Controlled-SWAP gates by tuning of interfering transition pathways in neutral atom arrays

Abstract: Neutral-atom quantum processors employ Rydberg blockade for multiqubit phase operations but lack similar native exchange and conditional exchange gates, which are essential primitives for state verification, fermionic and XY-model simulation, and efficient routing in large qubit arrays. We demonstrate that by lifting the degeneracy between interfering transition pathways, a single Rydberg-excited atom can control state exchange between pairs of atoms. Using this mechanism, we realize a direct controlled-SWAP (Fredkin) operation with more than 99\% fidelity and an order-of-magnitude reduction in circuit depth and reduced exposure to decay and decoherence of Rydberg state components compared with decomposed implementations. The mechanism operates robustly under Doppler broadening at ~150 $μ$K and realistic laser-intensity noise and extends naturally to an entire family of useful gates, including multi-control conditional exchanges (C$_k$-SWAP) and conditional multiplexed SWAP gates. By incorporating controlled exchange operations as native physical operations on neutral atoms, our work provides multiqubit gates that enable higher-order state-verification protocols, occupation-dependent simulations, and conditional routing across optical lattices.