Single-shot energetic-based estimator for entanglement in a half-parity measurement setup

Producing and certifying entanglement between distant qubits is a highly desirable skill for quantum information technologies. Here we propose a new strategy to monitor and characterize entanglement genesis in a half parity measurement setup, that relies on the continuous readout of an energetic observable which is the half-parity observable itself. Based on a quantum-trajectory approach, we theoretically analyze the statistics of energetic fluctuations for a pair of continuously monitored qubits. We quantitatively relate these energetic fluctuations to the rate of entanglement produced between the qubits, and build an energetic-based estimator to assess the presence of entanglement in the circuit. Remarkably, this estimator is valid at the single-trajectory level and shows to be robust against finite detection efficiency. Our work paves the road towards a fundamental understanding of the stochastic energetic processes associated with entanglement genesis, and opens new perspectives for witnessing quantum correlations thanks to quantum thermodynamic quantities.

Qubit parity measurement by parametric driving in circuit QED

Multiqubit parity measurements are essential to quantum error correction. Current realizations of these measurements often rely on ancilla qubits, a method that is sensitive to faulty two-qubit gates and that requires notable experimental overhead. We propose a hardware-efficient multiqubit parity measurement exploiting the bifurcation dynamics of a parametrically driven nonlinear oscillator. This approach takes advantage of the resonator’s parametric oscillation threshold, which depends on the joint parity of dispersively coupled qubits, leading to high-amplitude oscillations for one parity subspace and no oscillation for the other. We present analytical and numerical results for two- and four-qubit parity measurements, with high-fidelity readout preserving the parity eigenpaces. Moreover, we discuss a possible realization that can be readily implemented with the current circuit quantum electrodynamics (QED) experimental toolbox. These results could lead to substantial simplifications in the experimental implementation of quantum error correction and notably of the surface code.