Quantum nondemolition detection of a propagating microwave photon

TL;DR

This paper proposes a method for nondestructively detecting a single propagating microwave photon using a chain of solid-state 3-level systems, achieving high fidelity with current technology.

Contribution

It introduces a novel scheme utilizing cascaded transmons and circulators for quantum nondemolition detection of microwave photons, advancing quantum measurement capabilities.

Findings

Detection fidelity around 90% achievable

Scheme compatible with existing technologies

Utilizes strong photon-photon interactions in waveguides

Abstract

The ability to nondestructively detect the presence of a single, traveling photon has been a long-standing goal in optics, with applications in quantum information and measurement. Realising such a detector is complicated by the fact that photon-photon interactions are typically very weak. At microwave frequencies, very strong effective photon-photon interactions in a waveguide have recently been demonstrated. Here we show how this type of interaction can be used to realize a quantum nondemolition measurement of a single propagating microwave photon. The scheme we propose uses a chain of solid-state 3-level systems (transmons), cascaded through circulators which suppress photon backscattering. Our theoretical analysis shows that microwave-photon detection with fidelity around 90% can be realized with existing technologies.