Modeling the effects of 1/f noise on QCVV experiments

Real-world quantum processors are subjected to a wide variety of classical, colored noise sources with correlations that span the shortest to the longest experimentally relevant timescales. Examples include phase noise in lasers, 1/f noise in solid-state systems, and long-term drift. In this talk I discuss the impacts of these noise sources on quantum characterization, verification and validation (QCVV) experiments. I’ll then present a formalism based on cumulant expansions that can be used to efficiently simulate, predict, and analyze quantum circuit experiments subject to colored noise. Finally, I’ll discuss how we can generalize some of our usual metrics of quantum processor performance to capture colored noise.

Sandia National Laboratories is managed and operated by NTESS under DOE NNSA contract DE-NA0003525.