Fluctuation Spectroscopy of Two-Level Systems in Superconducting Resonators

Abstract: Superconducting quantum computing is experiencing a tremendous growth. Although major milestones have already been achieved, useful quantum-computing applications are hindered by a variety of decoherence phenomena. Decoherence due to two-level systems (TLSs) hosted by amorphous dielectric materials is ubiquitous in planar superconducting devices. We use high-quality quasilumped element resonators as quantum sensors to investigate TLS-induced loss and noise. We perform two-tone experiments with a probe and pump electric field; the pump is applied at different power levels and detunings. We measure and analyze time series of the quality factor and resonance frequency for very long time periods, up to 1000 h. We additionally carry out simulations based on the TLS interacting model in presence of a pump field. We find that loss and noise are reduced at medium and high power, matching the simulations, but not at low power.