directly accessible via the local pressure, namely the electrostatic potential that tracks fluid vorticity.
It is a critical challenge to simultaneously gain high interpretability and efficiency with the current schemes of deep machine learning (ML). Tensor network (TN), which is a well-established mathematical tool originating from quantum mechanics, has shown its unique advantages on developing efficient ``white-box'' ML schemes. Here, we give a brief review on the inspiring progresses made in TN-based ML. On one hand, interpretability of TN ML is accommodated with the solid theoretical foundation based on quantum information and many-body physics. On the other hand, high efficiency can be rendered from the powerful TN representations and the advanced computational techniques developed in quantum many-body physics. With the fast development on quantum computers, TN is expected to conceive novel schemes runnable on quantum hardware, heading towards the ``quantum artificial intelligence'' in the forthcoming future.
The one-dimensional (1D) domain wall of 2D Z2\mathbb{Z}_{2} topological orders is studied theoretically. The Ising domain wall model is shown to have an emergent SU(2)1_{1} conformal symmetry because of a hidden nonsymmorphic octahedral symmetry. While a weak magnetic field is an irrelevant perturbation to the bulk topological orders, it induces a domain wall transition from the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid to a ferromagnetic order, which spontaneously breaks the anomalous Z2\mathbb{Z}_{2} symmetry and the time-reversal symmetry on the domain wall. Moreover, the gapless domain wall state also realizes a 1D topological quantum critical point between a Z2T\mathbb{Z}_{2}^{T}-symmetry-protected topological phase and a trivial phase, thus demonstrating the holographic construction of topological transitions.
A medium-scale quantum computer with full universal quantum computing capability is necessary for various practical aims and testing applications. Here we report a 34-qubit quantum virtual machine (QtVM) based on a medium server. Our QtVM can run quantum assembly language with graphic interfaces. The QtVM is implemented with single qubit rotation gate, single to multiple controlled NOT gates to realize the universal quantum computation. Remarkably, it can realize a series of basic functions, such as, the "if" conditional programming language based on single-shot projective measurement results, "for" iteration programming language, build in arithmetic calculation. The measurement can be single-shot and arbitrary number of multi-shot types. In addition, there is in principle no limitation on number of logic gates implemented for quantum computation. By using QtVM, we demonstrate the simulation of dynamical quantum phase transition of transverse field Ising model by quantum circuits, where 34 qubits with one million gates are realized. We also show the realization of programmable Shor algorithm for factoring 15 and 35.
Lattice regularization of chiral fermions has been a long-standing problem in physics. In this work, we present the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) simulation of the 3-4-5-0 model of (1+1)D chiral fermions with an anomaly-free chiral U(1) symmetry, which contains two left-moving and two right-moving fermions carrying U(1) charges 3,4 and 5,0, respectively. Following the Wang-Wen chiral fermion model, we realize the chiral fermions and their mirror partners on the opposite boundaries of a thin strip of (2+1)D lattice model of multi-layer Chern insulator, whose finite-width implies the quantum system is effectively (1+1)D. By introducing carefully designed two sets of six-fermion local interactions to the mirror sector only, we demonstrate that the mirror fermions can be gapped out by the interaction beyond a critical strength without breaking the chiral U(1) symmetry, via the symmetric mass generation (SMG) mechanism. We show that the interaction-driven gapping transition is in the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) universality class. We determine the evolution of Luttinger parameters before the transition, which confirms that the transition happens exactly at the point when the interaction term becomes marginal. As the mirror sector is gapped after the transition, we check that the fermions in the light chiral fermion sector remain gapless, which provides the desired lattice regularization of chiral fermions.
The gradient-based optimization method for deep machine learning models suffers from gradient vanishing and exploding problems, particularly when the computational graph becomes deep. In this work, we propose the tangent-space gradient optimization (TSGO) for the probabilistic models to keep the gradients from vanishing or exploding. The central idea is to guarantee the orthogonality between the variational parameters and the gradients. The optimization is then implemented by rotating parameter vector towards the direction of gradient. We explain and testify TSGO in tensor network (TN) machine learning, where the TN describes the joint probability distribution as a normalized state $\left| \psi \right\rangle $ in Hilbert space. We show that the gradient can be restricted in the tangent space of $\left\langle \psi \right.\left| \psi \right\rangle = 1$ hyper-sphere. Instead of additional adaptive methods to control the learning rate in deep learning, the learning rate of TSGO is naturally determined by the angle θ\theta as η=tanθ\eta = \tan \theta . Our numerical results reveal better convergence of TSGO in comparison to the off-the-shelf Adam.
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Quantum circuit Born machines are generative models which represent the probability distribution of classical dataset as quantum pure states. Computational complexity considerations of the quantum sampling problem suggest that the quantum circuits exhibit stronger expressibility compared to classical neural networks. One can efficiently draw samples from the quantum circuits via projective measurements on qubits. However, similar to the leading implicit generative models in deep learning, such as the generative adversarial networks, the quantum circuits cannot provide the likelihood of the generated samples, which poses a challenge to the training. We devise an efficient gradient-based learning algorithm for the quantum circuit Born machine by minimizing the kerneled maximum mean discrepancy loss. We simulated generative modeling of the Bars-and-Stripes dataset and Gaussian mixture distributions using deep quantum circuits. Our experiments show the importance of circuit depth and gradient-based optimization algorithm. The proposed learning algorithm is runnable on near-term quantum device and can exhibit quantum advantages for generative modeling.
Recent experiments have shown an indication of a hydrodynamic magnon behavior in ultrapure ferromagnetic insulators; however, its direct observation is still lacking. Here, we derive a set of coupled hydrodynamic equations and study the thermal and spin conductivities for such a magnon fluid. We reveal the drastic breakdown of the magnonic Wiedemann-Franz law as a hallmark of the hydrodynamics regime, which will become key evidence for the experimental realization of an emergent hydrodynamic magnon behavior. Therefore, our results pave the way towards the direct observation of magnon fluids.
Multipartite entanglement has much more complex structures than bipartite entanglement, such as the semiseparable state. The multipartite state absent of multipartite entanglement is called a 2-producible state, which is a tensor product of at most 2-partite states. Recently, it is proved that a tripartite pure state is 2-producible if and only if the gap between entanglement of purification and its lower bound vanishes. Here, we show that the entanglement of purification gap is not sufficient to detect more than tripartite entanglement with 4-partite random stabilizer states. We then generalize entanglement of purification to the multipartite case, where the gap between generalized entanglement of purification and its lower bound quantifies the quantum communication cost for distributing one part of the multipartite system to the other parts. We also demonstrate that a multipartite state is 2-producible if and only if the generalized entanglement of purification gaps vanish. In addition, we show that the generalized entanglement of purification gaps are related to the local recoverability of the multipartite state from its marginal state on some parts of the system and the distance between the state and the 2-producible states with the relative entropy. Moreover, we calculate the generalized entanglement of purification gaps for the states fulfilling the generalized Schmidt decomposition, which implies that the 4-partite stabilizer states do not always have the generalized Schmidt decomposition. Our results provide a quantitive characterization of multipartite entanglement in multipartite system, which will promote further investigations and understanding of multipartite entanglement.
The non-Abelian braiding of Majorana fermions is one of the most promising operations providing a key building block for the realization of topological quantum computation. Recently, the chiral Majorana fermions were observed in a hybrid junction btween a quantum anomalous Hall insulator and an s-wave superconductor. Here we show that if a quantum dot or Majorana zero mode couples to the chiral Majorana fermions, the resulting resonant exchange of chiral Majorana fermions can lead to the non-Abelian braiding. Remarkably, any operation in the braid group can be achieved by this scheme. We further propose electrical transport experiments to observe the braiding of four chiral Majorana fermions and demonstrate the non-Abelian braiding statistics in four-terminal devices of the hybrid junctions. Both a conductance peak due to the braiding and the braiding-order dependent conductance are predicted. These findings pave a way to perform any braiding operation of chiral Majorana fermions by electrically controllable quantum dots.
Recent experiments have shown an indication of a hydrodynamic magnon behavior in ultrapure ferromagnetic insulators; however, its direct observation is still lacking. Here, we derive a set of coupled hydrodynamic equations and study the thermal and spin conductivities for such a magnon fluid. We reveal the drastic breakdown of the magnonic Wiedemann-Franz law as a hallmark of the hydrodynamics regime, which will become key evidence for the experimental realization of an emergent hydrodynamic magnon behavior. Therefore, our results pave the way towards the direct observation of magnon fluids.
The flexoelectric behaviors of solids under high strain gradient can be distinct from that under low strain gradient. Using the generalized Bloch theorem, we investigate theoretically the transversal flexoelectric effects in bent MgO thinfilms. As a comparison, a centrosymmetric (100) film and a non-centrosymmetric (111) film are considered. Under bending, the mechanical responses of both films are linear elastic under low strain gradient but nonlinear elastic under high strain gradient. In the linear elastic regime, no internal displacements and thus no polarization contributed from ions are induced. Only in the nonlinear elastic regime, atoms adopt discernibly large internal displacements, leading to strong polarization from ions. Because the internal displacements of atoms of the (111) film are much larger than those of the (100) film, the obtained flexoelectric coefficient of the (111) film is also greater than that of the (100) film, revealing strong anisotropy of flexoelectricity of MgO film. Our results and the employed approach have important implications for the study of flexoelectric properteis of ionic solids.
The non-Abelian braiding of Majorana fermions is one of the most promising operations providing a key building block for the realization of topological quantum computation. Recently, the chiral Majorana fermions were observed in a hybrid junction btween a quantum anomalous Hall insulator and an s-wave superconductor. Here we show that if a quantum dot or Majorana zero mode couples to the chiral Majorana fermions, the resulting resonant exchange of chiral Majorana fermions can lead to the non-Abelian braiding. Remarkably, any operation in the braid group can be achieved by this scheme. We further propose electrical transport experiments to observe the braiding of four chiral Majorana fermions and demonstrate the non-Abelian braiding statistics in four-terminal devices of the hybrid junctions. Both a conductance peak due to the braiding and the braiding-order dependent conductance are predicted. These findings pave a way to perform any braiding operation of chiral Majorana fermions by electrically controllable quantum dots.
A vortex in an s-wave superconductor with a surface Dirac cone can trap a Majorana bound state with zero energy leading to a zero-bias peak (ZBP) of tunneling conductance. The iron-based superconductor FeTex_xSe1x_{1-x} is one of the material candidates hosting these Majorana vortex modes. It has been observed by recent scanning tunneling spectroscopy measurement that the fraction of vortex cores possessing ZBPs decreases with increasing magnetic field on the surface of this iron-based superconductor. We construct a three-dimensional tight-binding model simulating the physics of over a hundred Majorana vortex modes in FeTex_xSe1x_{1-x} with realistic physical parameters. Our simulation shows that the Majorana hybridization and disordered vortex distribution can explain the decreasing fraction of the ZBPs observed in the experiment. Furthermore, we find the statistics of the energy peaks off zero energy in our simulation with the Majorana physics in agreement with the analyzed peak statistics in the vortex cores from the experiment. This agreement and the explanation of the decreasing ZBP fraction lead to an important indication of scalable Majorana vortex modes in the iron-based superconductor. Thus, FeTex_xSe1x_{1-x} can be one promising platform possessing scalable Majorana qubits for quantum computing. In addition, we further show the interplay of the ZBP presence and the vortex locations qualitatively agrees with our additional experimental observation and predict the universal spin signature of the hybridized multiple Majorana vortex modes.
We propose a mechanism of angular momentum conversion from optical transverse spin in surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) to conduction electron spin. Free electrons in the metal follow the transversally spinning electric field of SPP, and the resulting orbital motions create inhomogeneous static magnetisation in the metal. By solving the spin diffusion equation in the SPP, we find that the magnetisation field generates an electron spin current. We show that there exists a resonant condition where the spin current is resonantly enhanced, and the polarisation of the spin current is flipped. Our theory reveals a novel functionality of SPP as a spin current source.
Introducing magnetism into topological insulators breaks time-reversal symmetry, and the magnetic exchange interaction can open a gap in the otherwise gapless topological surface states. This allows various novel topological quantum states to be generated, including the quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAHE) and axion insulator states. Magnetic doping and magnetic proximity are viewed as being useful means of exploring the interaction between topology and magnetism. However, the inhomogeneity of magnetic doping leads to complicated magnetic ordering and small exchange gaps, and consequently the observed QAHE appears only at ultralow temperatures. Therefore, intrinsic magnetic topological insulators are highly desired for increasing the QAHE working temperature and for investigating topological quantum phenomena further. The realization and characterization of such systems are essential for both fundamental physics and potential technical revolutions. This review summarizes recent research progress in intrinsic magnetic topological insulators, focusing mainly on the antiferromagnetic topological insulator MnBi2Te4 and its family of materials.
The recent realization of pristine Majorana zero modes (MZMs) in vortices of iron-based superconductors (FeSCs) provides a promising platform for long-sought-after fault-tolerant quantum computation. A large topological gap between the MZMs and the lowest excitations enabled detailed characterization of vortex MZMs in those materials. Despite those achievements, a practical implementation of topological quantum computation based on MZM braiding remains elusive in this new Majorana platform. Among the most pressing issues are the lack of controllable tuning methods for vortex MZMs and inhomogeneity of the FeSC Majorana compounds that destroys MZMs during the braiding process. Thus, the realization of tunable vortex MZMs in a truly homogeneous compound of stoichiometric composition and with a charge neutral cleavage surface is highly desirable. Here we demonstrate experimentally that the stoichiometric superconductor LiFeAs is a good candidate to overcome these two obstacles. Using scanning tunneling microscopy, we discover that the MZMs, which are absent on the natural surface, can appear in vortices influenced by native impurities. Our detailed analysis and model calculations clarify the mechanism of emergence of MZMs in this material, paving a way towards MZMs tunable by controllable methods such as electrostatic gating. The tunability of MZMs in this homogeneous material offers an unprecedented platform to manipulate and braid MZMs, the essential ingredients for topological quantum computation.
Braiding Majorana zero modes is essential for fault-tolerant topological quantum computing. Iron-based superconductors with nontrivial band topology have recently emerged as a surprisingly promising platform for creating distinct Majorana zero modes in magnetic vortices in a single material and at relatively high temperatures. The magnetic field-induced Abrikosov vortex lattice makes it difficult to braid a set of Majorana zero modes or to study the coupling of a Majorana doublet due to overlapping wave functions. Here we report the observation of the proposed quantum anomalous vortex with integer quantized vortex core states and the Majorana zero mode induced by magnetic Fe adatoms deposited on the surface. We observe its hybridization with a nearby field-induced Majorana vortex in iron-based superconductor FeTe0.55Se0.45. We also observe vortex-free Yu-Shiba-Rusinov bound states at the Fe adatoms with a weaker coupling to the substrate, and discover a reversible transition between Yu-Shiba-Rusinov states and Majorana zero mode by manipulating the exchange coupling strength. The dual origin of the Majorana zero modes, from magnetic adatoms and external magnetic field, provides a new single-material platform for studying their interactions and braiding in superconductors bearing topological band structures.
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