Deterministic generation of cat states with more than $100$ photons under dissipation

Abstract: Large-size cat states are especially meaningful and fundamental for exploring the quantum-to-classical transition, as well as promising resources for quantum metrology and fault-tolerant quantum computation. However, amplifying the magnitude of cat states remains challenging because of the growing fragility under decoherence. We propose to generate large cat states by using the dynamical invariant of hybrid qubit-bosonic systems under Hermitian or non-Hermitian time-dependent Hamiltonian. It is a study with the universal quantum control (UQC) theory, in which the system dynamics is analyzed in the ancillary picture via a unitary transformation conditional on the qubit state. The controllable dynamics that can be encoded in the evolution of the dynamical invariant is presented by the Heisenberg equation, which imposes constrains on the Hamiltonian. When the qubit is prepared in a balanced superposed state, the bosonic mode can evolve deterministically from the vacuum state to the cat state of a mean photon number over $120$. In the Hermitian case, the generation is perfect; and in the non-Hermitian case, the fidelity is over $0.962$. Our protocol can also be applied to the generation of the intrinsic cat states and the four-component cat states of large size. Through the preparation of macroscopic quantum states, our work essentially advances UQC to hybrid discrete-continuous variable systems.