Search for: All records

Abstract Quantum error correction can preserve quantum information in the presence of local errors, but correlated errors are fatal. For superconducting qubits, high-energy particle impacts from background radioactivity produce energetic phonons that travel throughout the substrate and create excitations above the superconducting ground state, known as quasiparticles, which can poison all qubits on the chip. We use normal metal reservoirs on the chip back side to downconvert phonons to low energies where they can no longer poison qubits. We introduce a pump-probe scheme involving controlled injection of pair-breaking phonons into the qubit chips. We examine quasiparticle poisoning on chips with and without back-side metallization and demonstrate a reduction in the flux of pair-breaking phonons by over a factor of 20. We use a Ramsey interferometer scheme to simultaneously monitor quasiparticle parity on three qubits for each chip and observe a two-order of magnitude reduction in correlated poisoning due to background radiation. 

Exhumed faults record the temperatures produced by earthquakes. We show that transient elevated fault surface temperatures preserved in the rock record are quantifiable through microtextural analysis, fault-rock thermochronometry, and thermomechanical modeling. We apply this approach to a network of mirrored, minor, hematite-coated fault surfaces in the exhumed, seismogenic Wasatch fault zone, UT, USA. Polygonal and lobate hematite crystal morphologies, coupled with hematite (U–Th)/He data patterns from these surfaces and host rock apatite (U–Th)/He data, are best explained by friction-generated heat at slip interface geometric asperities. These observations inform thermomechanical simulations of flash heating at frictional contacts and resulting fractional He loss over generated fault surface time–temperature histories. Temperatures of >∼700–1200 °C, depending on asperity size, are sufficient to induce 85–100% He loss from hematite within 200 μm of the fault surface. Spatially-isolated, high-temperature microtextures imply spatially-variable heat generation and decay. Our results reveal that flash heating of asperities and associated frictional weakening likely promote small earthquakes (Mw≈−3 to 3) on Wasatch hematite fault mirrors. We suggest that similar thermal processes and resultant dynamic weakening may facilitate larger earthquakes.