Towards fault-tolerant quantum computing with neutral atoms

Quantum mechanics has not one but two mysteries: the double-slit experiment and quantum correlations (entanglement) between two or more particles. Criticized by Einstein as “spooky action at a distance”, entanglement is now seen as an essential part of the physical world. The Bell inequalities, introduced to experimentally distinguish local hidden variable theories from quantum physics, have been confirmed to agree with quantum mechanics in many experiments.

Building on entangled Bell pairs, the last few years have seen a remarkable development in our ability to control many neutral atoms individually, and to induce controlled interactions between them on demand. This makes it possible to use individual atoms as controllable and coherent quantum bits for quantum simulation and computation. Surprisingly, even the correction of errors in quantum systems has recently been demonstrated, ushering in a new era where multiple physical qubits are used to realize a smaller number of logical qubits, but with reduced errors. In this talk we will discuss prospects for near- and medium-term neutral-atom quantum computers with full quantum error correction.