Phase control in the vibrational qubit

In order to use molecular vibrations for quantum information processing one should be able to shape infrared laser pulses so that they can play the role of accurate quantum gates and drive the required vibrational transitions. In this paper we studied theoretically how the relative phase of the optimized transitions affects accuracy of the quantum gates in such a system. Optimal control theory and numerical propagation of laser-driven vibrational wave packets were employed. The dependencies observed for one-qubit gates NOT, pi-rotation, and Hadamard transform are qualitatively similar to each other. The results of the numerical tests agree well with the analytical predictions. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.