Demonstration of Tunable Three-Body Interactions between Superconducting Qubits

Nonpairwise multiqubit interactions present a useful resource for quantum information processors. Their implementation would facilitate more efficient quantum simulations of molecules and combinatorial optimization problems, and they could simplify error suppression and error correction schemes. Here, we present a superconducting circuit architecture in which a coupling module mediates two-local and three-local interactions between three flux qubits by design. The system Hamiltonian is estimated via multiqubit pulse sequences that implement Ramsey-type interferometry between all neighboring excitation manifolds in the system. The three-local interaction is coherently tunable over several MHz via the coupler flux biases and can be turned off, which is important for applications in quantum annealing, analog quantum simulation, and gate-model quantum computation.

Automated summary

This study presents a superconducting circuit architecture that enables two-local and three-local interactions between three flux qubits through a designed coupling module. The system Hamiltonian is estimated using multiqubit pulse sequences implementing Ramsey-type interferometry. The three-local interaction can be coherently tuned over several MHz via the coupler flux biases and can also be turned off. This research has significant applications in quantum annealing, analog quantum simulation, and gate-model quantum computation.