Communication in a network generally takes place through a sequence of intermediate nodes connected by communication channels. In the standard theory of communication, it is assumed that the communication network is embedded in a classical spacetime, where the relative order of different nodes is well defined. In principle, a quantum theory of spacetime could allow the order of the intermediate points between sender and receiver to be in a coherent superposition. Here we experimentally realize a tabletop simulation of this exotic possibility on a photonic system, demonstrating high-fidelity transmission of quantum information over two noisy channels arranged in a superposition of two alternative causal orders.

Magnetic resonance and fluorescence spectra of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color centers ensemble in high purity diamond sample were measured, with temperature ranging from 5.6 K to 295 K. Both microwave and optical transition energies have similar nonlinear temperature dependent changes, which might mainly originate from the local thermal expansion. As the frequency shifts will reduce the fidelity of resonant quantum control, the present results demonstrate the necessity of taking temperature fluctuation into consideration. For temperature below 100 K, the transition energies show tendencies to be constant, which indicate higher stability and performance in applications with NV centers.

The Kibble-Zurek mechanism is the paradigm to account for the nonadiabatic dynamics of a system across a continuous phase transition. Its study in the quantum regime is hindered by the requisite of ground state cooling. We report the experimental quantum simulation of critical dynamics in the transverse-field Ising model by a set of Landau-Zener crossings in pseudo-momentum space, that can be probed with high accuracy using a single trapped ion. We test the Kibble-Zurek mechanism in the quantum regime in the momentum space and find the measured scaling of excitations is in accordance with the theoretical prediction.

Quantum computation with quantum gates induced by geometric phases is regarded as a promising strategy in fault-tolerant quantum computation, owing to its robustness against operational noise. However, because of the parametric restrictions in previous schemes, the main robust advantage of holonomic quantum gates is reduced. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a solution scheme, obtaining nonadiabatic holonomic single-qubit quantum gates with optimal control in a trapped ${}^{171}{\mathrm{Yb}}^{+}$ ion based on a three-level system with resonant driving, which also has the advantages of rapid evolution and convenient implementation. Compared with previous geometric gates and conventional dynamical gates, the superiority of our scheme is that it is more robust against control amplitude errors, which is confirmed by the gate infidelity as measured by both quantum-process tomography and random benchmarking methods. In addition, we outline how nontrivial two-qubit holonomic gates can also be realized using currently available experimental technology. Thus, our experiment confirms the feasibility of this robust and fast holonomic quantum-computation strategy.