Neutal Atoms with QuTiP#

What is this workshop about?#

The second wave of quantum engineering is upon us.

The first wave gave us lasers, semiconductors and nuclear magnetic resonance imaging.

In the second, we’re building new kinds of sensors and new materials, sending coherent quantum states over thousands of kilometers, and learning to control complex quantum devices (e.g., “quantum computers”).

These new devices are all “open quantum systems” – i.e. quantum systems that interact with their environment.

In this tutorial, we’ll ignore the hype, and learn how to control four neutral atoms using QuTiP, an open source Python library for simulating open quantum systems. We’ll start by looking at the description of single atoms, then at how they evolve with time and interact with other atoms, and finally how they interact with a surrounding environment.

We’ll combine Python code with visualizations and plots to build intuition for how these systems evolve, and hopefully attendees will leave with a deeper appreciation of what these new devices have to offer, and their limitations and the challenges involved in building them.

No previous experience with quantum physics is required, although there will be some recommended reading beforehand for those who are completely unfamiliar.

Goals#

The goal of the workshop is for each participant to:

  • Have an overview of the components of neutral atom quantum devices

  • Be able to describe the state of a single neutral atom

  • Be able to describe the state of multiple neutral atoms

  • Be able to visualise the state of single or multiple neutral atoms

  • Understand the role of the Hamiltonian in the evolution of quantum systems

  • Be able to evolve a state of multiple neutral atoms over time

  • Understand how the Hamiltonian may be modified to represent external control of the quantum system

  • Be able to perform operations on neutral atoms to achieve simple quantum logic gates

  • Understand how to couple a system to an environment and how that may introduce noise into the system evolution

  • Be able to evaluate the effectiveness of a particular implementation of a quantum logic gate in the presence of such noise

To each of these please add “in Python with QuTiP” and “with a good understanding of what they’re doing”.

Target audience#

The target audience is people who are:

  • interested in the emerging world of quantum engineering but are not experts

  • comfortable with Python basics (loops, functions)

Vital statistics#

Keywords:

  • quantum physics

  • quantum computing

  • qutip

Tutorial Topic:

  • Open Quantum Systems

Student’s Python Knowledge Level:

  • Beginner

Skills required:

  • Jupyter notebooks

Other topics required:

  • No previous experience with quantum physics required, although there will be some recommended reading beforehand for those who are completely unfamiliar.

Number of participants:

  • One to twenty, inclusive.

Setup instructions#

  • Install a recent version of Python 3 (3.9 or 3.10).

  • Create a virtual environment using your tool of choice.

  • Install qutip==4.7.0.

If you would like to install QuTiP another way, see the more detailed guidelines at http://qutip.org/docs/latest/installation.html.

Table of contents#

Background on Neutral Atoms

Lectures

Workbooks

Backmatter