• Accepted Paper

Spin Kerr-cat qubits

Z. M. McIntyre and Daniel Loss

PRX Quantum - Accepted 20 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/z3dj-95j6

Abstract

The use of noise-robust qubit encodings provides a way of extending the lifetime of quantum information at the hardware level. In this work, we introduce the spin Kerr-cat encoding, which leverages a sweet spot near a clock transition in the spectrum of quadrupolar nuclei (having spin I≥1) to achieve a suppression of charge and magnetic noise leading to qubit dephasing. The basis states of the spin Kerr-cat qubit are given by the two lowest levels of a ℤ2-symmetric nuclear-spin Hamiltonian and are well approximated by spin cat states for sufficiently high asymmetry parameters. For nuclei in highly asymmetric electric-field gradients, the nuclear spin could therefore be initialized in the spin-Kerr-cat subspace using SU(2) rotations and measurement rather than full SU(2I+1) control. We calculate the dephasing time of the spin Kerr-cat qubit under a model of 1/f noise, as well as relaxation of the qubit due to breaking of the ℤ2 symmetry by charge-noise-induced fluctuations of the quadrupolar tensor. Using measured parameters for antimony (123Sb) donors in silicon, we estimate that second-scale T2* times could be achieved with this encoding, with bitflips and leakage occurring on significantly longer timescales. We propose a two-qubit gate acting on spin Kerr-cat qubits and electron-spin qubits, enabled by adiabatically moving an electron on and off the donor potential. Based on numerical simulations, we estimate that with an enhancement of measured quadrupolar couplings by a factor of ≈2, a gate fidelity exceeding 99% could be achieved for spin Kerr cats encoded in 123Sb, with a gate time under 100 ns. By entangling the nuclear spin with an electron spin in this way, the spin Kerr-cat qubit could then be measured using a Pauli spin blockade readout of the electron.

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