Lattice gauge fields via modulation in circuit QED: The bosonic Creutz ladder

TL;DR

This paper proposes two protocols using modulated transmon qubits in circuit QED to create effective gauge potentials for microwave photons, enabling scalable simulation of complex lattice gauge theories.

Contribution

It introduces novel modulation schemes for transmon qubits to engineer gauge fields in superconducting circuits, advancing quantum simulation capabilities.

Findings

Protocols successfully generate gauge potentials in circuit QED.

Configurations are feasible for scalable superconducting lattice implementations.

Potential to simulate Bose-Hubbard models with non-trivial gauge fields.

Abstract

In this work we propose two protocols to make an effective gauge potential for microwave photons in circuit QED. The schemes consist of coupled transmons whose flux are harmonically modulated in time. We investigate the effect of various types of capacitive and inductive couplings, and the role of the fixed phase offset of each site on the complex coupling rate between coupled qubits. These configurations can be directly realised in a superconducting circuit and is easily extendable to a scalable lattice. Due to the intrinsic non-linearity of the transmon qubits such lattices would be an ideal platform for simulating Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonians with non-trivial gauge fields.