Average fidelity estimation of twirled noisy quantum channel using unitary 2t-design

We propose a method to estimate the average fidelity using the unitary 2t-design of a twirled noisy channel, which is suitable for large-scale quantum circuits. Compared with the unitary 2-design in randomized benchmarking, the unitary2t-design for the twirling of noisy channels is more flexible in construction and can provide more information. In addition,we prove that the proposed method provides an efficient and reliable estimation of the average fidelity in benchmarking multistage quantum gates and estimating the weakly gate-and time-dependent noise. For time-dependent noise, we provide a scheme of moment superoperator to analyze the noise in different experiments. In particular, we give a lower bound on the average fidelity of a channel with imperfect implementation of benchmarking and state preparation and measurement errors(SPAM).

Efficient self-testing system for quantum computations based on permutations

Verification in quantum computations is crucial since quantum systems are extremely vulnerable to the environment.However,verifying directly the output of a quantum computation is difficult since we know that efficiently simulating a large-scale quantum computation on a classical computer is usually thought to be impossible.To overcome this difficulty,we propose a self-testing system for quantum computations,which can be used to verify if a quantum computation is performed correctly by itself.Our basic idea is using some extra ancilla qubits to test the output of the computation.We design two kinds of permutation circuits into the original quantum circuit:one is applied on the ancilla qubits whose output indicates the testing information,the other is applied on all qubits(including ancilla qubits) which is aiming to uniformly permute the positions of all qubits.We show that both permutation circuits are easy to achieve.By this way,we prove that any quantum computation has an efficient self-testing system.In the end,we also discuss the relation between our self-testing system and interactive proof systems,and show that the two systems are equivalent if the verifier is allowed to have some quantum capacity.

Advances on strategies for searching for next generation thermal barrier coating materials

Thermal barrier coating(TBC) materials play important roles in gas turbine engines to protect the Nibased super-alloys from the high temperature airflow damage. High melting point, ultra-low thermal conductivity, large thermal expansion coefficient, excellent damage tolerance and moderate mechanical properties are the main requirements of promising TBC materials. In order to improve the efficiency of jet and/or gas turbine engines, which is the key of improved thrust-to-weight ratios and the energysaving, significant efforts have been made on searching for enhanced TBC materials. Theoretically, density functional theory has been successfully used in scanning the structure and properties of materials, and at the same time predicting the mechanical and thermal properties of promising TBC materials for high and ultrahigh temperature applications, which are validated by subsequent experiments. Experimentally,doping and/or alloying are also widely applied to further decrease their thermal conductivities. Now, the strategy through combining theoretical calculations and experiments on searching for next generation thermal insulator materials is widely adopted. In this review, the common used techniques and the recent advantages on searching for promising TBC materials in both theory and experiments are summarized.