High-Temporal-Resolution Measurements of the Impacts of Ionizing Radiation on Superconducting Qubits
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Quantum Physics arXiv:2602.23544 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 26 Feb 2026] Title:High-Temporal-Resolution Measurements of the Impacts of Ionizing Radiation on Superconducting Qubits Authors:Jihee Yang, Thomas J. Carroll, Philip Mason, Robert Schwartz, Kenneth M. O'Hara, Jennifer Lund, Michael Gottschalk, Timothy Stephenson, Lawrence H. Friedman, Francisco Yumiceva, Justin Hackley, Aurelius L. Graninger, Chris Rotella, Pat Warner, Jonathan M. Cochran, Adam V. Bruce, Melody Wagner, James Wenner, Stan Steers, Christopher Moore, Alex Marakov, Bradley G. Christensen View a PDF of the paper titled High-Temporal-Resolution Measurements of the Impacts of Ionizing Radiation on Superconducting Qubits, by Jihee Yang and 21 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:We measure the effect of ionizing radiation on superconducting qubits with a timing resolution of 1 $\mu s$ using microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs) fabricated on the same substrate. We observe no correlation between two-level system (TLS) scrambling events and ionizing radiation events detected with the MKIDs, suggesting TLS scrambling events may not arise from ionizing radiation and instead the previously reported apparent correlation may be due to events without sufficient energy to trigger our MKIDs. We characterize the fast-time system recovery of transmons following a radiation event, where we observe the recovery of the enhanced qubit relaxation and excitation to be well-described by an exponential recovery to the baseline quasiparticle density, with a characteristic time of $13\pm1\ \mu$s, and a peak quasiparticle density at the junction per deposited energy of $240/\mu m^3/MeV$. The fast recovery is consistent with literature reported values for Nb-based devices with direct injection of 2$\Delta_{\text{Al}}$ phonons, demonstrating the recovery is strongly dependent on the proximity of niobium to the junction. Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2602.23544 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2602.23544v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2602.23544 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Bradley Christensen [view email] [v1] Thu, 26 Feb 2026 22:59:16 UTC (1,372 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled High-Temporal-Resolution Measurements of the Impacts of Ionizing Radiation on Superconducting Qubits, by Jihee Yang and 21 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-02 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?)