Scqubits: a Python package for superconducting qubits

Peter Groszkowski1 and Jens Koch2

1Pritzker School for Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
2Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA

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Abstract

$\textbf{scqubits}$ is an open-source Python package for simulating and analyzing superconducting circuits. It provides convenient routines to obtain energy spectra of common superconducting qubits, such as the transmon, fluxonium, flux, cos(2$\phi$) and the 0-$\pi$ qubit. $\textbf{scqubits}$ also features a number of options for visualizing the computed spectral data, including plots of energy levels as a function of external parameters, display of matrix elements of various operators as well as means to easily plot qubit wavefunctions. Many of these tools are not limited to single qubits, but extend to composite Hilbert spaces consisting of coupled superconducting qubits and harmonic (or weakly anharmonic) modes. The library provides an extensive suite of methods for estimating qubit coherence times due to a variety of commonly considered noise channels. While all functionality of $\textbf{scqubits}$ can be accessed programatically, the package also implements GUI-like widgets that, with a few clicks can help users both create relevant Python objects, as well as explore their properties through various plots. When applicable, the library harnesses the computing power of multiple cores via multiprocessing. $\textbf{scqubits}$ further exposes a direct interface to the Quantum Toolbox in Python (QuTiP) package, allowing the user to efficiently leverage QuTiP's proven capabilities for simulating time evolution.

In this article, we introduce an open-source Python package called $\textbf{scqubits}$, which can be used for modeling and analyzing superconducting circuits. The library provides convenient routines to obtain and explore the energy spectra of many common superconducting qubits, display matrix elements of various operators as well as easily plot qubit wavefunctions. Many of these tools are not limited to single qubits, but extend to composite Hilbert spaces consisting of coupled superconducting qubits and harmonic (or weakly anharmonic) modes. The library also includes an extensive suite of methods for estimating qubit coherence times due to a variety of commonly considered noise channels. Through a set of carefully chosen examples, this article outlines many of the key features of $\textbf{scqubits}$, as well as shows how the package can be use used by both advanced users who perform active research, as well as by students, who may be new to the field.

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► References

[1] The up-to-date API documentation can be found online. URL https:/​/​scqubits.readthedocs.io/​en/​latest/​api-doc/​apidoc.html.
https:/​/​scqubits.readthedocs.io/​en/​latest/​api-doc/​apidoc.html

[2] The full documentation for scqubits is located at the following address. URL https:/​/​scqubits.readthedocs.io/​en/​latest.
https:/​/​scqubits.readthedocs.io/​en/​latest

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[1] Boxi Li, Shahnawaz Ahmed, Sidhant Saraogi, Neill Lambert, Franco Nori, Alexander Pitchford, and Nathan Shammah, "Pulse-level noisy quantum circuits with QuTiP", Quantum 6, 630 (2022).

[2] Leonid V. Abdurakhimov, Imran Mahboob, Hiraku Toida, Kosuke Kakuyanagi, Yuichiro Matsuzaki, and Shiro Saito, "Identification of Different Types of High-Frequency Defects in Superconducting Qubits", PRX Quantum 3 4, 040332 (2022).

[3] Jacob Bryon, D.K. Weiss, Xinyuan You, Sara Sussman, Xanthe Croot, Ziwen Huang, Jens Koch, and Andrew A. Houck, "Time-Dependent Magnetic Flux in Devices for Circuit Quantum Electrodynamics", Physical Review Applied 19 3, 034031 (2023).

[4] J. Wills, G. Campanaro, S. Cao, S.D. Fasciati, P.J. Leek, and B. Vlastakis, "Spatial Charge Sensitivity in a Multimode Superconducting Qubit", Physical Review Applied 17 2, 024058 (2022).

[5] Sourav Majumder, Tanmoy Bera, Ramya Suresh, and Vibhor Singh, "A Fast Tunable 3D-Transmon Architecture for Superconducting Qubit-Based Hybrid Devices", Journal of Low Temperature Physics 207 3-4, 210 (2022).

[6] Alex Tritt, Joshua Morris, Joel Hochstetter, R.P. Anderson, James Saunderson, and L.D. Turner, "Spinsim: A GPU optimized python package for simulating spin-half and spin-one quantum systems", Computer Physics Communications 287, 108701 (2023).

[7] Philipp Aumann, Tim Menke, William D Oliver, and Wolfgang Lechner, "CircuitQ: an open-source toolbox for superconducting circuits", New Journal of Physics 24 9, 093012 (2022).

[8] Christoforus Dimas Satrya, Andrew Guthrie, Ilari K Mäkinen, and Jukka P Pekola, "Electromagnetic simulation and microwave circuit approach of heat transport in superconducting qubits", Journal of Physics Communications 7 1, 015005 (2023).

[9] Andrew Guthrie, Christoforus Dimas Satrya, Yu-Cheng Chang, Paul Menczel, Franco Nori, and Jukka P. Pekola, "Cooper-Pair Box Coupled to Two Resonators: An Architecture for a Quantum Refrigerator", Physical Review Applied 17 6, 064022 (2022).

[10] F. Setiawan, Peter Groszkowski, and Aashish A. Clerk, "Fast and Robust Geometric Two-Qubit Gates for Superconducting Qubits and beyond", Physical Review Applied 19 3, 034071 (2023).

[11] Halima Giovanna Ahmad, Caleb Jordan, Roald van den Boogaart, Daan Waardenburg, Christos Zachariadis, Pasquale Mastrovito, Asen Lyubenov Georgiev, Domenico Montemurro, Giovanni Piero Pepe, Marten Arthers, Alessandro Bruno, Francesco Tafuri, Oleg Mukhanov, Marco Arzeo, and Davide Massarotti, "Investigating the Individual Performances of Coupled Superconducting Transmon Qubits", Condensed Matter 8 1, 29 (2023).

[12] Sai Pavan Chitta, Tianpu Zhao, Ziwen Huang, Ian Mondragon-Shem, and Jens Koch, "Computer-aided quantization and numerical analysis of superconducting circuits", New Journal of Physics 24 10, 103020 (2022).

[13] D.K. Weiss, Helin Zhang, Chunyang Ding, Yuwei Ma, David I. Schuster, and Jens Koch, "Fast High-Fidelity Gates for Galvanically-Coupled Fluxonium Qubits Using Strong Flux Modulation", PRX Quantum 3 4, 040336 (2022).

[14] Matilda Peruzzo, Farid Hassani, Gregory Szep, Andrea Trioni, Elena Redchenko, Martin Žemlička, and Johannes M. Fink, "Geometric Superinductance Qubits: Controlling Phase Delocalization across a Single Josephson Junction", PRX Quantum 2 4, 040341 (2021).

[15] Thi Ha Kyaw, Tim Menke, Sukin Sim, Abhinav Anand, Nicolas P. D. Sawaya, William D. Oliver, Gian Giacomo Guerreschi, and Alán Aspuru-Guzik, "Quantum Computer-Aided Design: Digital Quantum Simulation of Quantum Processors", Physical Review Applied 16 4, 044042 (2021).

[16] Feng-Ming Liu, Ming-Cheng Chen, Can Wang, Shao-Wei Li, Zhong-Xia Shang, Chong Ying, Jian-Wen Wang, Cheng-Zhi Peng, Xiaobo Zhu, Chao-Yang Lu, and Jian-Wei Pan, "Quantum design for advanced qubits: plasmonium", arXiv:2109.00994, (2021).

The above citations are from Crossref's cited-by service (last updated successfully 2023-05-29 22:36:10) and SAO/NASA ADS (last updated successfully 2023-05-29 22:36:10). The list may be incomplete as not all publishers provide suitable and complete citation data.

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