Browsing by Author "Calderon-Vargas, F. A."

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    Adaptive quantum approximate optimization algorithm for solving combinatorial problems on a quantum computer
    Zhu, Linghua; Tang, Ho Lun; Barron, George S.; Calderon-Vargas, F. A.; Mayhall, Nicholas J.; Barnes, Edwin Fleming; Economou, Sophia E. (American Physical Society, 2022-07-11)
    The quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) is a hybrid variational quantum-classical algorithm that solves combinatorial optimization problems. While there is evidence suggesting that the fixed form of the standard QAOA Ansatz is not optimal, there is no systematic approach for finding better Ansatze. We address this problem by developing an iterative version of QAOA that is problem tailored, and which can also be adapted to specific hardware constraints. We simulate the algorithm on a class of Max-Cut graph problems and show that it converges much faster than the standard QAOA, while simultaneously reducing the required number of CNOT gates and optimization parameters. We provide evidence that this speedup is connected to the concept of shortcuts to adiabaticity.
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    Precise high-fidelity electron-nuclear spin entangling gates in NV centers via hybrid dynamical decoupling sequences
    Dong, Wenzheng; Calderon-Vargas, F. A.; Economou, Sophia E. (2020-07)
    Color centers in solids, such as the nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond, offer well-protected and well-controlled localized electron spins that can be employed in various quantum technologies. Moreover, the long coherence time of the surrounding spinful nuclei can enable a robust quantum register controlled through the color center. We design pulse sequence protocols that drive the electron spin to generate robust entangling gates with these nuclear memory qubits. We find that compared to using Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG) alone, Uhrig decoupling sequence and hybrid protocols composed of CPMG and Uhrig sequences improve these entangling gates in terms of fidelity, spin control range, and spin selectivity. We provide analytical expressions for the sequence protocols and also show numerically the efficacy of our method on nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond. Our results are broadly applicable to color centers weakly coupled to a small number of nuclear spin qubits.