Project Grant 2210391

This three-year, $330,000 project grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Physics under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) will support the development of a high-fidelity ternary quantum logic processor at the University of California, Berkeley. The central goal is to leverage the rich structure of superconducting circuits to create a processor utilizing a tunable coupling scheme for fast, high-fidelity two-qutrit gates. This will enable entanglement generation and universal quantum computation using a ternary logic approach. The processor will be used to benchmark gate techniques and execute hybrid quantum-classical algorithms suited for ternary logic, such as QAOA, demonstrating advantages over binary approaches. The grant also supports graduate student training and a summer internship program introducing local high school students to quantum information science topics and research skills.