Testing entanglement distillation with realistic noise

April 1, 2026

fidelity vs. idle time plot enlarge

For coherent noise, distillation yields an entangled pair with higher fidelity (green) than either noisy Bell pair input (blue, orange).

Scientific Achievement

C2QA researchers demonstrated entanglement distillation on IBM superconducting quantum hardware, showing how noisy quantum links can be strengthened under realistic operating conditions.

Significance and Impact

Future quantum computers will need to link many smaller processors together in order to scale. This work shows when today’s quantum hardware can reliably strengthen intermodule links, guiding design of resilient systems.

Research Details

  • Tested entanglement distillation using realistic noise measured in IBM Eagle processor superconducting qubits.
  • Accounted for common hardware limitations, including gate errors and signal loss over time.

Collaborating Institutions

  • IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

Publication

Vikesh Siddhu, Erick Winston, David C. McKay, and Ali Javadi-Abhari 
Basic entanglement distillation with realistic noise
Phys. Rev. Research 7, 043069 – Published 17 October, 2025
https://doi.org/10.1103/xx9g-pkht

Acknowledgements 

We thank Sam Stein, Michael DeMarco, Andrew Cross, and John Smolin for helpful discussions.

This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, National Quantum Information Science Research Centers, Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA) under Contract No. DE-SC0012704

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