Implementation of XY entangling gates with a single calibrated pulse

Near-term applications of quantum information processors will rely on optimized circuit implementations to minimize the circuit depth, reducing the negative impact of gate errors in noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) computers. One approach to minimize the circuit depth is the use of a more expressive gate set. The XY two-qubit gate set can offer reductions in circuit depth for generic circuits, as well as improved performance for problems with symmetries that match the gate set. Here we report an implementation of the family of XY entangling gates in a transmon-based superconducting qubit architecture using a gate decomposition strategy that requires only a single calibrated pulse. The approach allows us to implement XY gates with a median fidelity of 97.35 +/- 0.17%, approaching the coherence-limited gate fidelity of the two-qubit pair. We also show that the XY gate can be used to implement instances of the quantum approximate optimization algorithm, achieving a reduction in circuit depth of similar to 30% compared with the use of CZ gates only. Finally, we extend our decomposition scheme to other gate families, which can allow for further reductions in circuit depth.