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Measurement of the Decay of Fock States in a Superconducting Quantum Circuit

H. Wang, M. Hofheinz, M. Ansmann, R. C. Bialczak, E. Lucero, M. Neeley, A. D. O’Connell, D. Sank, J. Wenner, A. N. Cleland, and John M. Martinis
Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 240401 – Published 8 December 2008
Physics logo See Viewpoint: Filling a cavity with photons, and watching them leave

Abstract

We demonstrate the controlled generation of Fock states with up to 15 photons in a microwave coplanar waveguide resonator coupled to a superconducting phase qubit. The subsequent decay of the Fock states, due to dissipation, is then monitored by varying the time delay between preparing the state and performing a number-state analysis. We find that the decay dynamics can be described by a master equation where the lifetime of the n-photon Fock state scales as 1/n, in agreement with theory. We have also generated a coherent state in the microwave resonator, and monitored its decay process. We demonstrate that the coherent state maintains a Poisson distribution as it decays, with an average photon number that decreases with the same characteristic decay time as the one-photon Fock state.

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  • Received 21 August 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.240401

©2008 American Physical Society

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Filling a cavity with photons, and watching them leave

Published 8 December 2008

Preparing a harmonic oscillator in a state with a well-defined energy is a tricky business. With the new tools provided by cavity and circuit quantum electrodynamics it is now possible to make these pure quantum states and watch how they evolve in time.

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Authors & Affiliations

H. Wang, M. Hofheinz, M. Ansmann, R. C. Bialczak, E. Lucero, M. Neeley, A. D. O’Connell, D. Sank, J. Wenner, A. N. Cleland*, and John M. Martinis

  • Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA

  • *anc@physics.ucsb.edu
  • martinis@physics.ucsb.edu

See Also

Process Tomography of Field Damping and Measurement of Fock State Lifetimes by Quantum Nondemolition Photon Counting in a Cavity

M. Brune, J. Bernu, C. Guerlin, S. Deléglise, C. Sayrin, S. Gleyzes, S. Kuhr, I. Dotsenko, J. M. Raimond, and S. Haroche
Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 240402 (2008)

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Issue

Vol. 101, Iss. 24 — 12 December 2008

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