An atom–molecule platform for quantum computing

We propose a combined atom–molecule system for quantum information processing in individual traps, such as provided by optical lattices. In this platform, different species of atoms—one atom carrying a qubit and the other enabling the interaction—are used to store and process quantum information via intermediate molecular states. We show how gates, initialization, and readout operations could be implemented using this approach. In particular, we describe in some detail the implementation of a two-qubit phase gate in which a pair of atoms is transferred into the ground rovibrational state of a polar molecule with a large dipole moment, thus allowing atoms transferred into molecules to interact via their dipole-dipole interaction. We also discuss how the reverse process could be used as a non-destructive readout tool of molecular qubit states. Finally, we generalize these ideas to use a decoherence-free subspace for qubit encoding to minimize the decoherence due to magnetic field fluctuations. In this case, qubits will be encoded into field-insensitive states of two identical atoms, while a third atom of a different species will be used to realize a phase gate.