Experimental observation of dynamical blockade between transmon qubits via ZZ interaction engineering

Quantum Physics arXiv:2601.11714 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 16 Jan 2026] Title:Experimental observation of dynamical blockade between transmon qubits via ZZ interaction engineering Authors:Marco Riccardi, Aviv Glezer Moshe, Guido Menichetti, Riccardo Aiudi, Carlo Cosenza, Ashkan Abedi, Roberto Menta, Halima Giovanna Ahmad, Diego Nieri Orfatti, Francesco Cioni, Davide Massarotti, Francesco Tafuri, Vittorio Giovannetti, Marco Polini, Francesco Caravelli, Daniel Szombati View a PDF of the paper titled Experimental observation of dynamical blockade between transmon qubits via ZZ interaction engineering, by Marco Riccardi and 15 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:We report the experimental realization of strong longitudinal (ZZ) coupling between two superconducting transmon qubits achieved solely through capacitive engineering. By systematically varying the qubit frequency detuning, we measure cross-Kerr inter-qubit interaction strengths ranging from 10 MHz up to 350 MHz, more than an order of magnitude larger than previously observed in similar capacitively coupled systems. In this configuration, the qubits enter a strong-interaction regime in which the excitation of one qubit inhibits that of its neighbor, demonstrating a dynamical blockade mediated entirely by the engineered ZZ coupling. Circuit quantization simulations accurately reproduce the experimental results, while perturbative models confirm the theoretical origin of the energy shift as a hybridization between the computational states and higher-excitation manifolds. We establish a robust and scalable method to access interaction-dominated physics in superconducting circuits, providing a pathway towards solid-state implementations of globally controlled quantum architectures and cooperative many-body dynamics. Comments: Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall); Other Condensed Matter (cond-mat.other); Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) Cite as: arXiv:2601.11714 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2601.11714v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2601.11714 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Roberto Menta [view email] [v1] Fri, 16 Jan 2026 19:02:00 UTC (4,803 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Experimental observation of dynamical blockade between transmon qubits via ZZ interaction engineering, by Marco Riccardi and 15 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-01 Change to browse by: cond-mat cond-mat.mes-hall cond-mat.other cond-mat.supr-con References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) Links to Code Toggle Papers with Code (What is Papers with Code?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)