Entangling Bosonic Modes via an Engineered Exchange Interaction

Abstract

The realization of robust universal quantum computation with any platform ultimately requires both the coherent storage of quantum information and (at least) one entangling operation between individual elements. The use of continuous-variable bosonic modes as the quantum element is a promising route to preserve the coherence of quantum information against naturally-occurring errors. However, operations between bosonic modes can be challenging. In analogy to the exchange interaction between discrete-variable spin systems, the exponential-SWAP unitary [$\mathbf{U}_{\mathrm{E}}\left(θ_c\right)$] can coherently transfer the states between two bosonic modes, regardless of the chosen encoding, realizing a deterministic entangling operation for certain $θ_c$. Here, we develop an efficient circuit to implement $\mathbf{U}_{\mathrm{E}}\left(θ_c\right)$ and realize the operation in a three-dimensional circuit QED architecture. We demonstrate high-quality deterministic entanglement between two cavity modes with several different encodings. Our results provide a crucial primitive necessary for universal quantum computation using bosonic modes.