18–19 May 2026
Koshiba Hall, The University of Tokyo
Asia/Tokyo timezone

Dark Matter Search with a Superconducting Quantum Processor

18 May 2026, 10:50
25m
Koshiba Hall, The University of Tokyo

Koshiba Hall, The University of Tokyo

7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku Tokyo

Speaker

Mikio Nakahara (IQM Quantum Computers)

Description

A system of transmon qubits is proposed as a potential platform to detect dark matter (DM) [1]. The sensitivity of the detector was shown to be enhanced by entangling a large number of qubits under the assumption that the hidden photon associated with the DM acts equally on all qubits as the same unitary operator $U_\mathrm{DM}$. We call this signal collective noise.

Qubits can be protected from collective noise by the so-called noiseless subsystem [2]. Consider a system of 3 qubits. Using the permutation symmetry of collective noise, it can be shown that there is a unitary transformation $U_E \in U(2^3)$, such that [2]
$$ U_E^\dagger (U_\mathrm{DM}^{\otimes 3})U_E|0\rangle |\phi\rangle| \psi\rangle = |0\rangle |\phi\rangle U_\mathrm{DM}|\psi\rangle. $$ $|\phi\rangle$ is immune to noise under this error-avoiding encoding. We take $|\phi\rangle=|0\rangle$ and $|\psi \rangle \in {|0\rangle, |+\rangle, |y+\rangle}$ in the following. [1] showed that the sensitivity of the proposed detector is $\propto n_q^2 \delta^2$, where $n_q$ is the number of qubits that participate in the entanglement and $\delta=\eta \tau$ is a small parameter where $\eta$ is a coupling parameter between hidden photon DM and transmons and $\tau$ is the integration time in detector. In this new proposal, deviation of the measurement outcome from the no-noise case is proportional to $\sin \delta\sim \delta$, although the sensitivity enhancement factor may not be literally $\sim 1/\delta$ if the standard quantum limit is taken into account, for example. The output state $|00\rangle$ of the first two qubits signals that the noise is collective. In our talk, we will introduce the quantum circuit implementing $U_E$ and propose a QPU design that can be fabricated within near-future technology. $[1]$ Chen, Shion and Fukuda, Hajime and Inada, Toshiaki and Moroi, Takeo and Nitta, Tatsumi and Sichanugrist, Thanaporn, Phys. Rev. D **110**, 115021 (2024) $[2]$ G\"ung\"ord\"u, Utkan and Li, Chi-Kwong and Nakahara, Mikio and Poon, Yiu-Tung and Sze, Nung-Sing, Phys. Rev. A 89, 042301 (2014)

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