Photon-Assisted Charge-Parity Jumps in a Superconducting Qubit

M. Houzet, K. Serniak, G. Catelani, M. H. Devoret, and L. I. Glazman

Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 107704 – Published 6 September 2019

Abstract

We evaluate the rates of energy and phase relaxation of a superconducting qubit caused by stray photons with energy exceeding the threshold for breaking a Cooper pair. All channels of relaxation within this mechanism are associated with the change in the charge parity of the qubit, enabling the separation of the photon-assisted processes from other contributions to the relaxation rates. Among the signatures of the new mechanism is the same order of rates of the transitions in which a qubit loses or gains energy, which is in agreement with recent experiments. Our theory offers the possibility to characterize the electromagnetic environment of superconducting devices at the single-photon level for frequencies above the superconducting gap.

Received 12 April 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.107704

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Josephson effect Quantum information with solid state qubits

Superconducting qubits

Quantum Information, Science & TechnologyCondensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

M. Houzet¹, K. Serniak², G. Catelani^3,4, M. H. Devoret², and L. I. Glazman²

¹Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CEA, IRIG-Pheliqs, F-38000 Grenoble, France
²Departments of Physics and Applied Physics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA
³JARA Institute for Quantum Information (PGI-11), Forschungszentrum Jülich, 52425 Jülich, Germany
⁴Yale Quantum Institute, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA