Synchronous detection of cosmic rays and correlated errors in superconducting qubit arrays

Patrick M. Harrington (), Mingyu Li, Max Hays, Wouter Pontseele, Daniel Mayer, H. Douglas Pinckney, Felipe Contipelli, Michael Gingras, Bethany M. Niedzielski, Hannah Stickler, Jonilyn L. Yoder, Mollie E. Schwartz, Jeffrey A. Grover, Kyle Serniak, William D. Oliver () and Joseph A. Formaggio ()
Additional contact information
Patrick M. Harrington: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mingyu Li: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Max Hays: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Wouter Pontseele: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Daniel Mayer: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
H. Douglas Pinckney: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Felipe Contipelli: MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Michael Gingras: MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Bethany M. Niedzielski: MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Hannah Stickler: MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Jonilyn L. Yoder: MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Mollie E. Schwartz: MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Jeffrey A. Grover: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Kyle Serniak: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
William D. Oliver: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Joseph A. Formaggio: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: Abstract Quantum information processing at scale will require sufficiently stable and long-lived qubits, likely enabled by error-correction codes. Several recent superconducting-qubit experiments, however, reported observing intermittent spatiotemporally correlated errors that would be problematic for conventional codes, with ionizing radiation being a likely cause. Here, we directly measured the cosmic-ray contribution to spatiotemporally correlated qubit errors. We accomplished this by synchronously monitoring cosmic-ray detectors and qubit energy-relaxation dynamics of 10 transmon qubits distributed across a 5 × 5 × 0.35 mm3 silicon chip. Cosmic rays caused correlated errors at a rate of $$1/\left(592\begin{array}{c}+48\\ -41\end{array}\,{\rm{s}}\right)$$ 1 / 592 + 48 − 41 s , accounting for 17.1 ± 1.3% of all such events. Our qubits responded to essentially all of the cosmic rays and their secondary particles incident on the chip, consistent with the independently measured arrival flux. Moreover, we observed that the landscape of the superconducting gap in proximity to the Josephson junctions dramatically impacts the qubit response to cosmic rays. Given the practical difficulties associated with shielding cosmic rays, our results indicate the importance of radiation hardening—for example, superconducting gap engineering—to the realization of robust quantum error correction.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-61385-x

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