Quantum teleportation over thermal microwave network
Pith reviewed 2026-05-18 21:51 UTC · model grok-4.3
The pith
Microwave coherent states are teleported between dilution refrigerators over a thermal channel up to 4 K.
A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.
Core claim
Quantum teleportation of microwave coherent states succeeds between two spatially separated dilution refrigerators linked by a thermal microwave channel operating up to 4 K. Two-mode squeezed states are distributed over the channel to generate entanglement, which is then used for teleportation, yielding fidelities of 72.3 ± 0.5 percent at 1 K and 59.9 ± 2.5 percent at 4 K that exceed the no-cloning and classical thresholds, respectively. The protocol is modeled with a Gaussian operator formalism that accounts for losses and noise, and the dominant infidelity is traced to parasitic heating at the cold nodes.
What carries the argument
Two-mode squeezed states distributed over the thermal microwave channel to generate the entanglement resource used in the teleportation protocol.
If this is right
- Distributed superconducting quantum architectures can incorporate warmer microwave links without losing all quantum advantage.
- Hybrid networks mixing cryogenic and higher-temperature segments become experimentally viable.
- The Gaussian formalism supplies a practical tool for predicting performance in lossy thermal channels at microwave frequencies.
- Further work on noisy quantum networks across frequency ranges is directly motivated by the observed fidelities.
Where Pith is reading between the lines
- Better thermal filtering or isolation at the node-to-channel interface could push fidelities higher and extend the usable temperature range.
- The same entanglement-distribution approach might be tested with non-Gaussian states or at frequencies outside the current microwave band.
- Relaxing cryogenic requirements for parts of a network could lower the infrastructure cost of scaling quantum communication systems.
Load-bearing premise
Parasitic heating of the cold nodes caused by the connection to the hot network is correctly identified as the main source of the observed teleportation infidelity.
What would settle it
Measure the actual temperature rise at the quantum nodes when the 4 K channel is connected and check whether improved thermal isolation lowers the infidelity in line with the Gaussian model predictions.
Figures
read the original abstract
Quantum communication in the microwave regime is set to play an important role in distributed quantum computing and hybrid quantum networks. However, typical superconducting quantum circuits require millikelvin temperatures for operation, which poses a significant challenge for largescale microwave quantum networks. Here, we present a solution to this challenge by demonstrating the successful quantum teleportation of microwave coherent states between two spatially-separated dilution refrigerators over a thermal microwave channel in the temperature range up to $4$ K. We distribute two-mode squeezed states over this noisy channel and employ the resulting quantum entanglement for quantum teleportation of coherent states with fidelities of $72.3 \pm 0.5 ~\%$ at $1$ K and $59.9 \pm 2.5 \%$ at $4$ K, exceeding the no-cloning and classical communication thresholds, respectively. We successfully model the teleportation protocol using a Gaussian operator formalism that includes losses and noise. Our analysis shows that the teleportation infidelity mainly stems from a parasitic heating of the cold quantum nodes due to the hot network connection. These results demonstrate the experimental feasibility of distributed superconducting architectures and motivate further investigations of noisy quantum networks in various frequency regimes.
Editorial analysis
A structured set of objections, weighed in public.
Referee Report
Summary. The manuscript reports an experimental demonstration of quantum teleportation of microwave coherent states between two spatially separated dilution refrigerators connected via a thermal microwave network operating at temperatures up to 4 K. Two-mode squeezed states are distributed over the noisy channel to generate entanglement, which is then used for teleportation, achieving fidelities of 72.3 ± 0.5% at 1 K and 59.9 ± 2.5% at 4 K, surpassing the no-cloning and classical communication thresholds, respectively. The results are modeled using a Gaussian operator formalism incorporating losses and noise, with the primary infidelity attributed to parasitic heating of the cold nodes.
Significance. If the central claims hold, this work provides the first experimental evidence that quantum teleportation of microwave states remains feasible over thermal channels linking millikelvin systems, directly addressing a major obstacle for scalable distributed superconducting quantum computing and hybrid microwave-optical networks. The reported fidelities with uncertainties, combined with the Gaussian modeling, offer concrete benchmarks for error sources in noisy quantum links.
major comments (1)
- §4 and associated model equations: the Gaussian operator formalism assumes all excess noise is thermal/Gaussian with only linear loss on the two-mode squeezed state distribution; without independent verification (e.g., direct temperature readout or noise spectroscopy) that the fitted heating rate matches the physical parasitic heating mechanism, the attribution of the observed infidelity (and thus why the 4 K fidelity still exceeds the classical threshold) rests on an untested assumption that could be invalidated by non-Gaussian correlations or unmodeled frequency-dependent effects.
Simulated Author's Rebuttal
We thank the referee for their careful reading and constructive comment on the modeling section of our manuscript. We address the concern regarding the assumptions in the Gaussian formalism below and have revised the text to provide additional justification and discussion of limitations.
read point-by-point responses
-
Referee: §4 and associated model equations: the Gaussian operator formalism assumes all excess noise is thermal/Gaussian with only linear loss on the two-mode squeezed state distribution; without independent verification (e.g., direct temperature readout or noise spectroscopy) that the fitted heating rate matches the physical parasitic heating mechanism, the attribution of the observed infidelity (and thus why the 4 K fidelity still exceeds the classical threshold) rests on an untested assumption that could be invalidated by non-Gaussian correlations or unmodeled frequency-dependent effects.
Authors: We thank the referee for this important observation. The Gaussian operator formalism employed in Section 4 follows the standard treatment of bosonic thermal noise and linear losses, which is appropriate for a thermal microwave channel where the dominant noise is expected to be Gaussian. The heating rate parameter is extracted by fitting the model to the measured teleportation fidelities across the two temperatures (1 K and 4 K), and the model reproduces the experimental data with high accuracy. This temperature-dependent consistency provides indirect support that the fitted heating corresponds to the physical parasitic effect from the hot network connection. We acknowledge that direct independent verification, such as noise spectroscopy or in-situ temperature readout of the parasitic heating, was not included in the present experiment. To address the referee's concern, we have added a new paragraph in the revised Section 4 that explicitly discusses the justification for the Gaussian assumption, the potential impact of non-Gaussian correlations or frequency-dependent effects, and why such contributions are expected to be subdominant given the observed fidelity agreement. We also clarify that any unaccounted non-Gaussian noise would typically reduce fidelity below the reported values, yet the results remain above the classical threshold. revision: partial
Circularity Check
Experimental demonstration with measured fidelities and standard Gaussian modeling shows no circular reduction
full rationale
The paper reports direct experimental measurements of teleportation fidelities (72.3 ± 0.5% at 1 K and 59.9 ± 2.5% at 4 K) that exceed classical and no-cloning thresholds. These results are obtained from quantum state distribution and teleportation protocols over a thermal channel. The subsequent analysis employs the standard Gaussian operator formalism to model losses and noise, attributing infidelity primarily to parasitic heating. This modeling step interprets observed data but does not derive the reported fidelities or central claims from fitted parameters by construction, nor does it rely on self-definitional loops, self-citation load-bearing premises, or renamed known results. The derivation chain remains self-contained against external benchmarks of quantum optics experiments.
Axiom & Free-Parameter Ledger
Reference graph
Works this paper leans on
-
[1]
M. Kjaergaard, M. E. Schwartz, J. Braum¨ uller, P. Krantz, J. I.-J. Wang, S. Gustavsson, and W. D. Oliver, Annu. Rev. Condens. Matter Phys.11, 369 (2020)
work page 2020
-
[2]
F. Arute, K. Arya, R. Babbush, D. Bacon, J. C. Bardin, R. Barends, R. Biswas, S. Boixo, F. G. S. L. Brandao, D. A. Buell, B. Burkett, Y. Chen, Z. Chen, B. Chiaro, R. Collins, W. Courtney, A. Dunsworth, E. Farhi, B. Foxen, A. Fowler, C. Gidney, M. Giustina, R. Graff, K. Guerin, S. Habegger, M. P. Harrigan, M. J. Hartmann, A. Ho, M. Hoffmann, T. Huang, T. S...
work page 2019
-
[3]
D. Gao, D. Fan, C. Zha, J. Bei, G. Cai, J. Cai, S. Cao, F. Chen, J. Chen, K. Chen, X. Chen, X. Chen, Z. Chen, Z. Chen, Z. Chen, W. Chu, H. Deng, Z. Deng, P. Ding, X. Ding, Z. Ding, S. Dong, Y. Dong, B. Fan, Y. Fu, S. Gao, L. Ge, M. Gong, J. Gui, C. Guo, S. Guo, X. Guo, L. Han, T. He, L. Hong, Y. Hu, H.-L. Huang, Y.-H. Huo, T. Jiang, Z. Jiang, H. Jin, Y. L...
work page 2025
-
[4]
Y. Kim, A. Eddins, S. Anand, K. X. Wei, E. van den Berg, S. Rosenblatt, H. Nayfeh, Y. Wu, M. Zaletel, K. Temme, and A. Kandala, Nature618, 500 (2023)
work page 2023
-
[5]
Google Quantum AI and Collaborators, Nature638, 920 (2025)
work page 2025
-
[6]
A. J. Daley, I. Bloch, C. Kokail, S. Flannigan, N. Pearson, M. Troyer, and P. Zoller, Nature607, 667 (2022)
work page 2022
-
[7]
How to Build a Quantum Supercomputer: Scaling from Hundreds to Millions of Qubits
M. Mohseni, A. Scherer, K. G. Johnson, O. Wertheim, M. Otten, N. A. Aadit, Y. Alexeev, K. M. Bresniker, K. Y. Camsari, B. Chapman, S. Chatterjee, G. A. Dag- new, A. Esposito, F. Fahim, M. Fiorentino, A. Gajjar, A. Khalid, X. Kong, B. Kulchytskyy, E. Kyoseva, R. Li, P. A. Lott, I. L. Markov, R. F. McDermott, G. Pe- dretti, P. Rao, E. Rieffel, A. Silva, J. ...
work page internal anchor Pith review arXiv 2025
- [8]
-
[9]
M. I. Hollister, R. C. Dhuley, C. James, and G. L. Tatkowski, IOP Conf. Ser.: Mater. Sci. Eng.1302, 012030 (2024)
work page 2024
-
[10]
S. Krinner, S. Storz, P. Kurpiers, P. Magnard, J. Heinsoo, R. Keller, J. L¨ utolf, C. Eichler, and A. Wallraff, EPJ Quantum Technol.6, 2 (2019)
work page 2019
- [11]
- [12]
-
[13]
G. F. Pe˜ nas, R. Puebla, T. Ramos, P. Rabl, and J. J. Garc´ ıa-Ripoll, Phys. Rev. Appl.17, 054038 (2022)
work page 2022
-
[14]
Y. Zhong, H.-S. Chang, A. Bienfait, ´E. Dumur, M.-H. Chou, C. R. Conner, J. Grebel, R. G. Povey, H. Yan, D. I. Schuster, and A. N. Cleland, Nature590, 571 (2021)
work page 2021
- [15]
-
[16]
A. Almanakly, B. Yankelevich, M. Hays, B. Kannan, R. Assouly, A. Greene, M. Gingras, B. M. Niedzielski, H. Stickler, M. E. Schwartz, K. Serniak, J. ˆI.-j. Wang, T. P. Orlando, S. Gustavsson, J. A. Grover, and W. D. Oliver, Nat. Phys. 10.1038/s41567-025-02811-1 (2025)
-
[17]
P. Magnard, S. Storz, P. Kurpiers, J. Sch¨ ar, F. Marxer, J. L¨ utolf, T. Walter, J.-C. Besse, M. Gabureac, K. Reuer, A. Akin, B. Royer, A. Blais, and A. Wallraff, Phys. Rev. Lett.125, 260502 (2020)
work page 2020
-
[18]
W. K. Yam, M. Renger, S. Gandorfer, F. Fesquet, M. Handschuh, K. E. Honasoge, F. Kronowetter, Y. No- jiri, M. Partanen, M. Pfeiffer, H. van der Vliet, A. J. Matthews, J. Govenius, R. N. Jabdaraghi, M. Prunnila, A. Marx, F. Deppe, R. Gross, and K. G. Fedorov, npj Quantum Inf.11, 87 (2025)
work page 2025
- [19]
- [20]
-
[21]
B. C. Coutinho, W. J. Munro, K. Nemoto, and Y. Omar, Commun. Phys.5, 105 (2022)
work page 2022
-
[22]
F. Grasselli, G. Murta, J. de Jong, F. Hahn, D. Bruß, H. Kampermann, and A. Pappa, PRX Quantum3, 040306 (2022)
work page 2022
-
[23]
N. H. Nickerson, J. F. Fitzsimons, and S. C. Benjamin, Phys. Rev. X4, 041041 (2014)
work page 2014
-
[24]
A. Beckert, M. Grimm, N. Wili, R. Tschaggelar, G. Jeschke, G. Matmon, S. Gerber, M. M¨ uller, and G. Aeppli, Nat. Phys.20, 472 (2024)
work page 2024
- [25]
-
[26]
C. H. Bennett, G. Brassard, C. Cr´ epeau, R. Jozsa, A. Peres, and W. K. Wootters, Phys. Rev. Lett.70, 1895 (1993)
work page 1993
-
[27]
K. G. Fedorov, M. Renger, S. Pogorzalek, R. D. Candia, Q. Chen, Y. Nojiri, K. Inomata, Y. Nakamura, M. Par- tanen, A. Marx, R. Gross, and F. Deppe, Sci. Adv.7, eabk0891 (2021)
work page 2021
-
[28]
J. Qiu, Y. Liu, L. Hu, Y. Wu, J. Niu, L. Zhang, W. Huang, Y. Chen, J. Li, S. Liu, Y. Zhong, L. Duan, and D. Yu, Sci. Bull.70, 351 (2025)
work page 2025
-
[29]
P. Kurpiers, T. Walter, P. Magnard, Y. Salathe, and A. Wallraff, EPJ Quantum Technol.4, 8 (2017)
work page 2017
-
[30]
H. B. Callen and T. A. Welton, Phys. Rev.83, 34 (1951)
work page 1951
-
[31]
K. E. Honasoge, M. Handschuh, W. K. Yam, S. Gan- dorfer, D. Bazulin, N. Bruckmoser, L. Koch, A. Marx, R. Gross, and K. G. Fedorov, Phys. Rev. B111, 214508 (2025)
work page 2025
- [32]
-
[33]
K. G. Fedorov, S. Pogorzalek, U. Las Heras, M. Sanz, P. Yard, P. Eder, M. Fischer, J. Goetz, E. Xie, K. Ino- mata, Y. Nakamura, R. Di Candia, E. Solano, A. Marx, F. Deppe, and R. Gross, Sci. Rep.8, 6416 (2018)
work page 2018
-
[34]
C. Weedbrook, S. Pirandola, R. Garc´ ıa-Patr´ on, N. J. Cerf, T. C. Ralph, J. H. Shapiro, and S. Lloyd, Rev. Mod. Phys.84, 621 (2012)
work page 2012
-
[35]
S. Gandorfer, M. Renger, W. Yam, F. Fesquet, A. Marx, R. Gross, and K. Fedorov, Phys. Rev. Appl.23, 024064 (2025)
work page 2025
-
[36]
See Supplemental Material at http://url.com for (i) De- vices and experimental setup, (ii) Model for quantum teleportation of coherent and qubit states, supporting the main text
-
[37]
J.-G. Ren, P. Xu, H.-L. Yong, L. Zhang, S.-K. Liao, J. Yin, W.-Y. Liu, W.-Q. Cai, M. Yang, L. Li, K.-X. 7 Yang, X. Han, Y.-Q. Yao, J. Li, H.-Y. Wu, S. Wan, L. Liu, D.-Q. Liu, Y.-W. Kuang, Z.-P. He, P. Shang, C. Guo, R.-H. Zheng, K. Tian, Z.-C. Zhu, N.-L. Liu, C.- Y. Lu, R. Shu, Y.-A. Chen, C.-Z. Peng, J.-Y. Wang, and J.-W. Pan, Nature549, 70 (2017)
work page 2017
-
[38]
T. Yamashima, T. Kashiwazaki, T. Suzuki, R. Nehra, T. Nakamura, A. Inoue, T. Umeki, K. Takase, W. Asa- vanant, M. Endo, and A. Furusawa, Opt. Express33, 5769 (2025)
work page 2025
-
[39]
F. Kronowetter, F. Fesquet, M. Renger, K. Honasoge, Y. Nojiri, K. Inomata, Y. Nakamura, A. Marx, R. Gross, and K. Fedorov, Phys. Rev. Appl.20, 024049 (2023)
work page 2023
- [40]
-
[41]
K. G. Fedorov, L. Zhong, S. Pogorzalek, P. Eder, M. Fis- cher, J. Goetz, E. Xie, F. Wulschner, K. Inomata, T. Ya- mamoto, Y. Nakamura, R. Di Candia, U. Las Heras, M. Sanz, E. Solano, E. P. Menzel, F. Deppe, A. Marx, and R. Gross, Phys. Rev. Lett.117, 020502 (2016)
work page 2016
- [42]
- [43]
- [44]
-
[45]
S. L. Braunstein, C. A. Fuchs, H. J. Kimble, and P. van Loock, Phys. Rev. A64, 022321 (2001)
work page 2001
- [46]
-
[47]
A. S. Holevo, Probl. Inf. Transm.43, 1 (2007)
work page 2007
-
[48]
B. Kannan, A. Almanakly, Y. Sung, A. Di Paolo, D. A. Rower, J. Braum¨ uller, A. Melville, B. M. Niedziel- ski, A. Karamlou, K. Serniak, A. Veps¨ al¨ ainen, M. E. Schwartz, J. L. Yoder, R. Winik, J. I.-J. Wang, T. P. Orlando, S. Gustavsson, J. A. Grover, and W. D. Oliver, Nat. Phys.19, 394 (2023)
work page 2023
-
[49]
R. Navarathna, D. T. Le, A. R. Hamann, H. D. Nguyen, T. M. Stace, and A. Fedorov, Phys. Rev. Lett.130, 037001 (2023)
work page 2023
-
[50]
Q.-S. Shu, J. Demko, and J. Fesmire, inCryogenic Heat Management(CRC Press, Boca Raton, 2022) pp. 243– 272
work page 2022
- [51]
-
[52]
Renger,Inter-lab Quantum Microwave Teleportation, Ph.D
M. Renger,Inter-lab Quantum Microwave Teleportation, Ph.D. thesis, Technical University of Munich (2023)
work page 2023
-
[53]
A. A. Clerk, K. W. Lehnert, P. Bertet, J. R. Petta, and Y. Nakamura, Nat. Phys.16, 257 (2020)
work page 2020
- [54]
-
[55]
Y. Kurochkin, A. S. Prasad, and A. I. Lvovsky, Phys. Rev. Lett.112, 070402 (2014)
work page 2014
-
[56]
J. Agust´ ı, X. H. H. Zhang, Y. Minoguchi, and P. Rabl, Phys. Rev. Lett.131, 250801 (2023)
work page 2023
discussion (0)
Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.