On-Premises Superconducting Quantum

Computer for Education and Research

Jami Rönkkö1 , Olli Ahonen1 , Ville Bergholm1 , Alessio Calzona2 ,
Attila Geresdi2 , Hermanni Heimonen1 , Johannes Heinsoo1 ,
Vladimir Milchakov1 , Stefan Pogorzalek2 , Matthew Sarsby1 ,
Mykhailo Savytskyi1 , Stefan Seegerer2 , Fedor Šimkovic IV2 ,
P.V. Sriluckshmy2 , Panu T. Vesanen1 , Mikio Nakahara1*
arXiv:2402.07315v1 [quant-ph] 11 Feb 2024

1 IQM Quantum Computers, Keilaranta 19, Espoo, 02150, Finland.

2 IQM Quantum Computers, Georg-Brauchle-Ring 23-25, Munich, 80992,
Germany.

*Corresponding author(s). E-mail(s): mikio.nakahara@meetiqm.com;

Abstract
With a growing interest in quantum technology globally, there is an increasing
need for accessing relevant physical systems for education and research. In this
paper we introduce a commercially available on-site quantum computer utiliz-
ing superconducting technology, offering insights into its fundamental hardware
and software components. We show how this system can be used in education to
teach quantum concepts and deepen understanding of quantum theory and quan-
tum computing. It offers learning opportunities for future talent and contributes
to technological progress. Additionally, we demonstrate its use in research by
replicating some notable recent achievements.

Keywords: quantum computer, transmon qubits, quantum algorithms

1 Introduction
Quantum computing is a promising technology which is expected to efficiently solve
certain classes of problems that are challenging for classical computers in terms of com-
putational time and/or hardware resources. The term quantum advantage is coined for

1
the demonstration of this algorithmic speed-up on quantum hardware. Several quan-
tum algorithms have been devised to demonstrate this, for example prime number
factorization of large integers [1] with an exponential speed-up compared to its best
known classical counterpart. A similar speed-up exists when simulating the chemical
and physical properties of molecules and the dynamics of fundamental physical mod-
els [2]. We should note that most of these algorithms assume an error-free quantum
hardware with a number of quantum bits or qubits beyond the reach of current tech-
nology. With the inherent presence of the loss of quantum information in any physical
system, a fault-tolerant quantum computer [3] would employ a built-in quantum error
correction, where the number of error-free logical qubits is less than the error-prone
and noisy physical qubits.
However, even in the absence of error-correction, noisy intermediate-scale quantum
(NISQ) computers [4] are thought to exhibit quantum advantage over classical high-
performance computers (HPC) in the range of 100 to 1000 qubits, depending on the
quality of the quantum hardware and the connectivity between the qubits. Among
many physical platforms, superconducting quantum hardware is well-suited for scaling
the number of qubits and improving their fidelity while maintaining connectivity and
thus becomes a preferred technology in the NISQ era with roadmaps towards fault
tolerance [5].
Here, we introduce the IQM SparkTM [6] prototype1 , a 5-qubit superconducting
quantum computer designed and developed to enable a low-barrier access to both
its hardware and software components. The hardware is self-contained with a pack-
aged superconducting quantum processing unit (QPU), a dilution refrigerator, control
electronics, while the software components allow for both a direct manipulation of
the qubits by microwave pulses or to run small scale quantum algorithms composed
of quantum gates [6]. As we will demonstrate with different use cases, this system
can be harnessed for a range of educational activities from teaching the concepts of
superconducting quantum hardware to developing an understanding of quantum error
mitigation and performing experiments from different fields of research.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we introduce the hard-
ware, in which, after the overview, the basics of the transmon qubits, tunable couplers,
traveling wave parametric amplifiers, dilution refrigerators, and control electronics are
explained. In Section 3, we introduce the software necessary to operate the quantum
computer. The next two sections are dedicated to applications of a quantum computer
to education and research. Some applications are available only for an on-premises
quantum computer. In Section 4 we introduce use cases for educational purposes,
namely
• calibration,
• benchmarking
• visualization of pulses with oscilloscope
• error mitigation, and finally
• execution of simple quantum algorithms.

1
This research paper is based on a prototype system of a commercial IQM SparkTM and its system
specifications and performance may therefore differ from the commercial IQM SparkTM . The authors will
not make any statements relating to the commercial IQM SparkTM or give any guarantees relating to the
system specification and performance of the commercial IQM SparkTM .

2
In Section 5, we reproduce some research results which appeared recently in scientific
journals, namely
• simulation of neutrino oscillation,
• estimation of Jones polynomials, and
• an introduction into embedding techniques for quantum chemistry.
Section 6 is devoted to summary and discussion.

Notation
Throughout this paper, Ik stands for the k-dimensional unit matrix. Pauli matrices are
denoted by X, Y and Z, with an optional subscript to denote the qubit they apply to:

Pi = I2 ⊗ . . . ⊗ I2 ⊗ P ⊗ I2 ⊗ . . . ⊗ I2 , P ∈ {X, Y, Z},

where P is in the ith position. X1 Z3 = X ⊗ I2 ⊗ Z, for example. We use the common

convention for qubit ordering, namely the top qubit in a quantum circuit is the first
qubit, which is opposite to the Qiskit convention [7]. We assign qubit numbers 1 to
5 as shown in Fig. 1 although Qiskit assigns 0 to 4. Which convention is employed
should be obvious from the context.

Estimating expectation values of observables

A quantum computer estimates the probabilities of the Z-basis states of the measured
qubits by repeating the same multiqubit Z-basis measurement many times, and com-
puting the relative frequencies of the outcomes. The number of repetitions is called
“shots”. For example, for a single-qubit state |ψ⟩ = a|0⟩ + b|1⟩ we may estimate
the probabilities p0 = |a|2 and p1 = |b|2 . Using these values we may estimate the
expectation value of Zi as ⟨ψ|Zi |ψ⟩ = p0 − p1 . By using the identities

X =HZH and Y = S H Z H S † , (1)

we may estimate the expectation value of X or Y by first rotating the state |ψ⟩
by H or H S † , respectively, and then estimate the expectation value of Z. For
execution on our hardware, all circuits are transpiled into single-qubit R(θ, ϕ) =
exp [−iθ (cos ϕ X + sin ϕ Y ) /2] gates and two-qubit CZ gates. In this process the extra
gates used for estimating X- or Y -expectation values are often merged with adjacent
single-qubit gates in the circuit.

2 Hardware
Our superconducting quantum computer is a full-stack system consisting of a 5-qubit
superconducting QPU, dilution refrigerator, optimized cryogenic microwave and DC
lines, control electronics, and appropriate classical computing hardware to run the
control software. The details of our quantum computer used in the experiments of this
paper are described in the following subsections.

3
Fig. 1: Design of a 5-qubit superconducting quantum processing unit employed in
this paper, showing 5 qubits (QB) connected by 4 tunable couplers (TC). Black, apart
from explanatory text, indicates areas where superconducting film is etched exposing
the substrate.

2.1 Quantum processing unit

2.1.1 Overview
The core of any quantum computing system is the quantum processing unit (QPU)
comprising of qubits, qubit-couplers and control and readout lines. The QPU of our
quantum computer features five data qubits with a single central qubit connected to
the four peripheral qubit through tunable couplers [8, 9] in star topology as depicted
in Fig. 1. The qubits and tunable couplers are described below in more detail.
The chip layout is drawn using KQCircuits [10]. It is a free open-source add-on
for KLayout [11], a widely used open-source operating system independent layout
viewer and editor for integrated circuits. KQCircuits adds the necessary functions to
KLayout to programmatically, or using graphical user interface, draw superconducting
circuits and export the designs for fabrication or for standard microwave simulation
software. KQCircuits also exports netlists, which enable SPICE-like quasi-lumped-
element simulations for fast validation and optimization of geometrical parameters to
achieve target coupling strengths between circuit elements discussed below.

2.1.2 Qubit type

The states of computational qubits in our QPU are physically stored in non-linear
oscillators referred to as transmon qubits. Transmon is a modified charge qubit, where
a Josephson junction or a Superconducting QUantum Interface Device (SQUID) is
shunted by a large capacitor in a way that Josephson energy exceeds capacitor energy

4
by a factor of few tens [12]. The transmon is prevalent qubit type in superconducting
quantum computation due to its stability against charge and flux noise, and simplicity
of operation. In our qubit circuit, sometimes referred to as a grounded transmon [13],
the qubit capacitor is formed by a thin metal film island separated from the coplanar
ground plane by a gap where metal has been etched and underling dielectric is exposed.
In addition to the mutual capacitance, the central island is connected to the ground
via the SQUID consisting of parallel-connected Josephson junctions.
The shape of the qubit charge island has six-fold rotational symmetry. Each sec-
tor features a capacitor island. Each of the islands has its own size, which allows the
coupling capacitance to be individually tuned to achieve target coupling to the neigh-
boring qubits, qubit state readout resonator and extra shunt to the ground for precise
targeting of total shunt capacitance. In between two coupling islands, there is a narrow
strip of charge island to reduce coupling between the neighboring couplers.

2.1.3 Qubit control

Each of the qubits is individually addressed by two control lines. Control lines are
implemented as coplanar waveguides.
The center conductor of the flux line is shorted to the ground in the vicinity of the
qubit SQUID creating an effective mutual inductance between the center conductor
and the SQUID loop. By applying electrical current through the flux line, magnetic
flux created through the SQUID loop creates a phase bias across the Josephson junc-
tions, reducing the effective Josephson energy of the SQUID and hence the qubit
frequency. At the maximum qubit frequency, the frequency is insensitive, to the first
order, to external flux maximizing the coherence time of the qubit and is referred to
as a sweetspot. Qubit frequency changes are used to find overall optimal operation
frequencies, change dispersive coupling rates to the other elements, and implement
physical Z and CZ gates, more on two-qubit gates below.
For drive lines, the center conductor is left open circuited and due to proximity has
mutual capacitance to the charge island of the qubit. By applying microwave signals
through the drive line, the qubit state can be driven between internal states with the
energy difference corresponding the signal frequency. The capacitance value is carefully
chosen to ensure sufficiently low qubit coupling to the 50 Ω environment to minimize
Purcell losses [14] whilst keeping the coupling to the target qubit strong compared to
the spectator qubits. Resonant qubit drive is used to implement X, Y or any R(θ, ϕ)
gate. By choosing corresponding drive frequency, gates between higher energy levels of
the qubit can also be achieved giving access to the Hilbert space of larger dimension.

2.1.4 Readout
To infer the state of a superconducting qubit, so-called dispersive readout is
employed [15, 16]. This is a widely used method which employs transverse coupling
between the qubit and resonator based on a dipole-dipole interaction. Due to the
transverse coupling term in the Jaynes-Cummings Hamiltonian [17], a qubit-state-
dependent frequency shift of the resonator, known as the dispersive shift, is observed.
Every qubit has a dedicated readout resonator connected to it and each readout
resonator has a different resonance frequency.

5
Fig. 2: Quasi lumped element circuit diagram of readout circuit, including readout-
and Purcell resonators connected to probe line, which consist of a distributed Purcell
filter. Qubits are depicted as circles with two horizontal lines.

To suppress the Purcell decay rate of the qubits through the readout resonators,
the resonator are not directly coupled to the 50 Ω environment. Instead, each readout
resonator couples to an individual Purcell filter - a bandpass filter which reduces the
transmission at the qubit frequency.
As shown in Fig. 2, the Purcell filters are in turn all coupled to a common probe
line. The state of the qubit registry is inferred by probing the transmission of the probe
line with a frequency comb and comparing the phase and amplitude of the transmitted
signal at the frequency of each readout resonator individually to a set threshold. The
readout cross-talk is reduced thanks to the individual Purcell filters [18]. The amount
of coupling and the frequency detuning between the elements is optimised to balance
readout speed and Purcell relaxation rate. The input capacitor and the shunt at the
output of the probe line forms another resonator, where the total length defines the
frequency and the location of the output tap defines coupling strength to the output
port, see the right side of Fig. 2.
The coupling strengths and detunings are chosen such that the Purcell effect would
not limit the intrinsic T1 .

2.1.5 Tunable couplers

Tunable couplers are utilized in order to perform two-qubit gates between the above-
mentioned qubits. Tunable couplers are circuit components based on transmon qubits,
which enable us to perform two-qubits gates with state of the art fidelities above
99% [9]. The main benefit of using tunable couplers is the possibility to compensate
the native ZZ-interaction between qubits which enables high fidelity identity gates [8].
In our design, see Fig. 3, the interaction between tunable coupler and qubits is medi-
ated by waveguide extenders [9]. This feature allows us to place a significant distance
between the qubits to avoid inter-qubit cross-talk, while keeping the switchable ZZ-
coupling large enough and, in larger devices, fit the readout resonators into the qubit
lattice unit cell.
By applying an external magnetic flux into the SQUID loop of a tunable coupler,
one can change a coupler frequency and thus the effective amount of the ZZ-interaction
gzz between relevant pair of qubits. The effective value of the gzz can be changed in a
wide range including both positive and negative values. Consequently, there exists a

6
Fig. 3: A quasi-lumped element circuit diagram of two transmon qubits (blue and
orange) coupled by a tunable coupling structure consisting of waveguide extenders
(turquoise) and a floating coupler qubit (red) [9]. Electrical nodes are marked with
capital letters. Grey color elements represent the effective couplings implemented by
the waveguide extenders.

point where this interaction is equal to zero. This point is used while the QPU is idling
so that all qubit pairs have negligible interaction and all the native couplings between
pairs of qubits are compensated. To perform a two-qubit gate between neighboring
qubits, the coupler can be flux-tuned by a square-like baseband pulse to change its
frequency causing an interaction between qubits for a certain amount of time, see also
subsection 2.5.
By choosing the detuning between qubits during a gate operation, one can imple-
ment CZ, iSWAP gates or any general fermionic simulation gate [19] with the same
hardware.

2.2 QPU Package

The QPU is mounted inside a carrier for handling, shielding, mounting, and signal
connection purposes. The shape of the carrier is optimized to make all standing wave
modes be far-detuned from operational frequencies. The QPU is wire-bonded to a
printed circuit board (PCB) with coplanar waveguides that is also attached to the
carrier. The PCB serves to transmit signals between QPU launchpads and external
microwave connections. The carrier is manufactured out of high conductivity copper
for improved thermalisation and reducing potential interactions with impurities in the
metal. This carrier has a gold plated finish for better thermal contact between mating
surfaces, reduce losses of signals in the exposed transmission lines, and to ensure high
quality factors of all mentioned standing wave modes. The particular gold plating
process used is non-magnetic to maintain a clean magnetic field environment. The
sample carrier securely holds the QPU, protect the chip from stray radiation, minimize
microwave interference and cross-talk between the signals.

7
 To thermally attach the QPU carrier to the refrigerator, it is mounted to a copper
cold finger, which is situated inside a multiple layered magnetic shielding assembly.
These shields are required for minimizing the interaction with external magnetic fields
and suppress to environmental radiation.

2.3 Refrigerator
The cold finger with the chip carrier is attached to the mixing chamber plate of a
commercial BlueforsTM refrigerator in order to cool the QPU to the operating tem-
perature of a few tens of mK. These machines use a pulse tube refrigerator to cool the
first stages to a few Kelvin and then uses a dilution refrigerator to reach the base tem-
perature. The experiments presented in this paper were performed with components
attached to the experimental stage with a temperature of 30 mK or cooler.

2.4 Signal inputs and outputs

The microwave signals for the qubit drive, tunable coupler flux, parametric amplifier
pump, and readout probe are routed from room temperature to the QPU by coaxial
SCuNi wires that include appropriate attenuation cascade at the different temperature
stages as well as low-pass filtering at the base temperature. DC signals for qubit flux
are routed using twisted pair wiring with low-pass filtering at room temperature, the
3 K stage, and at the base temperature stage.
The readout response is amplified by a Traveling Wave Parametric Amplifier
(TWPA), routed via appropriate isolation upwards by superconducting coaxial NbTi
wiring to a High-Electron-Mobility Transistor (HEMT) amplifier operating at a
nominal 3 K temperature. After the HEMT the signal is carried by silver plated
copper-nickel coaxial wiring to reach the top plate of the cryostat.

2.4.1 Traveling wave parametric amplifier

Qubit readout relies on readout pulses with as little energy as tens of microwave
photons. To detect such weak signals, quantum limited amplifiers are used, where
amount of added noise is limited by quantum mechanics [20]. The first amplifier in
our readout chain is a TWPA. Due to high gain and bandwidth, it enables frequency
multiplxed readout of all qubits within 100 ns and readout fidelity limited only by
qubit decay time. [21]
Parametric amplifiers include nonlinear media, where propagating weak and strong
tones exchange energy. In TWPAs, the nonlinear media consists of long series of
Josephson junctions [22] forming an analogue of an optical Kerr medium. The Joseph-
son potential being an even function of the superconducting phase difference ϕ, the
provided nonlinearity to the lowest order is of the form ϕ4 which enables four-wave
mixing (4WM). Here two photons from a strong pump tone generate one photon in
phase with the weak input signal and another idler photon [23]. Pump, signal and
idler tone frequencies are related by the conservation of energy [20], see Fig. 4.
In the presence of an external flux, the lowest order of non-linearity becomes of
the form ϕ3 . This term can facilitate a three-wave mixing (3WM) process where a
single pump photon at roughly twice the signal frequency gives its energy to a pair of

8
 (a) (b)
Fig. 4: Energy level diagrams for (a) 4WM and (b) 3WM processes. ωp , ωs , ωi rep-
resents the angular frequencies of pump, signal and idler photons, respectively. ∆ω
represents an frequency detuning from the degenerate mode of amplification.

signal and idler photons [24–26]. Having the pump tone far from the signal frequency
is beneficial, as then the strong tone at the output of the TWPA can be removed with
a simple filter and one avoids any compression effects in later amplification stages.
If the signal and idler frequencies are the same, the resulting amplification is said
to be degenerate and only one of the signal quadratures is amplified, but possibly
without any added noise. In our system, we typically employ 3WM TWPAs in the
non-degenerate regime such that we can frequency multiplex the readout. However,
by changing the flux bias current it is possible to tune the degeneracy to a frequency
of interest without changes to the hardware.

2.5 QPU control electronics

The microwave drive pulses are generated by conventional AC-coupled microwave
arbitrary waveform generators (AWGs) operating at the qubit frequency band. The
tunable coupler flux pulses are generated by a DC-coupled baseband AWG. The read-
out probe signals are generated and acquired by a conventional quantum analyzer
operating at the frequency band of the readout resonators. The readout and drive
instruments also provide a combined functionality that enables fast feedback, i.e.,
driving signals dependent on the readout result at time scales shorter than the qubit
coherence times. The qubit flux and TWPA bias currents are generated by a DC volt-
age source which is connected to the QPU and TWPA devices via a cascade of low
pass filters that include inline resistance to convert voltage to a stable direct current.
The electronics racks of the system include all the required auxiliary electronics for
operating a full-stack quantum computer: uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to pro-
vide regulation and filtering of the mains power to the measurement electronics rack,
a network remote configurable mains power distribution unit (ePDU), power supplies
for the various readout amplifiers, a reference clock, power supplies for the DC sources,
a main Linux host for running the control software, a Windows host for running the
Bluefors software that controls the dilution refrigerator, several smaller specialised
Linux hosts for instrumentation interfaces, a dedicated firewall, and a network switch
that provides Ethernet connectivity to the hosting facility.

9
Fig. 5: The software layers and modules of our quantum computer control software
stack.

3 Software
The software stack of our quantum computer is divided into different functional layers
presented in Fig. 5. It can be interfaced in several ways based on the required level
of access. The modules and interactions of the software stack are described in more
details in the following subsections.

3.1 Cortex
Cortex is a set of software components for running quantum algorithms on our quan-
tum computer. It is the highest level of abstraction in the control software stack of
our on-premises quantum computers. Cortex focuses on enabling computation for the
end user, rather than experimenting with the behaviour of the individual elements of
the quantum computer.
Cortex allows users to define and execute quantum algorithms on the quantum
computer, expressed as quantum circuits using high-level frameworks and description
languages such as Cirq, Qiskit, and OpenQASM 2.0. The input to the server is a
computation job containing one or more quantum circuits to be executed, the number
of shots, and possibly some other parameters. The job is queued for execution on the
quantum computer. The results of the measurements of the circuits are returned when
the job is completed.

10
3.2 EXA
EXA is a Python-based framework for characterising, calibrating, and controlling our
quantum computer. EXA supports the execution of pre-defined experiments as well
as the definition and execution of new custom experiments. An experiment unit com-
bines different functionalities such as execution flow, data manipulation, analysis, and
presentation, and it can also be built in a modular way using other experiments.
Using the EXA experiment library, users can create Jupyter notebooks or stan-
dalone Python applications e.g. to implement macro-like capabilities to simplify the
control and measurement processes, eliminate standard repetitive operations using
automated procedures, and develop entirely new experiments.

3.3 IQM Station Control

IQM Station Control takes care of low-level functionality such as housing instru-
ment parameters and hardware drivers. It hides low-level hardware details from the
higher-level components, EXA and Cortex. Both Cortex and EXA communicate with
Station Control service via its non-RESTful JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) interface. The interface provides endpoints for
performing various parameter sweeps and executing pulse schedules. In normal use,
the user does not need to interact directly with the service.
Station Control uses device-specific drivers to further encapsulate the details of
each instrument, including its low-level communication protocol.

4 Applications to education
A small scale on-premises quantum computer is exceptionally useful for educational
purposes. It facilitates hands-on experimentation, allowing students not only to run
quantum circuits, but also to conduct pulse-level experiments, change the calibration,
or connect external periphery. In general, applications to education can be sorted into
two categories, (1) experiments/lab sessions that involve accessing the hardware phys-
ically or through the pulse-level interface, and (2) accessing the quantum computer
through the circuit-level interface.

4.1 Utilizing hardware access/pulse-level access for education

Lab sessions that involve accessing the hardware physically or utilizing the pulse-
level interface and changing the configuration or calibration of the device help engage
students and provide additional learning opportunities that are pivotal in cultivating
the next generation of quantum scientists and engineers. Below we will illustrate four
examples of how an on-premises quantum computer can be used for this purpose in
education.

4.1.1 Exploring a quantum computer

Access to a physical quantum computer enables the investigation of the setup of these
machines. Together with the appropriate exercises and learning materials this kind of

11
physical access bridges the gap between abstract quantum circuit descriptions and the
actual superconducting quantum computer that executes them. Students experience
first hand how the qubits are protected from the environment via cooling and magnetic
shields, and also how information is exchanged with the classical world.

4.1.2 Calibrating a quantum computer

By utilizing the pulse-level interface, learners can explore the importance of calibra-
tion and create their own calibration sets. Calibration is required to find the optimal
parameters to operate the QPU and is crucial for high fidelity operations. In a lab
setting, the learners create and apply their calibration sets and compare outcomes to
understand the impact of calibration on the results as shown in Fig. 6 (a). Figure 6 (b)
shows the measurement outcomes of the 5-qubit GHZ state

1
|Ψ⟩ = √ (|00000⟩ + |11111⟩) (2)
2

with two different calibration sets.

Furthermore, learners can investigate the fidelity of gates and the potential causes
of discrepancies in calibration outcomes, encouraging students to critically analyze
their results against provided benchmarks. Benchmarking can also expand to aspects
such as T1 and T2 times or different strategies for assessing performance.

4.1.3 Exploring control waveforms

With physical access to the device, students can also plug in selected peripheral
devices such as oscilloscopes to further investigate the connection of software-defined
operations and the physical implementation of quantum operations. Multiple smaller
experiments guide the learners through investigating control pulse characteristics and
qubit manipulation. For example, they execute multiple instructions that rotate the
qubit state by different angles and measure the corresponding pulse shapes. As a more
complicated example, learners can explore the control pulse schedules that result√from
multi-qubit circuits such as one that generates a Bell state |Φ+ ⟩ = (|00⟩ + |11⟩)/ 2, as
shown in Fig. 7 (a). The resulting control and readout pulses measured with an oscil-
loscope are depicted in Fig. 7 (b). Through this hands-on approach, learners will gain
insight into the control electronics that enable superconducting quantum computing
and the concepts of pulse control.

4.1.4 Multi-level quantum hardware

Direct hardware access allows one to investigate physical quantum systems beyond the
two-level approximation defining a qubit. Here we demonstrate the state preparation
and readout of the second excited state of a transmon. This example provides inter-
ested learners with a better understanding of the actual superconducting quantum
hardware. Furthermore, it connects the educational value of the system with recent
scientific results enabled by utilizing the multi-level nature of the transmon [27], such
as three-level (qutrit) quantum processors [28], tunable coupler architectures using the

12
 Your calibration Other calibration
99.227 98.679
QB 1 QB 2 99.2 QB 1 QB 2

CZ gate fidelity (%)

CZ gate fidelity (%)

99.0 95.0
99.227 98.395 98.497 98.056
TC 13 QB 3 TC 23 TC 13 QB 3 TC 23
98.8
TC 34 TC 35 TC 34 TC 35 90.0
98.570 98.473 84.022 98.679
QB 4 QB 5 98.6
QB 4 QB 5

85.0
98.4 84.022
(a)

Fig. 6: (a) Learners may compare their calibration with another. They notice the
badly calibrated CZ gate in the second calibration set, indicated by the red arrow, and
investigate the cause. (b) Comparison of the 5-qubit GHZ state preparation fidelity
using different calibration sets shown in (a).

second excited state [9] and fast single-qubit gates by the shortcuts-to-adiabaticity
version of the stimulated Raman processes (STIRAP) [29].
In Fig. 8, we display the results of an experiment addressing the relaxation dynam-
ics of a transmon prepared in the |2⟩ state by a calibrated π0−2 pulse. The population
then freely evolves and state discrimination is performed after a delay time (see
inset). The observed evolution (dots) of the three states |0⟩, |1⟩ and |2⟩ is then fit-
ted (solid lines) to extract the relaxation timescales. We find Γ−1 10 = 44.4 ± 1.3 µs,

13
 = 90 = 180

= = Readout

(a) (b)
Fig. 7: (a) Transpiled circuit that creates a Bell state using native operations of our
quantum computer. Note that this circuit has been chosen for illustrative purposes
and has not been fully optimized for the given architecture. (b) Resulting pulse shapes
as displayed on the oscilloscope interface. Horizontal and vertical axis depict time and
voltage, respectively. Curves are shifted vertically for better visibility.

1.0

0.8

���
State probability

0.6 ���
�0-2
���
readout

0.4
Delay time

0.2

0.0
0 50 100 150 200 250
Delay time ( s)

Fig. 8: State preparation and relaxation dynamics of a qutrit. The inset displays the
pulse sequence, which starts with preparing the qutrit in the second excited state,
and the readout is performed after a variable delay time. The result of the single shot
analysis is shown as dots, and the best fit to the Markovian model in the inset is
displayed as solid curves with the relaxation rates Γ21 , Γ20 and Γ10 given in the text.

14
Γ−1 −1
21 = 35.0 ± 1.1 µs and Γ20 = 69.2 ± 4.1 µs, which together capture the expected
dynamics of the qutrit, where the inequalities Γ−1 −1 −1 −1
10 > Γ21 and Γ10 , Γ21 < Γ20
−1

demonstrate the role of the transition matrix elements when describing the relax-
ation of a quantum system [30]. We conclude that pulse-level access enables the direct
investigation and control of the superconducting quantum hardware beyond what
higher abstraction layers can provide, making it a vital tool for educational programs
targeting quantum hardware.

4.2 Utilizing circuit-level access for education

A lot of interest goes into investigating, creating and improving NISQ algorithms.
This subsection will demonstrate the use of gate-based access in educational settings
by providing different examples that can be practiced by learners. The output of
each quantum circuit is illustrated by executing it with our superconducting quantum
computer.
Because of the unavoidable presence of errors during algorithm execution on NISQ
devices such as our quantum computer, the results are expected to differ from the ideal,
noiseless ones. Importantly, there are strategies, often collectively referred to as “quan-
tum error mitigation”, that can be employed, either individually or in combination
with each other, to reduce the effects of errors on the execution of a desired algo-
rithm [31]. In particular, in the examples that will follow, we make use of techniques
belonging to three different classes.
• “Error suppression” techniques aim to modify and reduce the effects of errors at the
level of each single circuit run. A prominent example is the randomized compiling
(RC) technique [32, 33] that, through random Pauli twirling, effectively converts
problematic coherent errors (e.g. systematic overrotations associated with a given
gate) to stochastic errors, which add up more favourably and whose effects are easier
to mitigate further.
• “Readout error mitigation” (REM) techniques target errors that occur during the
measurement of the qubits [31, 34]. In general, they consists of two steps. At first,
a set of simple and shallow characterization circuits is executed on the hardware,
in order to determine the properties and the magnitude of the readout errors. As
a simple example, one might want to measure what is the probability that a given
qubit prepared, say, in the |0⟩ state is incorrectly measured to be in |1⟩. Once this
information is gathered, the desired algorithm is executed and its raw results are
post-processed in order to compensate for the readout errors. In this paper, we have
mitigated readout errors using correlated readout error mitigation calibrated with
10,000 shots per basis state.
• A third class of “error mitigation” techniques mainly target errors happening at
the gate level, i.e. during the execution of the bulk of the circuits. This is gener-
ally achieved by executing different variants of the desired quantum circuit and by
combining their output via classical post-processing, leading to a (potentially sig-
nificant) run time overhead [31]. Despite this trade-off between quality and speed,
the implementation of error mitigation strategies is a key element for successful

15
 algorithm execution in the NISQ era. One simple-yet-effective technique to miti-
gate gate errors is known as zero noise extrapolation (ZNE) [35], which is based
on the idea of artificially increasing the noise level and then making use of nois-
ier results to extrapolate back to the noiseless limit. Open source and educational
implementations of several other techniques can be found, for example, in [36].

4.2.1 Violation of the CHSH inequality

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2022 was awarded jointly to Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser
and Anton Zeilinger “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the vio-
lation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science” [37]. Bell’s
theorem claims that correlations of measurement outcomes of two experimenters sep-
arated from one another have an upper bound if nature follows the principle of local
realism [38]. Suppose two parties, often called Alice and Bob, are located far away from
each other in the experiment. They both have two observables they can measure of
some signal that comes to them, but they cannot measure both simultaneously. Bell-
type inequalities define correlators over the possible measurement settings and their
outcomes, assuming that the measurements happen so fast that no communication is
possible between the measurement devices of Alice and Bob due to the finite speed
of light [39]. A Bell inequality then separates so-called local probability distributions
from non-local distributions, that have stronger correlations than the local distribu-
tions. The most famous Bell-type inequality is the CHSH inequality [40], which is
straightforward to test with two qubits on a quantum computer. The measurements
of the qubits are definitely not space-like separated events, though. The inequality is
given by the formula:

−2 ≤ E(QS) + E(RS) + E(RT ) − E(QT ) ≤ 2, (3)

if the local realism is true. Here the observables are

Q = X1 R = Z1 S = Z2 T = Z2

where index 1 refers to Alice’s and 2 to Bob’s qubit and E(A) stands for the
expectation value of A.
Let us now consider how these correlations behave in quantum mechanics, and
evaluate the above expectation values in the state
√
|Ψ(θ)⟩ = Ry (θ)1 (|00⟩ + |11⟩)/ 2, (4)

where Ry (θ) = exp(−iθY /2). Calculating the expectation values as described at the
end of section 1, we obtain

E(QS) = E(RT ) = cos θ, E(QT ) = −E(RS) = sin θ, (5)

and thus √
E(QS) + E(RS) + E(RT ) − E(QT ) = 2 2 cos(θ + π/4). (6)

16
Clearly the CHSH inequality in Eq. (3) is violated in the state |Ψ(θ)⟩ iff

π  
 3π
θ∈ ,π ⊔ , 2π ,
2 2

which demonstrates that quantum mechanics is not compatible with local realism.
To experimentally test this prediction, we will execute a parameterised quantum
circuit given in Fig. 9 (b) to create the state |Ψ(θ)⟩ and measure the relevant expec-
tation values for multiple values of θ. Figure 9 (b) shows how the CHSH observable
oscillates as we rotate the state, and violates the equality as predicted.

(a)

(b)
Fig. 9: (a) Quantum circuit that prepares |Ψ(θ)⟩. (b) Expectation value of the CHSH
observable Eq. (6) in the state |Ψ(θ)⟩, plotted over the y rotation angle θ. The raw
experimental data points are shown with blue dots; the implementation of readout
error mitigation (green crosses) brings them closer to the ideal noiseless result (red
curve). There are two regions outside the black horizontal lines, where the CHSH
inequality is violated and hence non-locality is demonstrated.

17
 H

(a)
}

(b) (c)
Fig. 10: (a) Quantum circuit to implement the 5-qubit GHZ state. (b) Output of 5-
qubit quantum computer. (c) Output after readout error mitigation is applied.

4.2.2 5-qubit GHZ state, decoherence and Mermin’s inequality

5-qubit GHZ state
Let us prepare a maximally entangled 5-qubit state and see what we can do with
it. The 5-qubit GHZ state [41]

1
|Ψ5 ⟩ = √ (|00000⟩ + |11111⟩) (7)
2

is one of the maximally entangled 5-qubit states. This state is obtained by applying the
quantum circuit in Fig. 10 (a) on |00000⟩. Figure 10 (b) shows the output histogram of
our quantum computer obtained with 5,000 shots, while Fig. 10 (c) shows the output
after readout error mitigation is applied.

Entanglement, mixed state and decoherence

Let us separate the 5-qubit system into subsystems made of qubits 12 and qubits
345. Suppose one measures an observable O associated with subsystem 12. The
expectation value of O with respect to |Ψ⟩ is

1 1
⟨O⟩ = ⟨Ψ|(O ⊗ I8 )|Ψ⟩ = ⟨00|O|00⟩ + ⟨11|O|11⟩, (8)
2 2

which is an expectation value with respect to a mixed state, even though the total
system is in a pure state. This is directly demonstrated by evaluating the density

18
matrices of (a) the 5-qubit GHZ state, (b) the subsystem 12 and (c) the subsystem
345 as  
1 0 ... 0 1
0 0 . . . 0 0
1 
ρGHZ =  ... .. ..  , (9)

2 . .
0 0 . . . 0 0
1 0 ... 0 1

X 1
ρ12 = (I2 ⊗ I2 ⊗ ⟨ijk|)ρGHZ (I2 ⊗ I2 ⊗ |ijk⟩) = diag(1, 0, 0, 1) (10)
2
i,j,k∈{0,1}
X
ρ345 = (⟨ij| ⊗ I2 ⊗ I2 ⊗ I2 )ρGHZ (|ij⟩ ⊗ I2 ⊗ I2 ⊗ I2 )
i,j∈{0,1}
1
= diag(1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1), (11)
2

respectively. Figure 11 shows the result of quantum state tomography for (a) the GHZ
state (b) subsystem 12 and (c) subsystem 345, which are obtained experimentally with
the Qiskit state tomography algorithm. The subsystem 12 is in a mixed state since it
cannot access the information of the subsystem 345 and vice versa.
This situation models decoherence. It is often said that interaction of a quantum
system with environment causes entanglement between the two systems, by which a
initial pure state of the system becomes a mixed state. This explanation of decoherence
is often difficult to understand for beginners. Let us call the subsystem 12 the principal
system while subsystem 345 the environment. The total system, started in a pure
tensor product state |00⟩⊗|000⟩, evolves to the entangled GHZ state under the unitary
time evolution given by Fig. 10 (a). The total system is still in a pure state. Although
the principal system was in a pure state |00⟩ in the beginning, it is now entangled
with the environment, and thus in a mixed state ρ12 if the environment is ignored (i.e.
traced out). In other words, the GHZ state is a purification of ρ12 .
It is interesting to evaluate the von Neumann entropy S(ρ) = −tr ρ log2 ρ of these
states. Table 1 shows both the theoretical predictions and the experimental results
along with the upper bound saturated by the uniformly mixed state. Observe that
the entropy, which is called the entanglement entropy in this context, is theoretically
the same for ρ12 and ρ345 . Usually, entropy is proportional to the system size but
entanglement entropies derived from a pure state ρGHZ are identical even though the
subsystem sizes are different.

Violation of Mermin’s inequality

Let us show next that Mermin’s inequality is violated by the 5-qubit GHZ state.
Mermin’s inequality is regarded as a generalization of the CHSH inequality to multi-
qubit systems [42]. The Mermin polynomial for a 5-qubit system is defined as [43]

M5 = X1 X2 X3 X4 X5
−(Y1 Y2 X3 X4 X5 + 9 permutations)

19
 (a)

(b)

(c)
Fig. 11: State tomography of (a) 5-qubit GHZ state, (b) qubits 12 (principal system)
and (c) qubits 345 (environment). Theoretically (a) is a pure state with rank 1 while
(b) and (c) are mixed states with rank 2. We used local readout error mitigation and
3500 shots per measurement basis for the tomography.
20
 Theory Experiment Upper bound
GHZ 0 0.925 5
ρ12 1 1.306 2
ρ345 1 1.386 3
Table 1: Theoretical and experimental values of the von Neumann entropy of the
5-qubit GHZ state, the subsystem 12 and the subsystem 345. Experimental data in
Fig. 11 has been employed. The right column shows the upper bound of entropy, which
is saturated by the uniformly mixed state.

Observable Estimate without REM Estimate with REM Theoretical

X1 X2 X3 X4 X5 0.5538 0.9606 1
Y1 Y2 X3 X4 X5 −0.4955 −0.8624 −1
Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 X5 0.4398 0.7689 1
M5 7.708 13.43 16
Table 2: Estimated value of the Mermin polynomial in the prepared 5-qubit GHZ
state. The 16 terms of the polynomial were estimated using 10,000 shots each. The
three topmost rows in the table represent the average of all the permutations of the
Pauli operators in the given observable.

+(Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 X5 + 4 permutations). (12)

It is known that Mermin’s inequality E(M5 ) ≤ 4 is satisfied if the local realism holds.
On the other hand, quantum theory predicts E(M5 ) ≤ 42 = 16, where the upper
bound is saturated if the state is maximally entangled.
Let us evaluate E(M5 ) in the 5-qubit GHZ state. Since the GHZ state is symmetric
with respect to permutations of qubits we only need to evaluate three monomials:

⟨Ψ|X1 X2 X3 X4 X5 |Ψ⟩ = 1,
⟨Ψ|Y1 Y2 X3 X4 X5 |Ψ⟩ = −1, (13)
⟨Ψ|Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 X5 |Ψ⟩ = 1,

theoretically. Then we find

⟨Ψ|M5 |Ψ⟩ = 1 − 10 × (−1) + 5 × 1 = 16, (14)

and thus the GHZ state |Ψ⟩ saturates the upper bound. Let us now confirm this
prediction with our 5-qubit quantum computer.
The monomials of the Mermin polynomial can be measured as expectation values
as described in section 1. Since the qubits and gate fidelities of a NISQ quantum
computer are not homogeneous, we must measure all 16 monomials separately. The
estimation of ⟨Ψ|M5 |Ψ⟩ obtained with our quantum computer is presented in Table 2,
and clearly rules out local realism, in favour of quantum theory.

21
4.3 Maxcut Problem
Many well known quantum algorithms, such as Shor’s and Grover’s algorithms, require
a large number of qubits and fault-tolerant error correction for useful quantum com-
putation. This places their practical execution beyond the capabilities of currently
available NISQ computers. In contrast, variational quantum algorithms are more
suited for the NISQ computer at our hand, in that they can be executed with a
currently available number of qubits without quantum error correction.
Variational quantum algorithms involve an optimization process, where classical
computer seeks for the optimal parameters of a quantum circuit so that the expectation
value of a Hamiltonian, representing the cost function, evaluated with a quantum com-
puter using the resulting state is minimized. The parameters in the circuit is iterated
many times until the expectation value hits the minimum. Variational algorithms have
many use cases e.g. in mathematics, chemistry, finance and industrial optimizations.
We will introduce application of a variational algorithm, called QAOA (Quantum
Approximate Optimization Algorithm), to a combinatorial problem called the Maxcut
problem in this subsection. Another variational algorithm VQE (Variational Quantum
Eigensolver) will be introduced in section 5.3.
Suppose there is a graph G with n nodes. There are edges between some pairs of
nodes. In the Maxcut problem, one aims to partition the nodes of G into a disjoint
union A⊔B such that the number of edges connecting nodes in A and B is maximized.
To solve this problem, we introduce an Ising Hamiltonian
X
H= Jij Zi Zj , (15)
i<j

where i and j denote the nodes. The coupling strength is Jij = 1 if there is an edge
between nodes i and j, while Jij = 0 if there is no edge. Suppose |0⟩ is assigned to
nodes in group A, while |1⟩ to nodes in B. If nodes i and j belong to different groups,
the edge ij contributes −1 to the Hamiltonian, while if they belong to the same group,
the edge contributes +1. There is no contribution if there is no edge connecting nodes
i and j. Thus maximizing the number of edges connecting nodes in different groups
reduces to minimizing the expectation value of the Hamiltonian H acting on an n-qubit
system.
In fact, the above problem may be implemented with (n−1)-qubit system. Suppose
we find a solution A and B of a Maxcut problem of a given graph. Then interchange
of A and B is also a solution of the same problem. Accordingly we are free to assign
|1⟩ to the nth qubit, for example, without loss of generality. With this choise, Jin Zi Zn
becomes −Jin Zi . The modified Hamiltonian

X n−1
X
H′ = Jij Zi Zj − Jin Zi (16)
1≤i<j≤n−1 i=1

is implemented with an (n − 1)-qubit system.

Let us consider a graph in Fig. 12 with 6 nodes for definiteness, where the node 6 is
a virtual node in |1⟩ state while the rest are physical. By fixing the state of node 6 to

22
 5

3
4

2
Fig. 12: Maxcut problem for six nodes. Node 6 is a fictitious qubit in |1⟩ state while
rest are physical qubits. Solid lines represent physical couplings while dashed lines
fictitious couplings.

|1⟩, the relevant Hilbert space is Span({|i1 i2 i3 i4 i5 ⟩|1⟩}), which may be implemented
with our 5-qubit quantum computer.
Figure 13 shows the solution of the Maxcut problem experimentally obtained for
the graph Fig. 12. The solution is read from the most probable state of the proba-
bility distribution. We used single-layered QAOA ansatz and 10, 000 measurements
per optimization step and readout error mitigation. Using only a single layer of the
QAOA ansatz means the algorithm has only a small number of gates and can be
executed in a short time. This implies it is an approximate algorithm, and while it
will output the correct solution, there will also be sizable probabilities of wrong states
in the distribution. The algorithm can be more accurate and precise by increasing
the layer depth, but then we start to accumulate more errors during the execution of
the algorithm, which again introduces erroneous solutions to the output distribution
of the quantum computer. The optimal depth depends in general on the problem
instances and the error-levels of the quantum computer, and is a key implementation
detail relevant for the performance of quantum algorithms on practical problems.

Q-score
Solving the Maxcut problem has been recently adopted as a benchmark for the
practical capabilities of a quantum computer [44]. The Q-score of a quantum computer
equals the size of the graphs, whose Maxcut problem can be sufficiently solved. The
obtained cost, i.e. the average number of cut edges, of the solution has to be above
certain threshold. Specifically, one has to find the cost of a graph to be above 0.2 on
a scale where 0 corresponds to random solution and 1 to ideal solution. The graphs
chosen for the benchmark are random Erdös-Rény graphs with 50% edge-probability
between nodes.
We present a comprehensive Q-score benchmark on our 5-qubit quantum computer.
By employing the virtual node technique, we can solve the n-node graph with n − 1
qubits. Figure 14 displays Q-score results up to five physical qubits.

23
 5

3
00011
00100
00101
00110
10100
01000
01100
01010
01001
00001
10110
10010
00010
11100
11000
01111
01110
11010
00111
01101
00000
01011
10000
11110
10011
11011
10111
11101
10001
11111
11001
10101
4

2
(a) (b)
Fig. 13: (a) Measurement outcomes of our 5-qubit quantum computer executing
QAOA for the Maxcut problem. (b) The solution of the Maxcut problem; we achieve
eight cuts, which is the maximum for this graph. The solution |00011⟩ has divided the
nodes to groups 0 (green) and 1 (red), such that the number of edges connecting nodes
from different groups is maximized. Solid lines show edges connecting nodes in the
same group, while eight dashed lines are edges connecting nodes in different groups.

Fig. 14: Q-score approximation ratios β(n) for our 5-qubit quantum computer. Ratios
above the threshold 0.2 pass the Q-score benchmark. Results of noiseless simulator
are shown to highlight the approximate nature of QAOA; with one layer ansatz, the
limited expressivity leads to results well below optimal ratio of 1.0 even without noise.
We employ the virtual node technique and readout error mitigation. The Q-score ratios
are averages over 100 random Maxcut problems. We used 2048 shots per optimization
step in QAOA.

24
5 Applications to research
Small-scale quantum computers have been used in many different areas in scientific
research including but not limited to physics, chemistry and mathematics. Current
trend in NISQ computer research is, no doubt, toward scaling up physical qubits
for commercial use of quantum computers. Nonetheless, [45] reports that there are
many research papers published in scientific journals, which demonstrate “proofs of
principle” of scientific ideas with a small-scale quantum computer.
We illustrate three such examples from physics, mathematics and chemistry in this
section, and demonstrate them with our 5-qubit superconducting quantum computer.

5.1 Simulating Neutrino Oscillations

It is known that there are at least three types (i.e. flavors) of neutrinos in Nature. They
are called νe , νµ and ντ . Masses of these neutrinos are not diagonal in the flavor basis
{|νe ⟩, |νµ ⟩, |ντ ⟩}. Let us call the eigenvectors of the mass matrix as {|ν1 ⟩, |ν2 ⟩, |ν3 ⟩}
with masses (eigenvalues) m1 < m2 < m3 . Let H be the Hamiltonian that describes
neutrinos. The mass eigenstates satisfy

H|νk ⟩ = Ek |νk ⟩ (k = 1, 2, 3) (17)

p
where Ek = p2 c2 + m2k c4 , p is the momentum of the neutrino, and c is the velocity
of light.
These two basis states are related by a unitary matrix called the Pon-
tecorvo–Maki–Nakagawa–Sakata matrix UPMNS = (⟨να |νj ⟩) [46–48] as
   
νe ν1
 νν  ν2 
  = UPMNS   (18)
 ντ  ν3 
νX ν4

where
 
0.8255 0.5445 −0.142 + 0.0434i 0
−0.2709 + 0.02739i 0.6057 + 0.0181i 0.7475 0
UPMNS =
 0.4938 + 0.0237i −0.5798 + 0.0157i
. (19)
0.6475 0
0 0 0 1

Here fictitious neutrinos νX and ν4 are introduced so that this system can be simulated
with a two-qubit system. νX and ν4 are decoupled from the physical neutrinos and
have no physical significance. This fourth neutrino may be utilized in a theory with
an exotic neutrino which is yet to be discovered.
We closely follow [49] in the following. We keep the CP-violating phase δCP in
UPMNS while [49] ignored this to save a few quantum gates. We employ parameters
announced in November 2022 [48] in Eq. (19).

25
 Suppose |νµ ⟩ = (0, 1, 0, 0)t is created at (x, t) = (0, 0). The probability of detecting
|να ⟩ (α = e, µ, τ ) at t > 0 is

pα (t) = |⟨να |νµ (t)⟩|2 = |⟨να |e−iHt/ℏ |νµ ⟩|2

4 2
X
−iEk t/ℏ
= ⟨να |νk ⟩e ⟨νk |νµ ⟩
k=1
†
= |⟨να |UPMNS diag(e−iE1 t/ℏ , e−iE2 t/ℏ , e−iE3 t/ℏ , e−iϕ ) UPMNS |νµ ⟩|2 , (20)

where ϕ is an unphysical phase.

Let us simulate this system with a quantum computer. There are three steps to
take.
• Express |νµ ⟩ = |01⟩ in terms of the mass eigenstates |νk ⟩, which is done by applying
†
UPMNS on |νµ ⟩.
• Apply the time-evolution operator V (t) = e−iHt/ℏ on this state to find |νµ (t)⟩ =
†
V (t)UPMNS |νµ ⟩. V (t) is decomposed into two one-qubit gates as V (t) = S1 (t)⊗S2 (t),
whose explicit forms are given below.
• Measure |νµ (t)⟩ in the basis {|νe ⟩, |νµ ⟩, |ντ ⟩}. This is done by applying UPMNS on
|νµ (t)⟩ and measure the output with binary basis.
Let us analyze these steps in depth. We prepare the initial state |νµ ⟩ = |01⟩ in the
{|νk ⟩} basis as
†
UPMNS |10⟩ = u∗µ1 |ν1 ⟩ + u∗µ2 |ν2 ⟩ + u∗ν3 |ν3 ⟩, (21)

where uµk are the matrix elements of UPMNS .

The time-evolution operator V (t) is diagonal in this basis and takes the form

V (t) = diag(e−iE1 t/ℏ , e−iE2 t/ℏ , e−iE3 t/ℏ , e−iϕ ). (22)

Since the overall phase has no physical significance, we may factor out e−iE1 t/ℏ so that

′
V (t) = diag(1, e−iE21 t/ℏ , e−iE31 t/ℏ , e−iϕ ) = S1 (t) ⊗ S2 (t), (23)

where E21 = E2 − E1 , E31 = E3 − E1 and ϕ′ is another unphysical phase. Here

   
1 0 1 0
S1 (t) = , S2 (t) = ,
0 e−iE31 t/ℏ 0 e−iE21 t/ℏ

where we took advantage of the fact that ϕ′ has no physical meaning. Now we have
|νµ (t)⟩, the state of neutrino at t, which was |µν ⟩ at t = 0, as

†
|νµ (t)⟩ = (S1 (t) ⊗ S2 (t))UPMNS |01⟩. (24)

26
Since the neutrino masses are very p
small and the velocity is very close to the speed of
light c, we may approximate Ek = p2 c2 + m2k c4 as Ek ≃ pc + m2k c3 /2p. Then

∆m2k1 c3
Ek1 ≃ (k = 2, 3) (25)
2p

where ∆m2k1 = m2k − m21 . We employ ∆m221 = 7.39 × 10−5 eV2 and ∆m231 = 2.45 ×
10−3 eV2 in our analysis [50].
By approximating E ≃ pc and L ≃ ct, we have

∆m2k1 c3 L
 
e−iEk1 t/ℏ ≃ exp −i . (26)
2ℏ E

The exponent is expressed numerically with physical units as

∆m2k1 c3 L L [km]
≃ 2.534 ∆m2k1 [eV2 ] × .
2ℏ E E [GeV]

These steps are implemented with a quantum computer with different t, namely
different L/E and the results are compared with theoretical prediction. Figure 15 (a)
shows the quantum circuit for this scheme while (b) shows the gate decomposition
of UPMNS . The overall gate decomposition depends on L/E. Figure 15 (c) shows the
transpiled gate decomposition for L/E = 4000 [km/GeV].
Figure 16 shows the theoretical curves predicting the detection probabilities of
three neutrinos and our quantum computer output as functions of L/E. Probabilities
oscillate as a function of L/E while the sum of probabilities is always 1. This oscillation
is possible only when different types of neutrinos have different masses (∆mk1 ̸= 0).
Thus neutrino oscillation is a smoking gun of massive neutrinos.2 Neutrino oscillation
was the subject of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2015 [51].

5.2 Estimation of the Jones polynomials

Knots, links and braids are fascinating subjects of topology. An unexpected encounter
between mathematics (topology) and physics (statistical physics) was discovered by
Vaughan Jones in 1984. He discovered knot and link invariants, later called the Jones
polynomials, that characterize oriented knots and links. His work was inspired by
statistical mechanics of generalized spin models defined on a lattice. Jones was awarded
the Fields medal in 1990 for his achievements including the discovery of the Jones
polynomials.
Estimation of the Jones polynomials by employing a quantum computer was
proposed in [52, 53] and demonstrated with an NMR quantum computer [54]. We
reproduce here the results of [54] using our superconducting quantum computer.
We first introduce a braid b associated with a link L. A link is an embedding of a
set of loops in R3 or the 3-dimensional sphere S 3 . If a link is made of one component,
it is called a knot K. Let (x, y, t) be a coordinate of 3-dimensional space-time. A braid

2
The “standard model” of particle physics had no neutrino mass terms for many decades.

27
 (a)

(b)

(c)
Fig. 15: (a) Quantum circuit to simulate neutrino oscillation among 3 generations.
The input state is |01⟩ = |νµ ⟩. (b) Implementation of UPMNS using our native gates. (c)
Circuit to simulate neutrino oscillations, transpiled to our native gates at L/E = 4000.
The number of gates is reduced via circuit optimization during the transpilation. Note
that in (b) and (c) the order of qubits is reversed according to the Qiskit convention.
The second parameter of R is defined mod 2π.

b is a set of strings that connect n points (0, 0, 0), (1, 0, 0), . . . (n, 0, 0) on R2 at t = 0
and (0, 0, 1), (1, 0, 1), . . . (n, 0, 1) at t = 1 without intersecting or going backwards in
time. Alexander’s theorem claims that every knot and link can be expressed as a
braid whose end points are closed, see Fig. 17. The set of braids with n strands has a
group structure called the Artin group Bn , whose generators are denoted as σk . The
generator σk twists the kth strand and (k + 1)st strand as shown in Fig. 18 for n = 3.
The inverse σk−1 twists them in the opposite direction. The set of generators satisfy
the following relations:

σk σk−1 = 1, k = 1, 2, . . . , n − 1
σk σk+1 σk = σk+1 σk σk+1 , k = 1, 2, . . . , n − 2 (27)
σj σk = σk σj , |j − k| ≥ 2.

An arbitrary braid b can be expressed in terms of successive applications of these

generators and their inverses as

s s
σjpp σjp−1
p−1
. . . σjs22 σjs11 , (28)

28
Fig. 16: Predicted measurement probabilities of neutrino species (solid curves)
and measured probabilities (circular, square and diamond dots) as functions of
L/E [km/GeV], where νµ is created at L = 0 at t = 0. We used 5000 shots per data
point and applied readout error mitigation.

Fig. 17: (a) Hopf link and its corresponding braid. (b) Trefoil knot and its corre-
sponding braid. Braids are closed with dotted lines to form the link and the knot.

s
where sk ∈ {1, −1}, jk ∈ {1, 2, . . . , n − 1} and σjs11 is applied first and σjpp last. This is
called the braid word of b. Braid words are not unique and there are infinitely many
braid words corresponding to the same braid.
In the following, we are concerned with three-strand braids, namely n = 3. It has
two generators σ1 and σ2 as shown in Fig. 18. One possible braid word of the trefoil
knot (Fig. 17 (b)) is σ13 . Closure of the three-strand braid σ13 results in the trefoil and
the trivial knot, as shown in Fig. 19 (a).
It is possible to “unwind” crossing of a braid diagram by introducing the generators
{Ui } of the Temperley-Lieb algebra TLn . There are two generators U1 , U2 for n = 3

29
 Fig. 18: Generators σ1 , σ2 of three-strand braids.

Fig. 19: (a) Simplest representation σ13 of the trefoil knot. (b) Equivalent but more
knotted representation of the trefoil knot.

and they satisfy

Ui2 = δUi , U1 U2 U1 = U1 , U2 U1 U2 = U2 (29)
where δ = −A2 − A−2 with A = eiθ a complex number with unit modulus. The map
ρ : B3 → GL2 (C) defined as
ρ(σi ) = AI + A−1 Ui (30)
3
is a representation of B3 . We take the simplest braid word of the trefoil σ1 and its
representation ρ(σ13 ) here. Note that the relations of the braid generators (27) are
satisfied if Ui satisfies Eq. (29). The representation ρ is unitary whenever Ui is a real
symmetric matrix satisfying δ 2 ≥ 1. The last condition is satisfied if

θ ∈ [0, π/6] ⊔ [π/3, 2π/3] ⊔ [5π/6, 7π/6] ⊔ [4π/3, 5π/3] ⊔ [11π/6, 2π].

Explicitly, the generators Ui are given as

   −1
√ 
δ 0 √ δ 1 − δ −2
U1 = and U2 = . (31)
00 1 − δ −2 δ − δ −1

We need to define w(b) ∈ Z called the writhe of a braid b before we introduce the
Kauffman bracket and the Jones polynomial. Suppose a braid word of b is given as

30
Eq. (28). Then the writhe of b is defined as the sum of the exponents,
p
X
w(b) = si . (32)
i=1

For the Hopf link and the trefoil knot we find w(Hopf link) = 2 and w(trefoil) = 3,
respectively.
The Kauffman bracket of the trefoil is obtained as

⟨b̄⟩ 1
⟨trefoil⟩ = = (trρ(σ13 ) + Aw(b) (δ 2 − 2)) = −A5 − A−3 + A−7 , (33)
δ δ
where b is the braid word given in Fig. 17 (b) and ¯ stands for the closure of b. Note
that b̄ is made of the trefoil knot and the trivial knot. The factor 1/δ in Eq. (33)
removes the contribution of the trivial knot.
The Kauffman bracket of the Hopf link is obtained in a similar way as

1
⟨Hopf link⟩ = (trρ(σ12 ) + A2 (δ 2 − 2)) = −A4 − A−4 . (34)
δ
The Kauffman bracket is invariant under the Reidemeister moves II and III but
not under the Reidemeister move I, and hence cannot be a knot invariant. The Jones
polynomial is obtained by multiplying the Kauffman bracket with (−A3 )−w(b) to make
it invariant under all three Reidemeister moves. For the trefoil knot, we obtain the
Jones polynomial

Vtrefoil (A) = (−A3 )−3 (−A5 − A−3 + A−7 ) = A−4 + A−12 − A−16 . (35)

It is common to introduce t = A−4 so that

Vtrefoil (t) = −t4 + t3 + t. (36)

The Jones polynomial of the Hopf link is

√
VHopf link = −A−10 − A−2 = − t(1 + t2 ). (37)
√
The Jones polynomial is a Laurent polynomial in t in general.
Let us use a quantum computer to estimate the trace trρ(σ1k ) in the Kauffman
bracket. Consider the quantum circuit Fig. 20 (a) with U = ρ(σ1k ) and the input state
 
1 1 I2 0
ρ0 = |0⟩⟨0| ⊗ I2 = ,
2 2 0 0

where I2 /2 is the maximally mixed state. The state after quantum circuit is applied is

I2 U †
      
I2 0 1 I2 I2 I2 0 1
ρ1 = = .
0 U 4 I2 I2 0 U† 4 U I2

31
 (a) (b)

(c)
Fig. 20: (a) Quantum circuit to estimate the Jones polynomial with input |0⟩⟨0|⊗I2 /2.
(b) Quantum circuit to estimate the Jones polynomial using ancilla qubit to synthesize
the mixed state. The input state is |000⟩. To estimate the Jones polynomial, the
expectation values of X1 and Y1 are estimated for this state. (c) Circuit for the trefoil
knot, appended with a H gate on the first qubit for measuring E(X1 ) and transpiled
to our native gates and connectivity at θ = π/6. The second parameter of R is defined
mod 2π.

The expectation value of X1 with respect to ρ1 is

1
E(X1 ) = tr(X1 ρ1 ) = Re tr U (38)
2
while the expectation value of Y1 is

1
E(Y1 ) = tr(Y1 ρ1 ) = Im tr U. (39)
2
Hence, the tr U is found from estimating these two expectation values.
The above scheme fits well with NMR quantum computer, in which the system is
in a maximally mixed state with a good approximation. A superconducting quantum
computer is ideally in a pure state and the above scheme cannot be applicable in
its original form. We use purification to “synthesize” a uniformly mixed state from a
pure state for this purpose. Let us consider the circuit in Fig. 20 (b). The bottom two
qubits are in the Bell state

1
|Φ+ ⟩ = √ (|00⟩ + |11⟩)
2

32
after application of the Hadamard gate and the CNOT gate. The middle qubit is in
a maximally mixed state if the bottom qubit is ignored (i.e. partially traced out). We
have already seen this in section 4.2.2. Observe that

1
tr2 |Φ+ ⟩⟨Φ+ | = I2 .
2

Then the output of the top two qubits is the same as that of Fig. 20 (a).
Suppose the quantum circuit Fig. 20 (b) is applied on |000⟩. Then the output state
is
1
|Ψ⟩ = (|000⟩ + |011⟩ + |1⟩(U |0⟩)|0⟩ + |1⟩(U |1⟩)|1⟩). (40)
2
We estimate the expectation value of X1 with respect to |Φ⟩ to get

1 1
E(X1 ) = ⟨Φ|X1 |Φ⟩ = (tr U + tr U † ) = Re(tr U ), (41)
4 2

similarly for Y1 we get

i 1
E(Y1 ) = ⟨Φ|Y1 |Φ⟩ = (−tr U + tr U † ) = Im(tr U ), (42)
4 2

from which we estimate tr U . Figure 20 (c) shows the transpiled circuit to estimate
E(X1 ) for θ = π/6.
Figure 21 shows the real and the imaginary parts of tr ρ(σ1k ) obtained using |Φ⟩
with k = 2 for the Hopf link while k = 3 for the trefoil knot. The readout error
mitigated results are marked by the blue circles.
When quantum circuits get deeper, consisting of several layers of gates, errors
that happen in the bulk of the circuits start to accumulate and can significantly
affect the results. This is the case for the transpiled circuits that we are considering
here, see Fig. 20 (c), and we thus decided to implement also error suppression and
additional error mitigation techniques, namely randomized compiling and zero-noise
extrapolation. The mitigated expectation values are shown with green diamonds and,
in general, are indeed closer to the ideal noiseless results (red). In more detail, we
generate 30 different randomized compilations of the original circuit and measure each
20,000 times. The higher shot count is employed to combat the increased variance
resulting from zero-noise extrapolation, where we scale the noise by factors of 3 and 5
using global folding. Polynomial fitting is used to extrapolate to the limit of zero noise.
The Kauffman and the Jones polynomials may be obtained in many different ways.
All of them are easy if the trefoil is represented as in Fig. 19 (a), for example. But
it will be more demanding if the representation is more knotted as in Fig. 19 (b). A
typical classical evaluation of these polynomials involves a sum over “states” obtained
by splitting each crossing in two different ways. There are 2m states if there are m
crossings and the task is exponentially hard as m increases. In contrast, in quantum
computing, a controlled unitary gate is assigned to each crossing, i.e., the braid group
generator, which requires merely m controlled unitary gates.

33
 (a) (b)

(c) (d)
Fig. 21: Trace in the Jones polynomial of the Hopf link and the trefoil knot. (a)
Real part and (b) imaginary part of the trace in the Hopf link, estimated as the
expectation values of X and Y on the first qubit, respectively. Similarly, (c) and (d)
show the real and the imaginary parts of the trace for the trefoil knot. Solid curves
are theoretical results while the markers show experimental results evaluated on our
quantum computer. Circles are from readout error mitigated execution and diamonds
include also randomized compiling (RC) and zero-noise extrapolation (ZNE). The
statistical uncertainty due to the finite amount of shots is shown by the error bars,
which correspond to one standard deviation. They have been determined by means of
bootstrapping, i.e. by classically resampling several times the probability distribution
obtained from each circuit run, thus obtaining a set of reprocessed results that can be
used to estimate confidence intervals.

If the uniformly mixed state is available, tr U is estimated with two experiments,

one for E(X1 ) and the other for E(Y1 ). In our scheme with a pure state, the uniformly
P2k −1 √
mixed state is synthesized by a partial trace of a state x=0 |x⟩|ex ⟩/ 2k over {|ex ⟩},
where {|ex ⟩} is an orthonormal basis which can be {|x⟩}. Here 2k is the dimension of
the representation space of the braid group generators. However, implementing this
state starting with |00 . . . 0⟩, for example, costs ∼ 22k+2 CNOT gates and ∼ 22k+2

34
 g
in Full system

U
dd

pd
e Hamiltonian

at
b

e
Em with all

pa
ra
interactions

m
et
er
s
Anderson Embedding Electronic
Impurity based physical Properties of
Hamiltonian quantites materials

Quantum
Algorithms for

n
tio
JW

ground state

nc
fu
m

(VQE, QPE, QSE

ap

e
av
etc.)
pi

W
ng

Fig. 22: Schematic diagram of the embedding loop showcasing the part of the loop
that is to be performed on the quantum computer.

signle-qubit gates in the worst case [55]. This scheme will be challenging as k becomes
large.

5.3 Embedding Techniques for Quantum Chemistry

Embedding techniques are theoretical frameworks used in quantum chemistry and
condensed matter physics to study the electronic structure of strongly correlated mate-
rials. These methods are crucial and are particularly valuable for systems where the
effects of electron-electron interactions are significant and where traditional methods
such as density functional theory (DFT) [56, 57] fail to provide accurate descrip-
tions. They represent a powerful tool to study the electronic properties of materials
such as transition-metal-oxides and rare-earth compounds. Embedding techniques
have been successfully applied to further the understanding of complex phenomena
such as metal-insulator transitions, magnetically ordered states and high-temperature
superconductivity.
The central idea of these techniques is to map a complex quantum many-body
problem to a self-consistent Anderson impurity model (AIM) [58], which consists of
a strongly correlated subsystem (impurity) and a weakly correlated or non-correlated
subsystem (bath). The impurity is treated more accurately using a method capable of
handling strong correlations, while the bath is treated at a lower level of theory, often
using mean-field approximations. These descriptions of the impurity and the bath are
combined in a self-consistent loop over either single particle (i.e. density matrix embed-
ding theory (DMET) [59, 60] and rotationally invariant slave-boson (RISB) techniques
[61–63]) or two particle quantities (i.e. self-energy embedding theory (SEET) [64, 65],
dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) [66–68] and its cluster extensions [67, 69]) in
order to provide a more accurate description of the entire system. Figure 22 is a
schematic of the self-consistent loop in embedding based techniques.

35
 Consider the electronic structure (ES) Hamiltonian in second-quantized form:
X X
HES = hpq a†p aq + hpqrs a†p a†q ar as (43)
pq pqrs

where p, q, r, s are indices of a given basis set and include the respective spin indices
p ≡ p(σ). Further, a† and a are the fermionic creation and annihilation operators and
hpq , hpqrs are constants called the one- and two-electron integrals, respectively. Such
a Hamiltonian is then mapped to an Anderson impurity-bath model given by:

εk c†kσ ckσ + (Vk c†kσ dσ + H.c.).

X X X
HAIM = (εd − µ)d†σ dσ + U nd↑ nd↓ + (44)
k,σ σ k,σ

where k represents the summation index for the bath operators, σ labels the spin, d cor-
responds to the impurity operator with ndσ = d†σ dσ and c corresponds to the operators
on the non-interacting bath, εd/c correspond to the onsite-energy of the impurity and
bath, respectively, with the chemical potential µ. In spite of giving a simple description
of the lattice problem, this model is by itself challenging to solve for state-of-the-art
numerical techniques such as density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) [70–73],
quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) [74–77] and others. It has been recently shown that
a promising alternative approach for computing the ground states of such systems
comes from using variational algorithms implemented on quantum devices [78, 79] one
of which, QAOA, has already been discussed in section 4.3.
The variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) [80–82] is another quantum algorithm
designed for finding the ground state energy, which is a fundamental quantity for
quantum systems of interest in condensed matter physics and quantum chemistry. The
basic idea behind VQE is to use a hybrid approach where the optimization of varia-
tional parameters performed on a classical computer is combined with measurements
on the quantum computer to find an approximation to the ground state energy. The
algorithm involves mainly a trial wavefunction in the form of a parameterized quan-
tum circuit, chosen to represent a guess for the ground state of the quantum system.
This circuit, controlled by a set of variational parameters, is executed on a quantum
computer. Measurements are made on the final prepared state to calculate the expec-
tation value of the Hamiltonian of the system. Then classical optimization algorithms
are employed to tune the variational parameters in order to minimize the expectation
value of the Hamiltonian. This process is repeated iteratively until the ground state
energy is sufficiently minimized and the solution converges.
On our 5-qubit quantum computer (see Fig. 23) we aim to perform a VQE
calculation in order to approximate the ground state of the one-impurity-site and one-
bath-site AIM (k = 1 in Eq. (44)). The fermionic Hamiltonian of the AIM has to
be mapped to a qubit Hamiltonian using the following Jordan-Wigner transformation
[83]:

1
d†↑ = σ0− = (X0 − iY0 ) (45)
2

36
 (a)
0.0
Measurement
Measurement with REM
Analytical result
0.5

1.0
Energy

1.5

2.0

0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Iterations
(b)
Fig. 23: (a) Hardware efficient Ansatz used for the VQE. (b) Comparison of the
VQE energy as a function of the iterations for convergence of an Anderson impurity
model at U = 2 on our 5-qubit quantum computer with and without readout error
mitigation. The exact energy is also shown for comparison.

1
c†1↑ = Z0 σ1− = Z0 (X1 − iY1 ) (46)
2
1
d†↓ = Z0 Z1 σ2− = Z0 Z1 (X2 − iY2 ) (47)
2
1
c†1↓ = Z0 Z1 Z2 σ3− = Z0 Z1 Z2 (X3 − iY3 ) (48)
2

which leads to the qubit Hamiltonian

JW 1 1
HAIM = (εd + ε1 − 2µ) − (εd − µ + 2U )(Z0 + Z2 ) − ε1 (Z1 + Z3 )
2 2

37
 1 1
+ U Z0 Z2 + V1 (X0 X1 + Y0 Y1 + X2 X3 + Y2 Y3 ). (49)
4 2

Grouping Hamiltonian terms that have support on different qubits allows us to reduce
the number of measurements performed. For example an X0 X1 X2 X3 measurement on
the Ansatz state can be used to compute both X0 X1 and X2 X3 terms of the Hamilto-
nian. A hardware efficient Ansatz as shown in Fig. 23 (a) is chosen. Since the problem
requires only four qubits, the best qubits based on fidelity are chosen from the hard-
ware to perform the calculations and keeping 0th qubit of the spin Hamiltonian fixed
at the center of the star topology. Parameterized single qubit Ry gates are introduced
and a total of seven parameters are tuned by the L-BGFS-B classical optimizer from
Scipy-optimizer package [84]. This is a gradient based optimizer where the derivative
is computed using the parameter shift rule [85, 86]. One has:

∂Eθ Eθi + π2 − Eθi − π2

= (50)
∂θi 2

where Eθ = ⟨ψ(θ)|H|ψ(θ)⟩ with θ = {θ1 , θ2 · · · }. Figure 23 (b) shows the energy mea-
surements for different iterations computed without and with read-out error mitigation
at ϵd = µ, ϵ1 = 0, V = 1 and U = 2. We have used 5000 shots for each measurement.
The results can be further improved using advanced error mitigation strategies, such
as zero-noise extrapolation (ZNE) [87–89] or probabilistic error cancellation (PEC)
[90–92]. The converged parameterized state can be used to compute quantities such
as density matrix or the Green’s function which are necessary components of some of
the aforementioned embedding techniques.
VQE has been proposed as a promising algorithm for near-term quantum comput-
ers to solve certain models from quantum chemistry and condensed matter physics.
It is important to note though, that practical implementations of VQE are still lim-
ited by the capabilities of available quantum hardware, and there is active ongoing
work on improving and refining these algorithms. Nevertheless, it serves as a gateway
to explore and investigate advanced embedding techniques on the currently available
quantum hardware.

6 Summary and Discussion

An on-site quantum computer can be utilized in education and research for quantum
computing, quantum information and quantum theory. We have demonstrated some of
these topics with the 5-qubit superconducting IQM SparkTM prototype in this paper.
First, we presented the tools and programs used. Then, we showed how they can
be used in education and research. Certain demonstrations, such as calibration and
working with qutrits, are only possible with an on-site quantum computer. It is also
used to explore the complex quantum realm and reproduce recent breakthroughs in
mathematics, physics, and chemistry for a better understanding.
This physical on-site quantum computer is vital for making quantum computing
accessible to more people and talents, teaching quantum concepts, and enhancing our
understanding of quantum theory and computing. It can also be used for research,

38
as we have shown in Section 5. A recent survey reveals that many research papers
demonstrating “proofs of principle” used a quantum computer with five qubits of fewer
[45].
We anticipate that in the very near-term future, every leading university and
research institute, wanting to stay competitive in quantum computing education and
research, will have physical access to affordable on-site quantum computers, such as
the IQM SparkTM [6].

7 Acknowledgments
The work of the IQM technology team is acknowledged for having created the technol-
ogy used here in the educational and research setting. We would like to thank Roberto
Moretti and Michihisa Wakui for enlightening discussions. We are grateful to Andrew
Guthrie for careful reading of the manuscript.

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