Realisation of a Protected Cat-Qutrit Manifold via Engineered Quantum Tunnelling
Researchers report implementing a three-photon drive in a Kerr parametric oscillator to engineer quantum tunnelling in phase space, producing a protected manifold of three coherent states — a cat qutrit. The system exhibits biased-noise properties analogous to cat qubits, extending bosonic encoding beyond two-state logical manifolds.
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What this could mean
- 0–2 yearsPlausible
This could make qutrit bosonic encodings a near-term option for superconducting error-corrected processors, improving information density per mode.
The experiment demonstrates a three-photon KPO can stabilize a cat-qutrit manifold; existing cat-qubit control in superconducting circuits provides a path to integrate such encodings into error-correction demonstrations within two years.
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