Ultrafast time-scale Berry-phase gates of atomic clock states

Abstract: Extremely fast qubit controls can greatly reduce the calculation time in quantum computation, and potentially resolve the finite-time decoherence issues in many physical systems. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate pico-second time-scale controls of atomic clock state qubits, using Berry-phase gates implemented with a pair of chirped laser pulses. While conventional methods of microwave or Raman transitions do not allow atomic qubit controls within a time faster than the hyperfine free evolution period, our approach of ultrafast Berry-phase gates accomplishes fast clock-state operations. We also achieves operational robustness against laser parametric noises, since geometric phases are determined by adiabatic evolution pathway only, without being affected by any dynamic details. The experimental implementation is conducted with two linearly polarized, chirped ultrafast optical pulses, interacting with five single rubidium atoms in an array of optical tweezer dipole traps, to demonstrate the proposed ultrafast clock-state gates and their operational robustness.