High-fidelity non-adiabatic dark state gates for neutral atoms

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that quantum optimal control can implement fast, robust non-adiabatic dark-state gates for neutral atoms, improving resilience to noise and inhomogeneity while maintaining experimental feasibility.

Contribution

It introduces a non-adiabatic dark-state gate scheme using quantum optimal control, achieving fast, robust two-qubit gates with simple pulse shaping techniques.

Findings

Gates are resilient to motional coupling and laser noise.

Achieves gate times comparable to blockade gates.

Enhances robustness near and beyond the blockade radius.

Abstract

Rydberg blockade gates are the most experimentally mature entangling operations in neutral-atom quantum processors, combining fast gate times with simple control, but their performance degrades at larger interatomic separations and remains sensitive to motional and technical noise. Non-blockade gate schemes, such as dark-state and geometric protocols, offer complementary robustness but typically rely on complex and experimentally demanding control. Here we show that quantum optimal control enables non-blockade gate schemes to be implemented using the experimentally established pulse-shaping techniques developed for blockade-based gates. Focusing on the dark-state gate, we construct non-adiabatic implementations that preserve the intrinsic robustness of adiabatic dark-state protocols while achieving gate times comparable to time-optimal blockade gates using only smooth, experimentally feasible pulses. The resulting gates exhibit enhanced resilience to motional coupling, laser noise, and interaction inhomogeneity, particularly near and beyond the blockade radius. This work establishes a practical route to fast, robust two-qubit gates without increased experimental complexity.