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Quantum interconnects facilitate entanglement distribution between non-local computational nodes. For superconducting processors, microwave photons are a natural means to mediate this distribution. However, many existing architectures limit node connectivity and directionality. In this work, we construct a chiral quantum interconnect between two nominally identical modules in separate microwave packages. We leverage quantum interference to emit and absorb microwave photons on demand and in a chosen direction between these modules. We optimize the protocol using model-free reinforcement learning to maximize absorption efficiency. By halting the emission process halfway through its duration, we generate remote entanglement between modules in the form of a four-qubit W state with 62.4 +/- 1.6% (leftward photon propagation) and 62.1 +/- 1.2% (rightward) fidelity, limited mainly by propagation loss. A chiral quantum network comprising many modules provides a platform for the exploration of novel many-body physics and quantum simulation. This quantum network architecture enables all-to-all connectivity between non-local processors for modular and extensible quantum computation., Comment: 27 pages, 9 figures, 6 tables

In superconducting qubits, suppression of spontaneous emission is essential to achieve fast dispersive measurement and reset without sacrificing qubit lifetime. We show that resonator-mediated decay of the qubit mode to the feedline can be suppressed using destructive interference, where the readout resonator is coupled to the feedline at two points. This "interferometric Purcell filter" does not require dedicated filter components or impedance mismatch in the feedline, making it suitable for applications such as all-pass readout. We design and fabricate a device with the proposed scheme and demonstrate suppression of resonator-mediated decay that exceeds 2 orders of magnitude over a bandwidth of 400 MHz., Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures

The interaction between an atom and an electromagnetic mode of a resonator is of both fundamental interest and is ubiquitous in quantum technologies. Most prior work studies a linear light-matter coupling of the form $g \widehat{\sigma}_x (\widehat{a} + \widehat{a}^\dagger)$, where $g$ measured relative to photonic ($\omega_a$) and atomic ($\omega_b$) mode frequencies can reach the ultrastrong regime ($g/\omega_{a}\!>\!10^{-1}$). In contrast, a nonlinear light-matter coupling of the form $\frac{\chi}{2} \widehat{\sigma}_z \widehat{a}^\dagger \widehat{a}$ has the advantage of commuting with the atomic $\widehat{\sigma}_z$ and photonic $\widehat{a}^\dagger\widehat{a}$ Hamiltonian, allowing for fundamental operations such as quantum-non-demolition measurement. However, due to the perturbative nature of nonlinear coupling, the state-of-the-art $\chi/\text{max}(\omega_a, \omega_b)$ is limited to $\!<\!10^{-2}$. Here, we use a superconducting circuit architecture featuring a quarton coupler to experimentally demonstrate, for the first time, a near-ultrastrong $\chi/\text{max}(\omega_a, \omega_b)= (4.852\pm0.006)\times10^{-2}$ nonlinear coupling of a superconducting artificial atom and a nearly-linear resonator. We also show signatures of light-light nonlinear coupling ($\chi\widehat{a}^\dagger\widehat{a}\widehat{b}^\dagger\widehat{b}$), and $\chi/2\pi = 580.3 \pm 0.4 $ MHz matter-matter nonlinear coupling ($\frac{\chi}{4}\widehat{\sigma}_{z,a}\widehat{\sigma}_{z,b}$) which represents the largest reported $ZZ$ interaction between two coherent qubits. Such advances in the nonlinear coupling strength of light, matter modes enable new physical regimes and could lead to applications such as orders of magnitude faster qubit readout and gates.

Phase slips occur across all Josephson junctions (JJs) at a rate that increases with the impedance of the junction. In superconducting qubits composed of JJ-array superinductors -- such as fluxonium -- phase slips in the array can lead to decoherence. In particular, phase-slip processes at the individual array junctions can coherently interfere, each with an Aharonov--Casher phase that depends on the offset charges of the array islands. These coherent quantum phase slips (CQPS) perturbatively modify the qubit frequency, and therefore charge noise on the array islands will lead to dephasing. By varying the impedance of the array junctions, we design a set of fluxonium qubits in which the expected phase-slip rate within the JJ-array changes by several orders of magnitude. We characterize the coherence times of these qubits and demonstrate that the scaling of CQPS-induced dephasing rates agrees with our theoretical model. Furthermore, we perform noise spectroscopy of two qubits in regimes dominated by either CQPS or flux noise. We find the noise power spectrum associated with CQPS dephasing appears to be featureless at low frequencies and not $1/f$. Numerical simulations indicate this behavior is consistent with charge noise generated by charge-parity fluctuations within the array. Our findings broadly inform JJ-array-design tradeoffs, relevant for the numerous superconducting qubit designs employing JJ-array superinductors.

We propose and demonstrate transmission-based dispersive readout of a superconducting qubit using an all-pass resonator, which preferentially emits readout photons toward the output. This is in contrast to typical readout schemes, which intentionally mismatch the feedline at one end so that the readout signal preferentially decays toward the output. We show that this intentional mismatch creates scaling challenges, including larger spread of effective resonator linewidths due to non-ideal impedance environments and added infrastructure for impedance matching. A future architecture using multiplexed all-pass readout resonators would avoid the need for intentional mismatch and potentially improve the scaling prospects of quantum computers. As a proof-of-concept demonstration of "all-pass readout," we design and fabricate an all-pass readout resonator that demonstrates insertion loss below 1.17 dB at the readout frequency and a maximum insertion loss of 1.53 dB across its full bandwidth for the lowest three states of a transmon qubit. We demonstrate qubit readout with an average single-shot fidelity of 98.1% in 600 ns; to assess the effect of larger dispersive shift, we implement a shelving protocol and achieve a fidelity of 99.0% in 300 ns., Comment: 16 pages, 15 figures

Quantum information processing at scale will require sufficiently stable and long-lived qubits, likely enabled by error-correction codes. Several recent superconducting-qubit experiments, however, reported observing intermittent spatiotemporally correlated errors that would be problematic for conventional codes, with ionizing radiation being a likely cause. Here, we directly measured the cosmic-ray contribution to spatiotemporally correlated qubit errors. We accomplished this by synchronously monitoring cosmic-ray detectors and qubit energy-relaxation dynamics of 10 transmon qubits distributed across a 5x5x0.35 mm$^3$ silicon chip. Cosmic rays caused correlated errors at a rate of 1/(10 min), accounting for 17$\pm$1% of all such events. Our qubits responded to essentially all of the cosmic rays and their secondary particles incident on the chip, consistent with the independently measured arrival flux. Moreover, we observed that the landscape of the superconducting gap in proximity to the Josephson junctions dramatically impacts the qubit response to cosmic rays. Given the practical difficulties associated with shielding cosmic rays, our results indicate the importance of radiation hardening -- for example, superconducting gap engineering -- to the realization of robust quantum error correction., Comment: 34 pages, 16 figures

Astronomers do not have a complete picture of the effects of wide-binary companions (semimajor axes greater than 100 AU) on the formation and evolution of exoplanets. We investigate these effects using new data from Gaia EDR3 and the TESS mission to characterize wide-binary systems with transiting exoplanets. We identify a sample of 67 systems of transiting exoplanet candidates (with well-determined, edge-on orbital inclinations) that reside in wide visual binary systems. We derive limits on orbital parameters for the wide-binary systems and measure the minimum difference in orbital inclination between the binary and planet orbits. We determine that there is statistically significant difference in the inclination distribution of wide-binary systems with transiting planets compared to a control sample, with the probability that the two distributions are the same being 0.0037. This implies that there is an overabundance of planets in binary systems whose orbits are aligned with those of the binary. The overabundance of aligned systems appears to primarily have semimajor axes less than 700 AU. We investigate some effects that could cause the alignment and conclude that a torque caused by a misaligned binary companion on the protoplanetary disk is the most promising explanation., Comment: 30 pages, 19 figures, 2 csv files included in Arxiv source; accepted for publication in AJ