Superconducting cat qubits at Alice and Bob: Challenges and Opportunities

Dr. André Melo

Senior Scientist at Alice & Bob

Abstract

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Bosonic quantum computation encodes information in infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces, providing a natural path to hardware-efficient error correction. One leading example is the dissipative cat qubit, which uses engineered two-photon dissipation two-photon dissipation to stabilize superpositions of well-separated coherent states. This separation exponentially suppresses bit-flip errors at the cost of polynomially increasing phase-flip rates. These highly asymmetric error rates drastically reduce the hardware overhead required for fault-tolerant architectures. Accurately simulating and characterizing these systems, however, remains challenging due to the large Hilbert spaces and complex open-system dynamics involved. In this talk, I will review the physics of cat qubits, describe efficient approaches to their simulation, and present recent experimental results