Two-level systems (TLS) of unclear physical origin are a major contributor to decoherence in superconducting qubits. The interactions of individual TLS with a qubit can be detected via various spectroscopic methods, most of which have relied on the tunability of the qubit frequency. We propose a novel method that requires only a microwave drive and dispersive readout, and thus also works fixed-frequency qubits. The proposed two-tone spectroscopy involves a microwave pulse of varying frequency and length to excite TLSs of unknown frequencies, followed by a second pulse at the qubit frequency. TLS parameters can be estimated from the qubit population as a function of the first pulse frequency and length.
@article{arxiv.2404.14039,
title = {Two-tone spectroscopy for the detection of two-level systems in superconducting qubits},
author = {Olli Mansikkamäki and Alexander Tyner and Alexander Bilmes and Ilya Drozdov and Alexander Balatsky},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.14039},
year = {2024}
}