{
  "abstract": "Quantum error correction becomes more hardware efficient when physical noise is strongly biased towards one error channel. Cat qubits realize such a bias by encoding information in two opposite coherent states of a superconducting oscillator, so that bit flips are exponentially suppressed with photon number while phase-flip rates increase only linearly. In Kerr-cat qubits, a driven double-well potential confines these states and enables fast coherent control, but excitations can induce interwell switching, limiting bit-flip times to milliseconds. Here we show that the nonlinear interaction generating the confinement can also cool these excitations. When an intra-well transition becomes resonant with a lossy readout mode, excitations are transferred out of the qubit and dissipated, as established by spectroscopy and relaxation measurements. We observe the predicted exponential scaling of Kerr-cat bit-flip times with photon number, reaching 450 s, over five orders of magnitude beyond previous demonstrations. Phase-flip rates remain consistent with intrinsic photon loss at operating points with seconds-long bit-flip times. We further demonstrate fast Z gates without measurable degradation of bit-flip protection and single-shot readout with a bit-flip probability below $10^{-6}$ per measurement. Autonomous cooling thus brings minutes-long bit-flip protection to Kerr-cat qubits while retaining fast coherent control, without additional cooling drives or circuit elements.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2611.04868",
  "author_total": 6,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Sergey Hazanov"
    },
    {
      "name": "Mikhail Svintsov"
    },
    {
      "name": "Uri Goldblatt"
    },
    {
      "name": "Barkay Guttel"
    },
    {
      "name": "Fabien Lafont"
    },
    {
      "name": "Serge Rosenblum"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/e304htwjke6nm.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2611.04868",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "e304htwjke6nm",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.04868",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY-NC-ND 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "quant-ph"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": null,
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2611.04868",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-11-03",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/e304htwjke6nm.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-04T15:21:25Z",
      "native_id": "2611.04868",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.04868"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:quant-ph",
      "subfield": "quantum"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Autonomous cooling of Kerr-cat qubits to minutes-long bit-flip times",
  "title_text": "Autonomous cooling of Kerr-cat qubits to minutes-long bit-flip times",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-06T18:21:01Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/e304htwjke6nm",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}