English

Systematic Construction of Time-Dependent Hamiltonians for Microwave-Driven Josephson Circuits

Quantum Physics 2026-01-14 v3

Abstract

Time-dependent electromagnetic drives are fundamental for controlling complex quantum systems, including superconducting Josephson circuits. In these devices, accurate time-dependent Hamiltonian models are imperative for predicting their dynamics and designing high-fidelity quantum operations. Existing numerical methods, such as black-box quantization (BBQ) and energy-participation ratio (EPR), excel at modeling the static Hamiltonians of Josephson circuits. However, these techniques do not fully capture the behavior of driven circuits stimulated by external microwave drives, nor do they include a generalized approach to account for the inevitable noise and dissipation that enter through microwave ports. Here, we introduce novel numerical techniques that leverage classical microwave simulations that can be efficiently executed in finite element solvers, to obtain the time-dependent Hamiltonian of a microwave-driven superconducting circuit with arbitrary geometries. Importantly, our techniques do not rely on a lumped-element description of the superconducting circuit, in contrast to previous approaches to tackling this problem. We demonstrate the versatility of our approach by characterizing the driven properties of realistic circuit devices in complex electromagnetic environments, including coherent dynamics due to charge and flux modulation, as well as drive-induced relaxation and dephasing. Our techniques offer a powerful toolbox for optimizing circuit designs and advancing practical applications in superconducting quantum computing.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2512.20743,
  title  = {Systematic Construction of Time-Dependent Hamiltonians for Microwave-Driven Josephson Circuits},
  author = {Yao Lu and Tianpu Zhao and André Vallières and Kevin C. Smith and Daniel Weiss and Xinyuan You and Yaxing Zhang and Suhas Ganjam and Aniket Maiti and John W. O. Garmon and Shantanu Mundhada and Ziwen Huang and Ian Mondragon-Shem and Steven M. Girvin and Jens Koch and Robert J. Schoelkopf},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.20743},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

52 pages, 15 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T08:39:13.750Z