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Real-time monitoring of dynamic biological processes in the body is critical to understanding disease progression and treatment response. This data, for instance, can help address the lower than 50% response rates to cancer immunotherapy. However, current clinical imaging modalities lack the molecular contrast, resolution, and chronic usability for rapid and accurate response assessments. Here, we present a fully wireless image sensor featuring a 2.5$\times$5 mm$^2$ CMOS integrated circuit for multicolor fluorescence imaging deep in tissue. The sensor operates wirelessly via ultrasound (US) at 5 cm depth in oil, harvesting energy with 221 mW/cm$^{2}$ incident US power density (31% of FDA limits) and backscattering data at 13 kbps with a bit error rate <$10^{-6}$. In-situ fluorescence excitation is provided by micro-laser diodes controlled with a programmable on-chip driver. An optical frontend combining a multi-bandpass interference filter and a fiber optic plate provides >6 OD excitation blocking and enables three-color imaging for detecting multiple cell types. A 36$\times$40-pixel array captures images with <125 $\mu$m resolution. We demonstrate wireless, dual-color fluorescence imaging of both effector and suppressor immune cells in ex vivo mouse tumor samples with and without immunotherapy. These results show promise for providing rapid insight into therapeutic response and resistance, guiding personalized medicine., Comment: *equally contributing authors

The twist-and-turn dynamics of spin squeezing results from the interplay of the one-axis-twisting (nonlinear in the collective-spin operators) and the transverse-field turning (linear) term in the underlying Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick-type Hamiltonian, both with constant (time-independent) prefactors. Using shortcuts to adiabaticity (STA) and the recently developed enhanced version thereof (eSTA), we demonstrate here that dynamics of this type can be utilized for a fast and robust preparation of spin-squeezed states in internal bosonic Josephson junctions, i.e., condensates of cold bosonic atoms in two different internal (hyperfine) states (single-boson modes) coupled through Rabi rotations. Assuming that the initial state of this system is its ground state for a given initial value of the (time-dependent) linear coupling strength and that the nonlinear coupling strength remains constant, we set out to determine the time dependence of the linear (Rabi) coupling strength that allows for the generation of spin-squeezed states using the STA- and eSTA-based approaches. We then characterize the modified twist-and-turn dynamics of this system by evaluating the coherent spin-squeezing and number-squeezing parameters, as well as the fidelity of the target spin-squeezed states. In this way, we show that the eSTA approach allows for a particularly robust realization of strongly spin-squeezed states in this system, consistently outperforming its adiabatic and STA-based counterparts, even for systems with several hundred particles. Our method could also be employed for the generation of metrologically-useful non-Gaussian states., Comment: final, published version

While the concept of the entanglement spectrum has heretofore been utilized to address various many-body systems, the models describing an itinerant spinless-fermion excitation coupled to zero-dimensional bosons (e.g. dispersionless phonons) have as yet not received much attention in this regard. To fill this gap, the ground-state entanglement spectrum of a model that includes two of the most common types of short-ranged, nonlocal excitation-phonon interaction -- the Peierls- and breathing-mode couplings -- is numerically evaluated here. This model displays a sharp, level-crossing transition at a critical coupling strength, which signifies the change from a nondegenerate ground state at the quasimomentum $K_{\textrm{gs}}=0$ to a twofold-degenerate one corresponding to a symmetric pair of nonzero quasimomenta. Another peculiarity of this model is that in the special case of equal Peierls- and breathing-mode coupling strengths the bare-excitation Bloch state with the quasimomentum $0$ or $\pi$ is its exact eigenstate. Moreover, below a critical coupling strength this state is the ground state of the model. Thus, the sharp transition between a bare excitation and a heavily phonon-dressed (polaronic) one can be thought of as a transition between vanishing and finite entanglement. It is demonstrated here that the smallest ground-state entanglement-spectrum eigenvalue to a large extent mimics the behavior of the entanglement entropy itself and vanishes in this special case of the model; by contrast, all the remaining eigenvalues diverge in this case. The implications of excitation-phonon entanglement for $W$-state engineering in superconducting and neutral-atom-based qubit arrays serving as analog simulators of this model are also discussed., Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures

The Holstein model, which describes purely local coupling of an itinerant excitation (electron, hole, exciton) with zero-dimensional (dispersionless) phonons, represents the paradigm for short-range excitation-phonon interactions. It is demonstrated here how spectral properties of small Holstein polarons -- heavily phonon-dressed quasiparticles, formed in the strong-coupling regime of the Holstein model -- can be extracted from an analog quantum simulator of this model. This simulator, which is meant to operate in the dispersive regime of circuit quantum electrodynamics, has the form of an array of capacitively coupled superconducting transmon qubits and microwave resonators, the latter being subject to a weak external driving. The magnitude of $XY$-type coupling between adjacent qubits in this system can be tuned through an external flux threading the SQUID loops between those qubits; this translates into an {\em in-situ} flux-tunable hopping amplitude of a fictitious itinerant spinless-fermion excitation, allowing one to access all the relevant physical regimes of the Holstein model. By employing the kernel-polynomial method, based on expanding dynamical response functions in Chebyshev polynomials of the first kind and their recurrence relation, the relevant single-particle momentum-frequency resolved spectral function of this system is computed here for a broad range of parameter values. To complement the evaluation of the spectral function, it is also explained how -- by making use of the many-body version of the Ramsey interference protocol -- this dynamical-response function can be measured in the envisioned analog simulator., Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures

We investigate a time-efficient and robust preparation of spin-squeezed states -- a class of states of interest for quantum-enhanced metrology -- in internal bosonic Josephson junctions with a time-dependent nonlinear coupling strength between atoms in two different hyperfine states. We treat this state-preparation problem, which had previously been addressed using shortcuts to adiabaticity (STA), using the recently proposed analytical modification of this class of quantum-control protocols that became known as the enhanced STA (eSTA) method. We characterize the state-preparation process by evaluating the time dependence of the coherent spin-squeezing and number-squeezing parameters and the target-state fidelity. We show that the state-preparation times obtained using the eSTA method compare favourably to those found in previously proposed approaches. We also demonstrate that the increased robustness of the eSTA approach -- compared to its STA counterpart -- leads to additional advantages for potential experimental realizations of strongly spin-squeezed states in bosonic Josephson junctions., Comment: final, published version

We consider the problem of engineering the two-excitation Dicke state $|D^{3}_{2}\rangle$ in a three-qubit system with all-to-all Ising-type qubit-qubit interaction, which is also subject to global transverse (Zeeman-type) control fields. The theoretical underpinning for our envisioned state-preparation scheme, in which $|000\rangle$ is adopted as the initial state of the system, is provided by a Lie-algebraic result that guarantees state-to-state controllability of this system for an arbitrary choice of initial- and final states that are invariant with respect to permutations of qubits. This scheme is envisaged in the form of a pulse sequence that involves three instantaneous control pulses, which are equivalent to global qubit rotations, and two Ising-interaction pulses of finite durations between consecutive control pulses. The design of this pulse sequence (whose total duration is $T\approx 0.95\:\hbar/J$, where $J$ is the Ising-coupling strength) leans heavily on the concept of the symmetric sector, a four-dimensional, permutationally-invariant subspace of the three-qubit Hilbert space. We demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed state-preparation scheme by carrying out a detailed numerical analysis of its robustness to systematic errors, i.e. deviations from the optimal values of the eight parameters that characterize the underlying pulse sequence. Finally, we discuss how our proposed scheme can be generalized for engineering Dicke states in systems with $N \ge 4$ qubits. For the sake of illustration, we describe the preparation of the two-excitation Dicke state $|D^{4}_{2}\rangle$ in a four-qubit system., Comment: final, published version

We investigate spectral properties of polaronic excitations within the framework of an analog quantum simulator based on inductively coupled superconducting transmon qubits and microwave resonators. This system emulates a lattice model that describes a nonlocal coupling of an itinerant spinless-fermion excitation to dispersionless (Einstein-type) phonons through the Peierls and breathing-mode interaction mechanisms. The model is characterized by a sharp, level-crossing transition at a critical value of the effective excitation-phonon coupling strength; above the transition point, the ground state of this model corresponds to a heavily dressed (small-polaron) excitation. Using the kernel-polynomial method, we evaluate the momentum-frequency resolved spectral function of this system for a broad range of parameters. In particular, we underscore the ramifications of the fact that the zero-quasimomentum Bloch state of a bare excitation represents the exact eigenstate of the Hamiltonian of this system for an arbitrary excitation-phonon coupling strength. We also show that -- based on the numerically evaluated spectral function and its well-known relation with the survival probability of the initial, bare-excitation Bloch state (the Loschmidt echo) -- one can make predictions about the system dynamics following an excitation-phonon interaction quench. To make contact with anticipated experimental realizations, we utilize a previously proposed method for extracting dynamical-response functions in systems with local (single-qubit) addressability using the multiqubit (many-body) version of the Ramsey interference protocol., Comment: final, published version

Motivated by the revitalized interest in the digital simulation of medium- and high-energy physics phenomena, we investigate the dynamics following a Yukawa-interaction quench on IBM Q. Adopting the zero-dimensional version of the scalar Yukawa-coupling model as our point of departure, we design low-depth quantum circuits emulating its dynamics with up to three bosons. In the one-boson case we demonstrate circuit compression, i.e., a constant-depth circuit containing only two controlled-NOT (CNOT) gates. In the more complex three-boson case, we design a circuit in which one Trotter step entails $8$ CNOTs. Using an analogy with the traveling-salesman problem, we also provide a CNOT-cost estimate for higher boson-number truncations. Based on these circuits, we quantify the system dynamics by evaluating the expected boson number at an arbitrary time after the quench and the survival probability of the initial vacuum state (the Loschmidt echo). We also utilize these circuits to drive adiabatic transitions and compute the energies of the ground- and first-excited states of the considered model. Finally, through error mitigation -- i.e, zero-noise extrapolation -- we demonstrate a good agreement of our results with a numerically-exact classical benchmark., Comment: final, published version

Interconversions of $W$ and Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states in various physical systems are lately attracting considerable attention. We address this problem in the fairly general physical setting of qubit arrays with long-ranged (all-to-all) Ising-type qubit-qubit interaction, which are simultaneously acted upon by transverse Zeeman-type global control fields. Motivated in part by a recent Lie-algebraic result that implies state-to-state controllability of such a system for an arbitrary pair of states that are invariant with respect to qubit permutations, we present a detailed investigation of the state-interconversion problem in the three-qubit case. The envisioned interconversion protocol has the form of a pulse sequence that consists of two instantaneous (delta-shaped) control pulses, each of them corresponding to a global qubit rotation, and an Ising-interaction pulse of finite duration between them. Its construction relies heavily on the use of the (four-dimensional) permutation-invariant subspace (symmetric sector) of the three-qubit Hilbert space. In order to demonstrate the viability of the proposed state-interconversion scheme, we provide a detailed analysis of the robustness of the underlying pulse sequence to systematic errors, i.e. deviations from the optimal values of its five characteristic parameters., Comment: final, published version

Using the quantum-brachistochrone formalism, we address the problem of finding the fastest possible (time-optimal) deterministic conversion between $W$ and Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states in a system of three identical and equidistant neutral atoms that are acted upon by four external laser pulses. Assuming that all four pulses are close to being resonant with the same internal (atomic) transition -- the one between the atomic ground state and a high-lying Rydberg state -- each atom can be treated as an effective two-level system ($gr$-type qubit). Starting from an effective system Hamiltonian, which is valid in the Rydberg-blockade regime and defined on a four-state manifold, we derive the quantum-brachistochrone equations pertaining to the fastest possible $W$-to-GHZ state conversion. By numerically solving these equations, we determine the time-dependent Rabi frequencies of external laser pulses that correspond to the time-optimal state conversion. In particular, we show that the shortest possible $W$-to-GHZ state-conversion time is given by $T_{\textrm{QB}}= 6.8\:\hbar/E$, where $E$ is the total laser-pulse energy used, this last time being significantly shorter than the state-conversion times previously found using a dynamical-symmetry-based approach [$T_{\textrm{DS}}=(1.33-1.66)\:T_{\textrm{QB}}$]., Comment: final, published version

Being able to predict the performance of circuits without running expensive simulations is a desired capability that can catalyze automated design. In this paper, we present a supervised pretraining approach to learn circuit representations that can be adapted to new circuit topologies or unseen prediction tasks. We hypothesize that if we train a neural network (NN) that can predict the output DC voltages of a wide range of circuit instances it will be forced to learn generalizable knowledge about the role of each circuit element and how they interact with each other. The dataset for this supervised learning objective can be easily collected at scale since the required DC simulation to get ground truth labels is relatively cheap. This representation would then be helpful for few-shot generalization to unseen circuit metrics that require more time consuming simulations for obtaining the ground-truth labels. To cope with the variable topological structure of different circuits we describe each circuit as a graph and use graph neural networks (GNNs) to learn node embeddings. We show that pretraining GNNs on prediction of output node voltages can encourage learning representations that can be adapted to new unseen topologies or prediction of new circuit level properties with up to 10x more sample efficiency compared to a randomly initialized model. We further show that we can improve sample efficiency of prior SoTA model-based optimization methods by 2x (almost as good as using an oracle model) via fintuning pretrained GNNs as the feature extractor of the learned models.

Theoretical studies of coherent atom transport have as yet mainly been restricted to one-dimensional model systems with harmonic trapping potentials. Here we investigate this important phenomenon -- a prerequisite for a variety of quantum-technology applications based on cold neutral atoms -- under much more complex physical circumstances. More specificially yet, we study fast atomic transport in a moving {\em double-well optical lattice}, whose three-dimensional (anharmonic) potential is nonseparable in the $x-y$ plane. We first propose specific configurations of acousto-optic modulators that give rise to the moving-lattice effect in an arbitrary direction in this plane. We then determine moving-lattice trajectories that enable single-atom transport using two classes of quantum-control methods: shortcuts to adiabaticity (STA), here utilized in the form of inverse engineering based on a quadratic-in-momentum dynamical invariant of Lewis-Riesenfeld type, and their recently proposed modification termed enhanced STA (eSTA). Subsequently, we quantify the resulting single-atom dynamics by numerically solving the relevant time-dependent Schr\"{o}dinger equations and compare the efficiency of STA- and eSTA-based transport by evaluating the respective fidelities. We show that -- except for the regime of shallow lattices -- the eSTA method consistently outperforms its STA counterpart. This study has direct implications for neutral-atom quantum computing based on collisional entangling two-qubit gates and quantum sensing of constant homogeneous forces via guided-atom interferometry., Comment: final, published version

Motivated by the significantly improved scalability of optically-trapped neutral-atom systems, extensive efforts have been devoted in recent years to quantum-state engineering in Rydberg-atom ensembles. Here we investigate the problem of engineering generalized (``twisted'') $W$ states, as well as Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states, in the strongly-interacting regime of a neutral-atom system. We assume that each atom in the envisioned system initially resides in its ground state and is subject to several external laser pulses that are close to being resonant with the same internal atomic transition. In particular, in the special case of a three-atom system (Rydberg-atom trimer) we determine configurations of field alignments and atomic positions that enable the realization of chiral $W$ states -- a special type of twisted three-qubit $W$ states of interest for implementing noiseless-subsystem qubit encoding. Using chiral W states as an example we also address the problem of deterministically converting twisted $W$ states into their GHZ counterparts in the same three-atom system, thus significantly generalizing recent works that involve only ordinary $W$ states. We show that starting from twisted -- rather than ordinary -- $W$ states is equivalent to renormalizing downwards the relevant Rabi frequencies. While this leads to somewhat longer state-conversion times, we also demonstrate that those times are at least two orders of magnitude shorter than typical lifetimes of relevant Rydberg states., Comment: final, published version

Fast and nearly lossless atomic transport, enabled by moving the confining trap, is a prerequisite for many quantum-technology applications. While theoretical studies of this problem have heretofore focussed almost exclusively on simplified scenarios (one-dimensional systems, purely harmonic confining potentials, etc.), we investigate it here in the experimentally relevant setting of a moving optical lattice ({\em optical conveyor belt}). We model single-atom transport in this system by taking fully into account its three-dimensional, anharmonic confining potential. We do so using the established method of shortcuts to adiabaticity (STA), i.e. an inverse-engineering approach based on Lewis-Riesenfeld invariants, as well as its recently proposed modification known as {\em enhanced} STA (eSTA). By combining well-controlled, advanced analytical techniques and the numerical propagation of a time-dependent Schr\"{o}dinger equation using the Fourier split operator method, we evaluate atom-transport fidelities within both approaches. Being obtained for realistic choices of system parameters, our results are relevant for future experiments with optical conveyor belts. Moreover, they reveal that in the system at hand the eSTA method outperforms its STA counterpart for all but the lowest optical-lattice depths., Comment: final, published version

The goal of Multi-task Bayesian Optimization (MBO) is to minimize the number of queries required to accurately optimize a target black-box function, given access to offline evaluations of other auxiliary functions. When offline datasets are large, the scalability of prior approaches comes at the expense of expressivity and inference quality. We propose JUMBO, an MBO algorithm that sidesteps these limitations by querying additional data based on a combination of acquisition signals derived from training two Gaussian Processes (GP): a cold-GP operating directly in the input domain and a warm-GP that operates in the feature space of a deep neural network pretrained using the offline data. Such a decomposition can dynamically control the reliability of information derived from the online and offline data and the use of pretrained neural networks permits scalability to large offline datasets. Theoretically, we derive regret bounds for JUMBO and show that it achieves no-regret under conditions analogous to GP-UCB (Srinivas et. al. 2010). Empirically, we demonstrate significant performance improvements over existing approaches on two real-world optimization problems: hyper-parameter optimization and automated circuit design.

While the Rydberg-blockade regime provides the natural setting for creating $W$-type entanglement with cold neutral atoms, it is demonstrated here that a scalable entanglement resource of this type can even be obtained under completely different physical circumstances. To be more precise, a special instance of twisted $W$ states -- namely, $\pi$-twisted ones -- can be engineered in one-dimensional arrays of cold neutral atoms with Rydberg-dressed resonant dipole-dipole interaction. In particular, it is shown here that this is possible even when a (dressed) Rydberg excitation is coupled to the motional degrees of freedom of atoms in their respective, nearly-harmonic optical-dipole microtraps, which are quantized into dispersionless (zero-dimensional) bosons. For a specially chosen ("sweet-spot") detuning of the off-resonant dressing lasers from the relevant internal atomic transitions, the desired $\pi$-twisted $W$ state of Rydberg-dressed qubits is the ground state of the effective excitation -- boson Hamiltonian of the system in a broad window of the relevant parameters. Being at the same time separated from the other eigenstates by a gap equal to the single-boson energy, this $W$ state can be prepared using a Rabi-type driving protocol. The corresponding preparation times are independent of the system size and several orders of magnitude shorter than the effective lifetimes of the relevant atomic states., Comment: final, published version

We investigate the possibilities for a deterministic conversion between two important types of maximally entangled multiqubit states, namely, $W$ and Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states, in the Rydberg-blockade regime of a neutral-atom system where each atom is subject to four external laser pulses. Such interconversions between $W$ states and their GHZ counterparts have quite recently been addressed using the method of shortcuts to adiabaticity, more precisely techniques based on Lewis-Riesenfeld invariants [R.-H. Zheng {\em et al.}, Phys. Rev. A {\bf 101}, 012345 (2020)]. Motivated in part by this recent work, we revisit the $W$ to GHZ state-conversion problem using a fundamentally different approach, which is based on the dynamical symmetries of the system and a Lie-algebraic parametrization of its permissible evolutions. In contrast to the previously used invariant-based approach, which leads to a state-conversion protocol characterized by strongly time-dependent Rabi frequencies of external lasers, ours can also yield one with time-independent Rabi frequencies. This feature makes our protocol more easily applicable experimentally, with the added advantage that it allows the desired state conversion to be carried out in a significantly shorter time with the same total laser pulse energy used., Comment: final, published version

This work unravels an interesting property of a one-dimensional lattice model that describes a single itinerant spinless fermion (excitation) coupled to zero-dimensional (dispersionless) bosons through two different nonlocal-coupling mechanisms. Namely, below a critical value of the effective excitation-boson coupling strength the exact ground state of this model is the zero-quasimomentum Bloch state of a bare (i.e., completely undressed) excitation. It is demonstrated here how this last property of the lattice model under consideration can be exploited for a fast, deterministic preparation of multipartite $W$ states in a readily realizable system of inductively-coupled superconducting qubits and microwave resonators., Comment: final, published version; for a closely related realization of W states using Rydberg-dressed qubits, see arXiv:2101.11232 [ Phys. Rev. A 103, 022410 (2021) ]; for a non-technical summary of both works, see http://www.iap.tu-darmstadt.de/tqp/grp_stojanovic/Wentangle_PopularSummary.pdf

In this work we present a new method of black-box optimization and constraint satisfaction. Existing algorithms that have attempted to solve this problem are unable to consider multiple modes, and are not able to adapt to changes in environment dynamics. To address these issues, we developed a modified Cross-Entropy Method (CEM) that uses a masked auto-regressive neural network for modeling uniform distributions over the solution space. We train the model using maximum entropy policy gradient methods from Reinforcement Learning. Our algorithm is able to express complicated solution spaces, thus allowing it to track a variety of different solution regions. We empirically compare our algorithm with variations of CEM, including one with a Gaussian prior with fixed variance, and demonstrate better performance in terms of: number of diverse solutions, better mode discovery in multi-modal problems, and better sample efficiency in certain cases.

The polaron concept captures physical situations involving an itinerant quantum particle (excitation) that interacts strongly with bosonic degrees of freedom and becomes heavily boson-dressed. While the Gerlach-L\"{o}wen theorem rules out the occurrence of nonanalyticities of ground-state-related quantities for a broad class of polaron models, examples were found in recent years of sharp transitions pertaining to strongly momentum-dependent interactions of an excitation with dispersionless (zero-dimensional) phonons. On the example of a lattice model with Peierls-type excitation-phonon interaction, such level-crossing-type small-polaron transitions are analyzed here through the prism of the entanglement spectrum of the excitation-phonon system. By evaluating this spectrum in a numerically-exact fashion it is demonstrated that the behavior of the entanglement entropy in the vicinity of the critical excitation-phonon coupling strength chiefly originates from one specific entanglement-spectrum eigenvalue, namely the smallest one. While the discrete translational symmetry of the system implies that those eigenvalues can be labeled by the bare-excitation quasimomentum quantum numbers, here it is shown numerically that they are predominantly associated to the quasimomenta $0$ and $\pi$, including cases where a transition between the two takes place deeply in the strong-coupling regime., Comment: published with minor revision

A surge in artificial intelligence and autonomous technologies have increased the demand toward enhanced edge-processing capabilities. Computational complexity and size of state-of-the-art Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) are rising exponentially with diverse network models and larger datasets. This growth limits the performance scaling and energy-efficiency of both distributed and embedded inference platforms. Embedded designs at the edge are constrained by energy and speed limitations of available processor substrates and processor to memory communication required to fetch the model coefficients. While many hardware accelerator and network deployment frameworks have been in development, a framework is needed to allow the variety of existing architectures, and those in development, to be expressed in critical parts of the flow that perform various optimization steps. Moreover, premature architecture-blind network selection and optimization diminish the effectiveness of schedule optimizations and hardware-specific mappings. In this paper, we address these issues by creating a cross-layer software-hardware design framework that encompasses network training and model compression that is aware of and tuned to the underlying hardware architecture. This approach leverages the available degrees of DNN structure and sparsity to create a converged network that can be partitioned and efficiently scheduled on the target hardware platform, minimizing data movement, and improving the overall throughput and energy. To further streamline the design, we leverage the high-level, flexible SoC generator platform based on RISC-V ROCC framework. This integration allows seamless extensions of the RISC-V instruction set and Chisel-based rapid generator design. Utilizing this approach, we implemented a silicon prototype in a 16 nm TSMC process node achieving record processing efficiency of up to 18 TOPS/W.

The discrepancy between post-layout and schematic simulation results continues to widen in analog design due in part to the domination of layout parasitics. This paradigm shift is forcing designers to adopt design methodologies that seamlessly integrate layout effects into the standard design flow. Hence, any simulation-based optimization framework should take into account time-consuming post-layout simulation results. This work presents a learning framework that learns to reduce the number of simulations of evolutionary-based combinatorial optimizers, using a DNN that discriminates against generated samples, before running simulations. Using this approach, the discriminator achieves at least two orders of magnitude improvement on sample efficiency for several large circuit examples including an optical link receiver layout., Comment: Accepted on ICCAD 2019 Conference

We propose a scheme for investigating the nonequilibrium aspects of small-polaron physics using an array of superconducting qubits and microwave resonators. This system, which can be realized with transmon or gatemon qubits, serves as an analog simulator for a lattice model describing a nonlocal coupling of a quantum particle (excitation) to dispersionless phonons. We study its dynamics following an excitation-phonon (qubit-resonator) interaction quench using a numerically exact approach based on a Chebyshev-moment expansion of the time-evolution operator of the system. We thereby glean heretofore unavailable insights into the process of the small-polaron formation resulting from strongly momentum-dependent excitation-phonon interactions, most prominently about its inherent dynamical timescale. To further characterize this complex process, we evaluate the excitation-phonon entanglement entropy and show that initially prepared bare-excitation Bloch states here dynamically evolve into small-polaron states that are close to being maximally entangled. Finally, by computing the dynamical variances of the phonon position and momentum quadratures, we demonstrate a pronounced non-Gaussian character of the latter states, with a strong antisqueezing in both quadratures., Comment: Project started in 2016, completed -- after a long interruption -- in 2018

We investigate the feasibility of single-shot Toffoli- and Fredkin-gate realizations in qubit arrays with Heisenberg-type exchange interactions between adjacent qubits. As follows from the Lie-algebraic criteria of controllability, such an array is rendered completely controllable -- equivalent to allowing universal quantum computation -- by a Zeeman-like control field with two orthogonal components acting on a single "actuator" qubit. Adopting this local-control setting, we start our analysis with piecewise-constant control fields and determine the global maxima of the relevant figure of merit (target-gate fidelity) by combining the multistart-based clustering algorithm and quasi-Newton type local optimization. We subsequently introduce important practical considerations, such as finite frequency bandwidth of realistic fields and their leakage away from the actuator. We find the shortest times required for high-fidelity Toffoli- and Fredkin-gate realizations and provide comparisons to their respective two-qubit counterparts -- controlled-NOT and exponential-SWAP. In particular, the Toffoli-gate time compares much more favorably to that of controlled-NOT than in the standard decomposition-based approach. This study indicates that the use of the single-shot approach can alleviate the burden on control-generating hardware in future experimental realizations of multi-qubit gates., Comment: project started in 2016 and completed -- after a long interruption -- in 2018