Rovibrational wave-packet manipulation using shaped midinfrared femtosecond pulses toward quantum computation: Optimization of pulse shape by a genetic algorithm

Abstract

We have numerically examined optimization of the experimentally achievable shapes of mid-infrared femtosecond laser pulses to construct elementary quantum gates using molecular rovibrational states of a single molecule. Instead of optimizing the electric field by optimal control theory, the method generally used in theoretical studies of coherent control, the transmittance and the phase shift of conventional pulse shapers were optimized in the frequency domain by a genetic algorithm. The target molecular system we examined was the rotation-vibration states of CO in the $X({^{1}\ensuremath{\Sigma}}^{+})$ ground electronic state. Although the existence of the rotational degrees of freedom makes the quantum gate operation complicated, high fidelity of over 0.95 was achieved for one-rovibrational-qubit systems, which indicates that a molecular quantum computer may be feasible for at least one-qubit calculations on a diatomic molecule. On the other hand, two-qubit calculations are more difficult to achieve in a single CO molecule using rotational and vibrational degrees of freedom as different qubits. The importance of the control of the rotational in addition to the vibrational wave packet in order to realize a molecular quantum computer is discussed.