English

Probing The Unitarity of Quantum Evolution Through Periodic Driving

Quantum Physics 2022-12-22 v1

Abstract

As quantum computers and simulators begin to produce results that cannot be verified classically, it becomes imperative to develop a variety of tools to detect and diagnose experimental errors on these devices. While state or process tomography is a natural way to characterize sources of experimental error, the intense measurement requirements make these strategies infeasible in all but the smallest of quantum systems. In this work, we formulate signatures of unitary evolution based on specific properties of periodically driven quantum systems. The absence of these signatures indicates a break either in the unitarity or periodicity condition on the evolution. We experimentally detect incoherent error on a trapped-ion quantum computer using these signatures. Our method is based on repeated measurements of a single observable, making this a low-cost evaluation of error with measurement requirements that scales according to the character of the dynamics, rather than the system size.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2212.10771,
  title  = {Probing The Unitarity of Quantum Evolution Through Periodic Driving},
  author = {Alaina M. Green and Tanmoy Pandit and C. Huerta Alderete and Norbert M. Linke and Raam Uzdin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2212.10771},
  year   = {2022}
}