Circuit QED theory and experiment: Encoding quantum information in harmonic oscillators*

‘Circuit quantum electrodynamics’ is the theory of non-linear quantum optics extended to the study of microwave photons strongly interacting with ‘artificial atoms’ (Josephson junction qubits) embedded in superconducting electrical circuits. Recent remarkable theoretical and experimental progress in our ability to measure and manipulate the quantum states of individual microwave photons is leading to novel applications ranging from accelerating dark matter searches to quantum error correction using bosonic codes that have successfully extended the lifetime of quantum information. This talk will present an elementary introduction to the basic concepts underlying circuit QED and describe several recent novel experiments demonstrating these new found capabilities.