High-fidelity quantum gates in the presence of dispersion

Abstract

We numerically demonstrate the control of motional degrees of freedom of an ensemble of neutral atoms in an optical lattice with a shallow trapping potential. Taking into account the range of quasimomenta across different Brillouin zones results in an ensemble whose members effectively have inhomogeneous control fields as well as spectrally distinct control Hamiltonians. We present an ensemble-averaged optimal control technique that yields high-fidelity control pulses, irrespective of quasimomentum, with average fidelities above 98%. The resulting controls show a broadband spectrum with gate times in the order of several free oscillations to optimize gates with up to 13.2% dispersion in the energies from the band structure. This can be seen as a model system for the prospects of robust quantum control. This result explores the limits of discretizing a continuous ensemble for control theory. © 2012 American Physical Society.