Description
Abstract:
The superconducting Josephson junction is one of the leading candidates for making a qubit. A major obstacle to the realization of quantum computers with Josephson junction qubits is noise and decoherence of the wavefunction. We will discuss various sources of noise. We then focus on one of the major types of noise, called flux noise, which is due to fluctuating magnetic spins on the surface of metals.
We will describe our work on the microscopic sources of this flux noise; namely oxygen molecules adsorbed on the surface as well as atomic hydrogen. If time permits, we will also discuss puzzles such as the value of the noise exponent and pivoting of noise spectra.