Experimental realization of deterministic and selective photon addition in a bosonic mode assisted by an ancillary qubit

Abstract Bosonic quantum error correcting codes are primarily designed to protect against single-photon loss. To correct for this type of error, one can encode the logical qubit in code spaces with a definite photon parity, such as cat codes or binomial codes. Error correction requires a recovery operation that maps the error states—which have opposite parity—back onto the code space. Here, we realize a collection of photon-number-selective, simultaneous photon addition operations on a bosonic mode, a microwave cavity, assisted by a superconducting qubit. These operations are implemented as two-photon transitions that excite the cavity and the qubit at the same time. The additional degree of freedom of the qubit makes it possible to implement a coherent, unidirectional mapping between spaces of opposite photon parity. We present the successful experimental implementation of the drives and the phase control they enable on superpositions of Fock states. The presented technique, when supplemented with qubit reset, is suitable for autonomous quantum error correction in bosonic systems and, more generally, opens the possibility to realize a range of non-unitary transformations on a bosonic mode.