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  • Open Access

Analytical Blueprint for 99.999% Fidelity X-Gates on Present Superconducting Hardware Under Strong Driving

José Diogo Da Costa Jesus1,2,*, Boxi Li1, Yuan Gao3,4, Rami Barends3,4, Francisco Andrés Cárdenas-López1, and Felix Motzoi1,2

  • *Contact author: j.da.costa.jesus@fz-juelich.de
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PRX Quantum 7, 033040 – Published 27 August, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/sdxb-v39h

Abstract

Achieving ultrafast single-qubit gates that approach the limits set by decoherence requires operating in the strong-driving regime, where conventional semi-classical descriptions and single-leakage models break down, and multi-photon transitions emerge as dominant error channels that grow rapidly as the gate time is reduced. This makes it essential to develop systematic methods to characterize and suppress these errors using pulse shapes that remain simple and experimentally straightforward to calibrate. In contrast to standard derivative removal by adiabatic gate (DRAG) approaches for single-qubit gates, which suppress leakage within an effective three-level description, our framework systematically treats multi-photon transitions that arise in the strong-driving regime due to the participation of higher energy levels. In particular, we identify and suppress the two-photon |1⟩↔|3⟩ channel, incorporate time-ordering corrections, and derive a recursive analytical construction that captures the dominant higher-order error processes. We term the resulting pulse families R1D and R2D. These constructions extend and unify DRAG-type approaches by incorporating higher-order processes and time-ordering effects, yielding analytical expressions for optimal quadrature corrections, detunings, and prefactors. In addition, we clarify the optimal choice of DRAG prefactors and constant detuning when time-ordering effects are properly taken into account. This provides a systematic prescription for calibrating additional correction terms to further improve gate performance. Using this framework, we numerically demonstrate gate infidelities below 10−5 for a 7  ns full π-rotation under realistic decoherence rates.

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Popular Summary

Superconducting systems face a fundamental limitation, being infinite ladder systems, shorter times and higher driving power leads to spreading information up the ladder. In our work we show how to go deep into the strong driving limit with superconducting transmon systems and finish with population exactly in the correct qubit states. This solution is not just important from a fundamental physics point of view, but technologically enables a new plateau of gate fidelities setting a new benchmark going from 99.99% to 99.999% while removing all the leading, multi-photon error pathways.

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PRX Quantum 7, 033040– Published 27 August, 2026
  • Received 24 February 2026
  • Revised 22 May 2026
  • Accepted 16 July 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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