Estimation of the Laser Frequency Noise Spectrum by Continuous Dynamical Decoupling

Abstract

Decoherence induced by laser frequency noise is one of the most important obstacles in quantum information processing. In order to suppress this decoherence, the noise power spectral density needs to be accurately characterized. In particular, the noise spectrum measurement based on the coherence characteristics of qubits would be a meaningful and still challenging method. Here, we theoretically analyze and experimentally obtain the spectrum of laser frequency noise based on the continuous dynamical decoupling technique. We first estimate the mixture-noise (including laser and magnetic noises) spectrum up to $(2\ensuremath{\pi})530$ kHz by monitoring the transverse relaxation from an initial state $+X$, followed by a gradient descent data process protocol. Then the contribution from the laser noise is extracted by encoding the qubits on different Zeeman sublevels. We also investigate two sufficiently strong noise components by making an analogy between these noises and driving lasers whose linewidth is assumed to be negligible. This method is verified experimentally and finally helps to characterize the noise.