arXiv subjects

Timo Hillmann

Publications and source records attributed to Timo Hillmann.

18 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Quantum low-density lattice codes

Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) codes provide a family of promising schemes for encoding discrete quantum information (qudits) into infinite-dimensional bosonic modes based on mathematical lattices. While such codes, when concatenated with discrete-variable codes, are relatively well studied, the construction and decoding of native GKP codes has largely remained open due to the computationally hard problems encountered. To address this challenge, we advocate a strategy of co-designing the decoder and the quantum error-correcting code itself by constructing lattices for which decoding is feasible: The requirement of efficient decoding effectively determines the quantum error-correcting code. This construction is built on classical low-density lattice codes (LDLCs), a lattice analogue of low-density parity-check codes, here lifted to families of GKP codes. Concretely, we introduce quantum versions of classical, randomly constructed LDLCs. We show that after suitable dimensionality reduction these codes have code properties comparable to or better than concatenated GKP-surface codes of equal number of modes. However, the GKP-LDLCs constructed here do not have a strictly sparse parity check matrix, which motivates our study of the performance of natively analog message-passing decoders originally developed for LDLCs when applied to concatenated GKP-LDPC codes. We show that the fully analog, linear-time decoder achieves performances close to state-of-the-art hybrid qubit-analog decoders. To facilitate future research on the structure and performance of general GKP codes, the relevant source code will be released in open-source Julia packages LatticeDecoder.jl and SymplecticGKP.jl.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Stroboscopic Stabilization of Cat Qubits

Dissipatively stabilized cat qubits provide a promising route toward fault-tolerant quantum computation, exhibiting exponential suppression of bit-flip errors with increasing phase-space separation of the logical states, while incurring only a linear increase in phase-flip errors. Existing implementations rely on engineered two-photon dissipation via nonlinear coupling to a lossy environment, an approach largely confined to superconducting platforms and limited by spurious decay channels and finite dissipation rates. Here, we propose a fundamentally different stabilization paradigm based on repeated interactions with an auxiliary two-level system mediated by a quadratic Hamiltonian, enabling dissipative stabilization without reservoir engineering. Our approach overcomes key limitations of existing schemes and is compatible with a wider class of experimental platforms. Furthermore, it preserves the noise bias and extends to squeezed cat qubits, rendering single-photon loss errors partially correctable.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Bosonic quantum error-correcting codes with finite stellar rank

Bosonic quantum error correction (QEC) relies on non-Gaussian bosonic encodings whose preparation cost is a central practical constraint. In this work, we use stellar rank as a resource measure to design and benchmark bosonic codes under finite non-Gaussian resources. For fixed cat and Gottesman--Kitaev--Preskill (GKP) code families, we show that finite stellar rank creates a trade-off among state approximability, energy, and logical protection under photon loss and photon-number dephasing, evaluated with optimal recovery. This trade-off implies that codewords with better ideal error-correction properties need not be optimal once finite-rank preparation constraints are imposed. Going beyond fixed-target codewords, we directly optimize bosonic encodings at fixed stellar rank, revealing noise-adapted code structures and concrete resource thresholds. Grid-like encodings emerge under photon loss, whereas approximately rotation-symmetric encodings arise under dephasing. In the optimized search, stellar rank k=2 suffices to surpass break-even for all dephasing strengths considered, while under photon loss the required rank increases with the loss rate. These results establish stellar rank as an operationally meaningful resource measure for bosonic QEC under practical state-preparation constraints.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Bosonic quantum computing with near-term devices and beyond

(Abridged.) This thesis investigates scalable fault-tolerant quantum computation through the development of bosonic quantum codes, quantum LDPC codes, and decoding protocols that connect continuous-variable and discrete-variable error correction. We investigate superconducting microwave implementations of continuous-variable quantum computing, including the deterministic generation of cubic phase states, and introduce the dissipatively stabilized squeezed cat qubit, a noise-biased bosonic encoding with enhanced error suppression and faster gates. The performance of rotation-symmetric and GKP codes is analyzed under realistic noise and measurement models, revealing key trade-offs in measurement-based schemes. To integrate bosonic codes into larger architectures, we develop decoding methods that exploit analog syndrome information, enabling quasi-single-shot decoding in concatenated systems. On the discrete-variable side, we introduce localized statistics decoding, a highly parallelizable decoder for quantum LDPC codes, and propose quantum radial codes, a new family of single-shot LDPC codes with low overhead and strong circuit-level performance. Finally, we present fault complexes, a homological framework for analyzing faults in dynamic quantum error correction protocols. Extending the role of homology in static CSS codes, fault complexes provide a general language for the design and analysis of fault-tolerant schemes.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Lattice surgery with Bell measurements: Modular fault-tolerant quantum computation at low entanglement cost

Modular architectures are a promising approach to scaling quantum computers to fault tolerance. Small, low-noise quantum processors connected through relatively noisy quantum links are capable of fault-tolerant operation as long as the noise can be confined to the interface. Finding protocols that implement the quantum links between modules as efficiently as possible is essential because inter-module entanglement is challenging to produce at a similar rate and fidelity as local entanglement. We introduce a protocol for lattice surgery on surface codes in which all non-local operations are Bell measurements. The protocol simultaneously confines the link noise and requires only half as many module-crossing gates as previously proposed protocols. To mitigate distance-reducing hook errors, we introduce a strategy of alternating the gate sequence between rounds of syndrome measurement, which prevents multiple hooks from simultaneously aligning with a logical operator in the code. We evaluate our protocol's performance when two logical qubits on separate modules are prepared in a logical Bell state. Circuit-level simulations under depolarizing noise show that the logical error suppression for a given entanglement rate between modules is consistently stronger compared to the best-performing alternative protocols for a wide range of link noise, with a typical 40% entanglement resource saving for a constant logical error rate. Our approach to protocol design is applicable to any quantum circuit that must be divided across processor modules and can therefore guide development of resource-efficient modular quantum computation beyond the surface code.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Experimental observation of multimode quantum phase transitions in a superconducting Bose-Hubbard simulator

The study of phase transitions and critical phenomena arising in quantum driven-dissipative systems, and whether a correspondence can be drawn to their equilibrium counterparts, is a pressing question in contemporary physics. The development of large-scale superconducting circuits provides an experimental platform for these theoretical models. We report an experimental study of a multi-mode dissipative first-order phase transition in a 1D Bose-Hubbard chain consisting of 21 superconducting resonators. This phase transition manifests itself as a simultaneous frequency jump in all resonator modes as the frequency or power of a pump tone is swept. By measuring the system's emission spectrum through the transition, we characterize the dim-to-bright phase transition and construct the full phase diagram. We further perform time-dependent measurements of the switching between the two phases in the transition region, from which we corroborate the transition line and extract transition times ranging from a few ms up to 143~s. Our model, based on single-mode mean-field theory and cross-Kerr interactions, captures the features at moderate pump powers and quantitatively reproduces the transition line. Our results open a new window into non-equilibrium quantum many-body physics and mark a step toward realizing and understanding dissipative phase transitions in the thermodynamic limit using superconducting quantum circuits.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2025

Performance of rotation-symmetric bosonic codes in the presence of random telegraph noise

Decoherence in quantum devices, such as qubits and resonators, is often caused by bistable fluctuators modeled as random telegraph noise (RTN), leading to significant dephasing. We analyze the impact of individual and multiple fluctuators on a bosonic mode in continuous variable systems, identifying non-Markovian behavior governed by two timescales: the fluctuator switching rate ($\xi$) and coupling strength ($\nu$). Using the Breuer-Piilo-Laine (BLP) measure, we show that for Gaussian states, squeezing and thermal fluctuations do not enhance non-Markovianity. In contrast, for non-Gaussian states, the measure becomes unbounded. For rotation-symmetric bosonic (RSB) codes, known for their error correction advantages, non-Markovianity grows linearly with code symmetry. We evaluate the performance of RSB codes under simultaneous loss and RTN dephasing. For a teleportation-based Knill error-correction circuit, the codes perform robustly in the Markovian limit. In the non-Markovian regime, the performance depends on the time the error correction is performed for a given codeword. The average gate fidelity of the error-corrected state in this case exhibits oscillations as a function of time due to the oscillatory nature of the dephasing function of the RTN noise; however, for most of the parameter ranges, the values stay above the break-even point. Extending to multiple fluctuators that produce $1/f$ noise, we observe that non-Markovianity decays with increasing fluctuator count, while the performance of RSB codes remains effective with increasing number of fluctuators.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Single-shot and measurement-based quantum error correction via fault complexes

Photonics provides a viable path to a scalable fault-tolerant quantum computer. The natural framework for this platform is measurement-based quantum computation, where fault-tolerant graph states supersede traditional quantum error-correcting codes. However, the existing formalism for foliation - the construction of fault-tolerant graph states - does not reveal how certain properties, such as single-shot error correction, manifest in the measurement-based setting. We introduce the fault complex, a representation of dynamic quantum error correction protocols particularly well-suited to describe foliation. Our approach enables precise computation of fault tolerance properties of foliated codes and provides insights into circuit-based quantum computation. Analyzing the fault complex leads to improved thresholds for three- and four-dimensional toric codes, a generalization of stability experiments, and the existence of single-shot lattice surgery with higher-dimensional topological codes.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Linear-optical quantum computation with arbitrary error-correcting codes

High-rate quantum error correcting codes mitigate the imposing scale of fault-tolerant quantum computers but require efficient generation of non-local, many-body entanglement. We provide a linear-optical architecture with these properties, compatible with arbitrary codes and Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill qubits on generic lattices, and featuring a natural way to leverage physical noise bias. Simulations of hyperbolic surface codes and bivariate bicycle codes, promising families of quantum low-density parity-check codes, reveal a threshold comparable to the 2D surface code with substantially better encoding rates.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Localized statistics decoding for quantum low-density parity-check codes

Quantum low-density parity-check codes are a promising candidate for fault-tolerant quantum computing with considerably reduced overhead compared to the surface code. However, the lack of a practical decoding algorithm remains a barrier to their implementation. In this work, we introduce localized statistics decoding, a reliability-guided inversion decoder that is highly parallelizable and applicable to arbitrary quantum low-density parity-check codes. Our approach employs a parallel matrix factorization strategy, which we call on-the-fly elimination, to identify, validate, and solve local decoding regions on the decoding graph. Through numerical simulations, we show that localized statistics decoding matches the performance of state-of-the-art decoders while reducing the runtime complexity for operation in the sub-threshold regime. Importantly, our decoder is more amenable to implementation on specialized hardware, positioning it as a promising candidate for decoding real-time syndromes from experiments.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

High-threshold, low-overhead and single-shot decodable fault-tolerant quantum memory

We present a new family of quantum low-density parity-check codes, which we call radial codes, obtained from the lifted product of a specific subset of classical quasi-cyclic codes. The codes are defined using a pair of integers $(r,s)$ and have parameters $[\![2r^2s,2(r-1)^2,\leq2s]\!]$, with numerical studies suggesting average-case distance linear in $s$. In simulations of circuit-level noise, we observe comparable error suppression to surface codes of similar distance while using approximately five times fewer physical qubits. This is true even when radial codes are decoded using a single-shot approach, which can allow for faster logical clock speeds and reduced decoding complexity. We describe an intuitive visual representation, canonical basis of logical operators and optimal-length stabiliser measurement circuits for these codes, and argue that their error correction capabilities, tunable parameters and small size make them promising candidates for implementation on near-term quantum devices.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Analog information decoding of bosonic quantum LDPC codes

Quantum error correction is crucial for scalable quantum information processing applications. Traditional discrete-variable quantum codes that use multiple two-level systems to encode logical information can be hardware-intensive. An alternative approach is provided by bosonic codes, which use the infinite-dimensional Hilbert space of harmonic oscillators to encode quantum information. Two promising features of bosonic codes are that syndrome measurements are natively analog and that they can be concatenated with discrete-variable codes. In this work, we propose novel decoding methods that explicitly exploit the analog syndrome information obtained from the bosonic qubit readout in a concatenated architecture. Our methods are versatile and can be generally applied to any bosonic code concatenated with a quantum low-density parity-check (QLDPC) code. Furthermore, we introduce the concept of quasi-single-shot protocols as a novel approach that significantly reduces the number of repeated syndrome measurements required when decoding under phenomenological noise. To realize the protocol, we present a first implementation of time-domain decoding with the overlapping window method for general QLDPC codes, and a novel analog single-shot decoding method. Our results lay the foundation for general decoding algorithms using analog information and demonstrate promising results in the direction of fault-tolerant quantum computation with concatenated bosonic-QLDPC codes.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Universal control of a bosonic mode via drive-activated native cubic interactions

Linear bosonic modes offer a hardware-efficient alternative for quantum information processing but require access to some nonlinearity for universal control. The lack of nonlinearity in photonics has led to encoded measurement-based quantum computing, which rely on linear operations but requires access to resourceful ('nonlinear') quantum states, such as cubic phase states. In contrast, superconducting microwave circuits offer engineerable nonlinearities but suffer from static Kerr nonlinearity. Here, we demonstrate universal control of a bosonic mode composed of a superconducting nonlinear asymmetric inductive element (SNAIL) resonator, enabled by native nonlinearities in the SNAIL element. We suppress static nonlinearities by operating the SNAIL in the vicinity of its Kerr-free point and dynamically activate nonlinearities up to third order by fast flux pulses. We experimentally realize a universal set of generalized squeezing operations, as well as the cubic phase gate, and exploit them to deterministically prepare a cubic phase state in 60 ns. Our results initiate the experimental field of universal continuous-variables quantum computing.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Quantum error correction with dissipatively stabilized squeezed cat qubits

Noise-biased qubits are a promising route toward significantly reducing the hardware overhead associated with quantum error correction. The squeezed cat code, a non-local encoding in phase space based on squeezed coherent states, is an example of a noise-biased (bosonic) qubit with exponential error bias. Here we propose and analyze the error correction performance of a dissipatively stabilized squeezed cat qubit. We find that for moderate squeezing the bit-flip error rate gets significantly reduced in comparison with the ordinary cat qubit while leaving the phase flip rate unchanged. Additionally, we find that the squeezing enables faster and higher-fidelity gates.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Resolving Fock states near the Kerr-free point of a superconducting resonator

We have designed a tunable nonlinear resonator terminated by a SNAIL (Superconducting Nonlinear Asymmetric Inductive eLement). Such a device possesses a sweet spot in which the external magnetic flux allows to suppress the Kerr interaction. We have excited photons near this Kerr-free point and characterized the device using a transmon qubit. The excitation spectrum of the qubit allows to observe photon-number-dependent frequency shifts about nine times larger than the qubit linewidth. Our study demonstrates a compact integrated platform for continuous-variable quantum processing that combines large couplings, considerable relaxation times and excellent control over the photon mode structure in the microwave domain.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Performance of teleportation-based error correction circuits for bosonic codes with noisy measurements

Bosonic quantum error-correcting codes offer a viable direction towards reducing the hardware overhead required for fault-tolerant quantum information processing. A broad class of bosonic codes, namely rotation-symmetric codes, can be characterized by their phase-space rotation symmetry. However, their performance has been examined to date only within an idealistic noise model. Here, we further analyze the error-correction capabilities of rotation-symmetric codes using a teleportation-based error-correction circuit. To this end, we numerically compute the average gate fidelity, including measurement errors into the noise model of the data qubit. Focusing on physical measurement models, we assess the performance of heterodyne and adaptive homodyne detection in comparison to the previously studied canonical phase measurement. This setting allows us to shed light on the role of different currently available measurement schemes when decoding the encoded information. We find that with the currently achievable measurement efficiencies in microwave optics, bosonic rotation codes undergo a substantial decrease in their break-even potential. In addition, we perform a detailed analysis of Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) codes using a similar error-correction circuit that allows us to analyze the effect of realistic measurement models on different codes. In comparison to RSB codes, we find for GKP codes an even greater reduction in performance together with a vulnerability to photon-number dephasing. Our results show that highly efficient measurement protocols constitute a crucial building block towards error-corrected quantum information processing with bosonic continuous-variable systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Designing Kerr Interactions for Quantum Information Processing via Counterrotating Terms of Asymmetric Josephson-Junction Loops

Continuous-variable systems realized in high-coherence microwave cavities are a promising platform for quantum information processing. While strong dynamic nonlinear interactions are desired to implement fast and high-fidelity quantum operations, static cavity nonlinearities typically limit the performance of bosonic quantum error-correcting codes. Here we study theoretical models of nonlinear oscillators describing superconducting quantum circuits with asymmetric Josephson-junctions loops. Treating the nonlinearity as a perturbation, we derive effective Hamiltonians using the Schrieffer-Wolff transformation. We support our analytical results with numerical experiments and show that the effective Kerr-type couplings can be canceled by an interplay of higher-order nonlinearities. This can be better understood in a simplified model supporting only cubic and quartic nonlinearities. Our results show that a cubic interaction allows to increase the effective rates of both linear and nonlinear operations without an increase in the undesired anharmonicity of an oscillator which is crucial for many bosonic encodings.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Universal Gate Set for Continuous-Variable Quantum Computation with Microwave Circuits

We provide an explicit construction of a universal gate set for continuous-variable quantum computation with microwave circuits. Such a universal set has been first proposed in quantum-optical setups, but its experimental implementation has remained elusive in that domain due to the difficulties in engineering strong nonlinearities. Here, we show that a realistic three-wave mixing microwave architecture based on the SNAIL [Frattini et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 110, 222603 (2017)] allows us to overcome this difficulty. As an application, we show that this architecture allows for the generation of a cubic phase state with an experimentally feasible procedure. This work highlights a practical advantage of microwave circuits with respect to optical systems for the purpose of engineering non-Gaussian states, and opens the quest for continuous-variable algorithms based on few repetitions of elementary gates from the continuous-variable universal set.

quant-ph↗