Protecting information in a parametrically driven hybrid quantum system
1Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai 400076, India
2Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
3Centre of Excellence in Quantum Information, Computation, Science and Technology, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai 400076, India
| Published: | 2025-05-22, volume 9, page 1754 |
| Editor: | Ujjwal Sen |
| Eprint: | arXiv:2207.14354v4 |
| Doi: | https://doi.org/10.22331/q-2025-05-22-1754 |
| Citation: | Quantum 9, 1754 (2025). |
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Abstract
The transfer and storage of quantum information in a hybrid quantum system, consisting of an ensemble of atoms or spins interacting with a cavity, is adversely affected by the inhomogeneity of the spins, which negates the coherent exchange of excitations between the physical components. Using a full quantum treatment based on variational renormalization group, we show how quantum information encoded in the states of a parametrically driven hybrid system is strongly protected against any decoherence that may arise due to the inhomogeneity in the spin-ensemble.

Featured image: (Left) A driven-dissipative hybrid quantum system, with an ensemble of spins inside a cavity ($\omega_c$), driven by a parametric, two-photon drive, with frequency $\omega_d$ and intensity $\eta$. The $k^{th}$ spin in the ensemble has a transition frequency $\omega_k$, and the spins and cavity lose excitations at rates $\gamma$ and $\kappa$, respectively. (Right) Dynamics of quantum information encoded in a hybrid system. The plots in (a) show the change in fidelity $\mathcal{F}$ between the initial encoded cavity state $|\psi_c(0)\rangle$ and the state at time $t$, for different values of $\eta$. The plot shows that higher $\eta$ leads to stronger protection. The average fidelity (dashed blue) calculated over 540 Haar random initial states is also shown, with the shaded area representing unit standard deviation. The other subfigures show the Wigner function of (b) the initial state $|\psi_c(0)\rangle$, and the states at time $t$ for parameters (c) $\eta=0.0$ and (d) $\eta \neq 0$, corresponding to fidelity shown by black triangles in (a)).
Popular summary
To mitigate this, researchers have explored the “cavity protection effect”, where increasing the coupling strength introduces a protective energy gap between the bright and dark spin waves, which in turn makes the stored information resilient to inhomogeneity in the system. However, achieving strong coupling often requires complex experimental setups, such as high-Q cavities or dense spin ensembles, which can be technically demanding and introduce new sources of noise or unwanted interactions.
In this work, we propose a simpler and experimentally accessible approach to achieve protection by parametrically driving the hybrid system. Remarkably, the driven cavity experiences an enhanced coupling to the spins in the ensemble and all information encoded in the transformed photonic states are effectively protected. This is observed using both semiclassical, mean-field and tensor-network methods that efficiently simulate the dynamics of the hybrid system and help analyse the evolution of the encoded quantum states. Importantly, the proposed scheme is compatible with different platforms and should be achievable in existing experimental setups based on ensembles of NV centres in superconducting circuits or trapped ions, where parametric drives and squeezing operations have recently been demonstrated. Our results offer a robust and cost-effective pathway to implement quantum memories with enhanced protection and open new avenues towards protecting information and designing robust and inexpensive hybrid quantum systems.
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