Modeling spectra and coherence properties of superconducting qubits with scQubits

Superconducting circuits have evolved into major contenders as quantum bits in the race towards quantum computation. The quantitative modeling of the spectral and coherence properties of such circuits is a cornerstone underlying all research employing superconducting qubits in quantum information science. Fundamentally based on circuit quantization, the path from a simple circuit network to predicting a qubit's energy levels and coherence times faces a number of common challenges. Several open-source packages exist that streamline the modeling of superconducting qubits using different strategies. After a review of the scope of available packages, this talk will focus on an introduction to scQubits, a Python package for superconducting qubits. I will illustrate capabilities of scQubits in predicting spectra and coherence properties, and give examples for exploring different qubit parameter regimes. Going beyond the level of a single qubit, scQubits offers simple ways to build up composite systems of multiple qubits and harmonic modes, and provides a convenient interface to QuTiP, making it easy to simulate advanced closed and open-system dynamics of circuit QED systems.