title: Measurement of the decay of Fock states in a superconducting quantum circuit.
abstract: We demonstrate the controlled generation of Fock states with up to 15 photons in a microwave coplanar waveguide resonator coupled to a superconducting phase qubit. The subsequent decay of the Fock states, due to dissipation, is then monitored by varying the time delay between preparing the state and performing a number-state analysis. We find that the decay dynamics can be described by a master equation where the lifetime of the n-photon Fock state scales as 1/n, in agreement with theory. We have also generated a coherent state in the microwave resonator, and monitored its decay process. We demonstrate that the coherent state maintains a Poisson distribution as it decays, with an average photon number that decreases with the same characteristic decay time as the one-photon Fock state.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hofheinz
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ansmann
authors.forename: R C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Bialczak
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lucero
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Neeley
authors.forename: A D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: O'Connell
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sank
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wenner
authors.forename: A N
authors.initials: AN
authors.lastname: Cleland
authors.forename: John M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Martinis