Vacuum Rabi oscillations in a macroscopic superconducting qubit LC oscillator system

TL;DR

This paper reports the observation of vacuum Rabi oscillations in a macroscopic superconducting system, demonstrating coherent energy exchange between a flux qubit and an LC oscillator, and providing evidence of level quantization.

Contribution

It presents the first observation of vacuum Rabi oscillations in a macroscopic superconducting qubit-LC oscillator system, showing quantum coherence at a large scale.

Findings

Observation of vacuum Rabi oscillations in a superconducting system

Evidence of level quantization in the LC circuit

Demonstration of coherent energy exchange at macroscopic scale

Abstract

We have observed the coherent exchange of a single energy quantum between a flux qubit and a superconducting LC circuit acting as a quantum harmonic oscillator. The exchange of an energy quantum is known as the vacuum Rabi oscillations: the qubit is oscillating between the excited state and the ground state and the oscillator between the vacuum state and the first excited state. We have also obtained evidence of level quantization of the LC circuit by observing the change in the oscillation frequency when the LC circuit was not initially in the vacuum state.