Influence of fast and slow laser phase noise on the fidelity of the M{\o}lmer-S{\o}rensen trapped-ion gate

Quantum Physics arXiv:2609.26912 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 22 Sep 2026] Title:Influence of fast and slow laser phase noise on the fidelity of the Mølmer-Sørensen trapped-ion gate Authors:Nikita Semenin, Ksenia Khabarova, Nikolay Kolachevsky View a PDF of the paper titled Influence of fast and slow laser phase noise on the fidelity of the M{\o}lmer-S{\o}rensen trapped-ion gate, by Nikita Semenin and 1 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:High-fidelity two-qubit entangling gates are essential for the realization of useful quantum algorithms on quantum processors. The Mølmer-Sørensen (MS) gate has become a common choice for trapped-ion quantum computing due to its resilience to ion temperature and its demonstrated record fidelities. However, the spectral impurity of the driving laser field impacts gate performance, with phase noise influencing the qubit dynamics through mechanisms operating on different timescales. In this work, we present a comprehensive theoretical analysis of laser phase noise in the MS gate, identifying two spectral ranges which influence the gate fidelity the most: "fast" noise at frequencies near the motional mode spectrum, and "slow" noise at frequencies on the order of the inverse gate time. We derive the noise Hamiltonians for two common laser beam geometries and obtain analytical expressions for the average gate error in terms of the laser noise power spectral density and gate parameters. For slowly varying noise spectra, we provide simplified error estimates. In addition, we validate our findings against previously published numerical simulations. Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2609.26912 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2609.26912v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.26912 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Journal reference: Quantum Rep. 2026, 8(3), 74 Related DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/quantum8030074 Focus to learn more DOI(s) linking to related resources Submission history From: Nikita Semenin [view email] [v1] Tue, 22 Sep 2026 18:10:03 UTC (799 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Influence of fast and slow laser phase noise on the fidelity of the M{\o}lmer-S{\o}rensen trapped-ion gate, by Nikita Semenin and 1 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-09 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?) 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?)