Erasure Conversion in a Molecular Tweezer Array

Molecular tweezer arrays of laser cooled molecules have emerged as a promising platform for quantum simulation and quantum information processing due to their rich rotational and vibrational structure. This same rich structure, however, presents challenges in achieving high state preparation fidelities and minimizing population leakage. Erasure conversion, where population leakage errors are detected while leaving other states undisturbed, helps address these challenges. Furthermore, erasure conversion has recently been shown to be an important ingredient in quantum information processing, significantly reducing error thresholds for quantum error correcting codes. In this talk, we report on realizing erasure conversion in molecules, utilizing a single rotational manifold to flag errors. This capability allows us to achieve internal state preparation fidelities of ~ 95%, significantly improving upon previous work. We also realize a new hyperfine qubit encoding compatible with erasure conversion, enabling mid-circuit erasure detection while preserving qubit coherence. These demonstrations introduce a powerful new tool for quantum information processing with molecular qubits. In the context of quantum simulation, high state preparation fidelities enabled by erasure conversion open the door to studying interacting quantum systems in the many-body regime.