Papers

We consider the black-box optimization problem on a sphere. Two information-geometric optimization flows (IGO flows) are designed with rigorous calculation of natural search gradients based on hyperbolic (information) geometry of Poincaré and Bergman balls. We demonstrate that ensembles of generalized Kuramoto oscillators on spheres compute natural search gradients and realize IGO algorithms on both manifolds. The relationship between natural gradient policies in Bergman balls and quantum decision making is pointed out.

This manuscript explores a variational quantum formulation for nonlinear elasticity problems arising from hyperelastic material models. The approach leverages the potential energy structure of hyperelasticity and employs a hybrid quantum classical framework in which the energy functional is evaluated using parameterized quantum circuits and optimized through classical routines. To enable a hybrid (classical quantum implementation), polynomial approximations of the nonlinear terms in strain energy density are introduced, yielding a representation compatible with variational quantum algorithms. The methodology is demonstrated on a special case of the NeoHookean material model in a one dimensional setting using finite element discretizations with first and second order shape functions and nonhomogeneous boundary conditions. Numerical experiments investigate the influence of the polynomial approximation order on the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed approach, illustrating its feasibility for near-term quantum devices.

Non-Hermitian topological systems have attracted a lot of research activities in recent times, both theoretically and experimentally, due to their unique physical properties and association with open quantum systems. We show that modular structures, where specific couplings at regular intervals take distinct values, enrich the unique topological attributes of these systems such as the non-Hermitian skin effect and the breakdown of conventional bulk-boundary correspondence. These systems also possess the capability of displaying criticality-enhanced sensitivity for precision metrology. We establish how the modular structure enhances their sensing performance near spectral topological phase transitions and show that the enhancement can be achieved in multi-parameter estimation scenarios as well.

Noise is one of the central obstacles to building useful quantum computers, and quantum error correction (QEC) provides the framework for protecting quantum information against it. Unlike classical error correction, QEC must preserve fragile quantum states without copying them, measuring them directly, or destroying the information they encode. Driven by rapid progress in both theory and experiment, this challenge has grown into one of the most active areas of quantum information science. This tutorial gives a guided introduction to modern QEC, developing the core concepts of codes, syndromes, stabilizers, decoding, and fault tolerance before connecting them to major code families and current research directions. We cover both established constructions and newer developments, including topological and subsystem codes, bosonic and qudit codes, dynamical codes, and quantum low-density parity-check (qLDPC) codes. The emphasis is on building operational understanding: explaining not only what the main objects are, but how they are used in code design, error diagnosis, decoding, and fault-tolerant computation. The tutorial is intended for newcomers seeking a first path through QEC, as well as researchers looking for a coherent reference for the concepts, code families, and tools that arise in current work.

We construct strongly $\mathbb{Z}_2$-symmetric local Markov/Lindblad dynamics exhibiting transitions between strong-paramagnetic behavior and strong-to-weak spontaneous symmetry breaking. In 1+1d, an absorbing-state construction gives a transition with scaling consistent with the parity-conserving branching-annihilating random-walk universality class. In 2+1d, a pair-flip variant of Toom's rule provides evidence for a stable strong-paramagnetic/weakly symmetry-broken regime and a transition into an active SWSSB regime. We also introduce a marginal fidelity correlator of radius $R$, a local proxy for the usual SWSSB fidelity order parameter requiring tomography only on $\mathcal{O}(R^d)$-size regions. For broad classes of states, including symmetry-projected Gibbs-like states satisfying suitable local indistinguishability assumptions, we bound the error between the marginal and global fidelity correlators by terms decaying exponentially in $R$. These marginal fidelities provide a model-independent diagnostic of SWSSB in absorbing-state transitions, where microscopic notions of defects or activity are not universal.

We identify a hidden bottleneck in the information processing capacity of linear reservoir computers. When the measured features evolve linearly in the reservoir and the output is formed by linear readout with bias, we show that the capacity available at any fixed delay is limited by what is already present in the preprocessed input. Linear reservoir dynamics can therefore redistribute features, but cannot create new fixed-delay expressive power on their own. This limitation is hidden by global capacity measures, since contributions from different delays can accumulate even when each individual delay is strongly constrained. As an experimentally important realization of this general result, we derive the corresponding Gaussian limit for covariance-based continuous-variable quantum reservoirs. Numerical experiments show that experimentally accessible single-photon operations surpass this limit, establishing them as a genuine resource for quantum reservoir computing. The resulting excess capacity also provides an operational witness of non-Gaussian processing in black-box continuous-variable systems under minimal assumptions.

Nonautonomous linear ordinary differential equations of the form $\dot{v}(t) = A(t)\, v(t)$, where $A(t)$ is non-skew-symmetric, are often used to describe nonunitary dynamics in a variety of fields that range from open quantum system dynamics to economic modeling. Because quantum computing hardware is designed to natively implement unitary transformations, existing algorithms for solving such equations on quantum hardware are based on the assumption that the nonunitary propagator is known, and use dilation techniques to embed the nonunitary dynamics within the unitary dynamics of a larger system. However, with the exception of cases where the nonunitary propagator is known in closed form, it needs to be calculated and manipulated on a classical computer at each time step. In this paper, we propose a quantum algorithm that does not require a priori knowledge of the explicit nonunitary propagator and effectively performs the dilation on the quantum hardware. Our algorithm combines a dilation scheme that uses singular value decomposition (SVD) to write the nonunitary propagator as a sum of unitaries with simulating the dynamics of the SVD factors on the quantum hardware. The population-only time-convolutionless quantum master equation describing photoinduced charge transfer in a solvated molecular triad is used as a demonstrative example of the applicability of the algorithm and its sensitivity to noise.

The dressed propagator of a ghost coupled to ordinary fields develops a pair of complex conjugate poles in the first Riemann sheet above the multi-particle threshold. We study the implications of this pole structure for the asymptotic field and its negative-norm one-particle state. Within the operator formalism of local quantum field theory, we show that certain quadratic couplings between the ghost field and the composite field of the multi-particle state persist at asymptotic times. These induce quantum interference effects that render the negative-norm one-particle state non-orthogonal to a superposition of positive-norm multi-particle states. Consequently, no free asymptotic one-particle ghost state exists, while the true free asymptotic states have zero norm and hence vanishing localization probability. The real and imaginary parts of the complex mass admit a clear physical interpretation; in particular, the inverse imaginary part sets the timescale for the onset of non-orthogonality. A freely propagating ghost is therefore confined to time intervals much shorter than its inverse width, so that a detector can never observe an isolated ghost particle asymptotically. Open questions and potential applications are discussed in the conclusions.

Quantum crossover phenomena play a central role in few-body open quantum systems, yet their identification often relies on global or model-dependent indicators. In this work, we demonstrate that crossovers can be robustly characterized through purely local measurements, establishing a direct connection between local quantum Fisher information and the onset of crossover behavior. We further demonstrate that quantum obesity does not, in general, generalize the quantum steering ellipsoid volume as a universal indicator of crossover. Instead, we identify regimes in which the ellipsoid volume remains insensitive to the transition, while the relevant signatures are encoded in the behavior of the local Bloch vector. These results reveal a geometric distinction between local and global indicators of crossovers.

Conventional approaches to light-matter interactions rely on engineering photonic density of states. More recently, tailoring the spatial geometry of atoms or emitters themselves has emerged as a powerful and complementary route to control collective radiative properties. Here we experimentally realize a geometry-engineered ensemble of rare-earth ions by fabricating a periodic array of subwavelength gold nanoholes on lithium niobate implanted with thulium ions, forming a semi-two-dimensional array of quantum emitters embedded in a high-index crystalline thin film. The hybrid structure can simultaneously support localized and lattice plasmon resonances from the metallic array and collective atomic resonances from the ion ensemble. Using time-resolved photoluminescence and temperature-dependent measurements, we observe enhanced radiative emission attributed to collective atomic effects mediated by the nanohole lattice, distinct from single-emitter Purcell enhancement. Our results demonstrate a new regime of light-matter interaction opening a pathway toward broadband and scalable, geometry-controlled quantum optical interfaces in solid-state platforms.

Improving the image contrast of objects immersed in weakly scattering media can be achieved using various strategies. One common approach is to reject events associated with scattered photons in favor of the detection of ballistic photons. While this is traditionally done via time gating or spatial filtering, we propose a different approach based on probing the object with spatio-temporally entangled photon pairs. We show that coincidence detection, followed by post-selection on spatially correlated events, allows us to isolate ballistic from scattered bi-photons, thereby enhancing image contrast relative to a single-photon detection strategy, and simultaneously removes events due to background light. Our predictions are obtained via numerical simulations and confirmed by experiments conducted in two configurations where either both photons or only one illuminates the scene. In both scenarios, correlation post-selection shows an improvement in image contrast at the expense of higher shot noise due to the lower number of events. The latter can be partially compensated for by appropriately combining events from several post-selection windows. Our findings will enable extending imaging through scattering media into the quantum imaging framework in settings where adaptive optics, time gating, and spatial filtering are impractical.

We investigate the relationship between two distinct classical approaches to quantum systems: direct simulation from a classical description and sample-based learning from measurement data. While both tasks ultimately aim to reproduce Born-rule statistics, complexity-theoretic results suggest that simulability and learnability need not coincide in general. Here we study this relationship empirically using a fixed deep energy-based generative model trained on measurement samples from controlled families of quantum states. We independently tune two quantum resources associated with classical simulation cost: entanglement, through the bond dimension of random matrix product states, and non-stabilizerness, through the number of T gates in Clifford-dominated circuits. Learning difficulty is characterized using two probes of neural-network complexity: the largest Hessian eigenvalue at convergence and Random Subspace Optimization. For both quantum resources, increasing simulation hardness systematically correlates with sharper loss landscapes and degraded reconstruction performance under constrained capacity. Our results indicate that, within the regimes studied here, classical learnability tracks known simulation complexity measures, suggesting that neural-network training dynamics can provide an empirical probe of quantum computational hardness.

We demonstrate atom–photon entanglement using a single cesium atom trapped in an optical tweezer. Entanglement is generated by resonant excitation and subsequent spontaneous decay, which entangles the atomic Zeeman state with photon polarization. The photon is collected with a high numerical aperture objective (NA = 0.55) and coupled into a single-mode fiber, enabling atom photon measurements and measurement of the Bell-state fidelity. We obtain raw entanglement fidelity of ${\mathcal F} = 0.942(16)$ and inferred fidelity of ${\mathcal F}_{\rm inf} = 0.962(26)$ after correcting independently characterized atom measurement errors. Compared with related free-space experiments using $^{87}$Rb, the multilevel structure of the relevant excited state in $^{133}$Cs requires the use of a single short excitation pulse in each entanglement attempt in order to suppress unwanted re-excitation. These results establish a free-space Cs atom–photon interface and provide a step toward dual-species Rb–Cs quantum networking.

We propose a local notion of strong-to-weak spontaneous symmetry breaking (SW-SSB), through a local one-point fidelity correlator. Compared with the previous definition in terms of a two-point fidelity correlator, our local formulation offers two key advantages: (1) it is easier to detect in large systems: for a system of size $N$ and with ${\rm poly}(N)$ amount of resources, one can detect the local fidelity order up to volume scale $O(\log(N))$; and (2) the local SW-SSB order remains well defined in the thermodynamic limit, where the density matrix itself is not well defined. We show that key features of SW-SSB, including stability under finite-depth symmetric channels and long-range conditional mutual information, persist within this local framework. Our definition is conceptually analogous to local thermalization, as exemplified by pure states obeying the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH). For critical states, the local one-point fidelity correlator defines an interesting class of defect problems. We demonstrate the applicability of the local formulation through several concrete examples, and derive the universal scaling behavior of the local fidelity correlator in a range of critical systems, including ground states of conformal field theories as well as ballistic and diffusive free-fermion metals.

We implement a quantum protocol for prime number identification based on entanglement dynamics, using IBM quantum processors. The method links the primality of an integer to specific Fourier components extracted from the time evolution of entanglement in a bipartite quantum system. To mitigate experimental noise, we introduce a noise-mitigation method based on a global rescaling factor, which is calibrated on a subset of circuits and extrapolated across different configurations. Theoretical support is provided by a new analytical bound for the Fourier modes derived assuming an initial uniform superposition state. This new bound enhances the separation between prime and composite numbers under moderate experimental deviations. These results represent a step toward practical number-theoretic applications on noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices.

We propose that any compact $d$-manifold with elliptic data, $\mathcal{J}$, prepares a quantum state $|\mathcal{J}\rangle$ on its $(d-1)$-boundary $\sigma$. Elliptic data consists of metric and field values, or their conjugates, but not both. No asymptotic structure is required. Inner products and traces are evaluated by the gravitational path integral with closed boundary conditions obtained by gluing elliptic data manifolds. In particular, we give a prescription for the Rényi entropies $S_n$ of a subregion of $\sigma$. In a class of examples, we find that $S_n$ is nonnegative and nonincreasing with $n$, as required for consistency. We obtain the von Neumann entropy by analytic continuation and find agreement with the minimal surface prescription of Bousso and Penington.

Recent cold atom experiments have realized one-dimensional anyons and enabled the tuning of 1D~statistics between bosons and fermions. Here, we analyze the symmetries, integrability, and resulting degeneracies of the underlying anyon-Hubbard model of finite length. Our results reveal a switching between symmetry classes AI, BDI, and CI in dependence on system size, particle number, and boundary conditions, and show that two anyons with periodic boundaries are integrable, while two anyons with open boundary conditions are not. We include a comprehensive analysis of all model limits, especially of interacting bosons and pseudofermions and resolve spectral signatures. We additionally reveal an exactly solvable doublon state that hides in the continuum of scattering states and the exact solution of the nullspace of two noninteracting anyons. The uncovered symmetries shape the fundamental properties of the one-dimensional anyons at hand, and the predicted states are accessible in state-of-the-art experiments.

In this work, we present the methods necessary to price an important set of derivatives on a quantum device while offering an advantage over existing classical methods. The methods developed here, in conjunction with ~\cite{GumaroS2026}, also provide an exponential advantage in requirement of qubits when pricing some option contracts with path-dependent payoff compared to state-of-the-art quantum Monte Carlo methods.

Permutation channels model communication and storage scenarios in which the positional identity of the physical carriers is partially or completely lost, so that the transmitted information is only accessible up to an unknown reordering. Here we show that quantum mechanics can dramatically enhance zero-error communication through such channels. For cyclic reorderings of $n$ $d$-level systems, and in the absence of positional metadata, the number of classical zero-error messages scales asymptotically as $d^n/n$, whereas quantum protocols can fully recover the identity-channel value $d^n$. Ancilla-assisted protocols further increase this number to $d^{2n}/n$, enabling dense coding under positional uncertainty. We also analyze dihedral permutation channels and derive general Pólya-like formulas for the number of distinguishable messages in a broad class of permutation groups. Finally, for the symmetric group $S_n$, corresponding to complete scrambling of the information carriers, the number of distinguishable messages scales as $n^{d-1}$ classically, compared with $n^{d(d+1)/2-1}$ for quantum protocols and $n^{d^2-1}$ in the ancilla-assisted setting. Our results establish a fundamental quantum advantage for communication and storage under positional uncertainty.

We study the time evolution of the entanglement structure of holographic conformal field theories after a local quench. Using the mutual information between two spatial intervals as a probe, we find that $1+1$-dimensional conformal field theories exhibit a rich pattern of dynamical phase transitions. In the large-central-charge limit, mutual information develops sharp non-analyticities at critical times, providing a concrete entanglement-based realization of dynamical quantum phase transitions. We find that the dynamics organize into six distinct phases of mutual information, each controlled by the dominance of a different conformal block, or equivalently, a different holographic geodesic configuration. This phase structure goes beyond the standard quasi-particle picture, explaining non-analytic features that are not captured by simple light-cone propagation from the quench points. We further identify a dynamical $D_4$ symmetry acting on the interval endpoints that controls the presence or absence of mutual information. The onset of mutual information is governed by the breaking of this symmetry to a $\mathbb{Z}_2 \times \mathbb{Z}_2$ subgroup, suggesting a symmetry-based characterization of non-equilibrium entanglement dynamics analogous to the role of symmetry in equilibrium critical phenomena. Finally, numerical studies of critical spin chains indicate that finite-$c$ effects smooth out the sharp large-$c$ transitions between different mutual-information phases, while the transitions between phases with and without mutual information appear to remain non-analytic. These results offer a unifying perspective on real-time entanglement dynamics and their critical features in conformal many-body systems.

We present a resource analysis for generating high-fidelity logical magic states on silicon spin-qubit platforms. We consider a range of architectures, including a shuttling-based SpinBus design, a dense nearest-neighbor layout, and a hybrid scheme with shuttling-connected patches. We compare surface, color, and biased error-correcting codes, and analyze the $5\to1$ and $15\to1$ magic-state distillation protocols. Our approach combines bottom-up and top-down methodologies. We construct a hardware-level noise model based on a silicon-processor Hamiltonian with realistic parameters and $1/f$ non-Markovian noise, enabling estimation of physical resources required to reach target logical error rates. These results are propagated to system-level overheads for applications including spin dynamics, integer factorization, and quantum chemistry. Conversely, we fix target logical fidelities and derive corresponding constraints on hardware performance. Our framework enables systematic evaluation of resource-reduction strategies. We find that optimized control pulses reduce magic-state distillation overhead by 42% compared to standard gate implementations. In addition, silicon-tailored biased error-correcting codes achieve an approximately threefold reduction in physical footprint relative to the surface code, even without physical-bias-preserving operations.

We investigate variational learning of quantum many-body ground states directly in measurement space using autoregressive neural networks. In particular, we represent quantum states via probability distributions of outcomes over a symmetric informationally complete positive operator-valued measure (SIC-POVM). The probability distribution is encoded in the parameters of an autoregressive neural-network-based on gated recurrent units (GRUs). Ground states are obtained by gradient descent that updates the probability distribution to minimize the energy with respect to a given Hamiltonian, while enforcing positivity constraints that ensure that the distribution of measurement outcomes correspond to a physical quantum state. We analyze the role of constraint enforcement (hierarchy of positivity conditions), variety of neural network architectures (multiple layers, dilation, and modifications of input data) in determining the success of this approach. We benchmark our approach on one-dimensional transverse-field Ising model and the Heisenberg model, along with gapping fields, for system sizes up to L=128, illustrating its efficacy across a wide variety of models.

Given a data set with a notion of distance, such as a point cloud in Euclidean space, topological data analysis (TDA) uses techniques from algebraic topology and metric geometry to infer the topology of a hypothetical manifold from which the data are sampled. This inference is achieved by calculating topological invariants, some of which are difficult to compute classically. Meanwhile, quantum TDA utilizes quantum processes to extract the invariants used in making such inferences in an attempt to speed up the computations. Because applying transformations to the original classical dataset could alter the associated topological invariants, we investigate which quantum encodings would best preserve the invariants of the original dataset. This line of inquiry is distinct from standard approaches in quantum TDA, whose typical starting point is not from the classical dataset directly, but rather from the associated combinatorial objects, such as simplicial complexes, which typically demand a lot of resources to construct. We take the first step at a more direct approach by focusing on which quantum encodings acting directly on the data are admissible for applying quantum algorithms to extract topological features from classical datasets.

In mixed states of quantum systems, symmetries come in two types: strong and weak. Furthermore, it has been argued that in quantum many-body systems, strong symmetries can be "spontaneously broken" down to weak symmetries. An issue is that as previously formulated, such "strong-to-weak symmetry breaking" appears to be a fairly non-local effect. In this paper, we show how to understand and diagnose strong symmetries and strong-to-weak symmetry breaking in an explicitly local way. Our main technical tool is a rigorous definition of strong symmetry in the limit of infinite volume, which generalizes the conventional finite-volume definitions, and for which we give several equivalent formulations, including one involving the concept of "local charge coherence". Finally, we introduce von Neumann systems, which in infinite-volume symmetries are intermediate between strong and weak symmetries. We derive a Lieb-Schultz-Mattis type anomaly constraint for von Neumann symmetries (and therefore, in particular, strong symmetries) in quantum spin chains.

Sharp uncertainty relations restricting the values of variances in the position space and in the momentum (wavevector) space are derived. They have the same form $\Delta r\Delta k\ge 5/2$ in the classical theory of light beams, in the quantum theory of coherent light beams, and in the quantum theory of individual photons.

Due to the rapid development of research in the field of quantum physics and quantum information over the past decades, the need to study physical models that can effectively implement quantum computing has increased. An integral part of such models is the environment, which, on the one hand, leads to decoherence in the system, and on the other hand, generates interaction between spins, which in turn allows for the induction of entanglement, which is an integral part of many quantum algorithms. Therefore, it is essential to investigate the impact of the environment on the behavior of quantum systems, enabling the effective implementation of quantum information devices. Here, we consider the time evolution of two spins generated by the interaction through a bosonic environment. The behavior of negativity as a measure of entanglement between spins is studied for different models of environment. As a result, conditions on the parameters of the environment are obtained to achieve the maximum values of entanglement between spins. In this case, environmental models were obtained that minimize the decoherence of the system while maximizing its entanglement. It became possible to derive an effective unitary operator describing the corresponding evolution, since the influence of decoherence was negligibly small.

The hydrodynamic formulation of the Dirac equation has historically been hindered by the inability to close the system of physical variables without resorting to infinite moment hierarchies. We resolve this longstanding issue by developing a fully covariant chiral-hydrodynamic formulation of the Dirac field in curved spacetime. Working in the Weyl representation, we introduce two independent null vectors, $P_L^\mu$ and $P_R^\mu$, which decouple the left and right chiral components. This allows us to define chiral geodesic and stochastic velocities, yielding a closed system of exactly eight real equations that corresponds directly to the Dirac field degrees of freedom. Remarkably, this formulation naturally isolates the spin-orbit coupling $(q/2)\sigma^{\mu\nu}F_{\mu\nu}$ while demonstrating the vanishing of the spin-gravity coupling in torsion-free general relativity. To demonstrate the analytical power of this framework, we specialize to the Schwarzschild geometry. We obtain exact radial solutions in terms of confluent Heun functions and directly compute the quasi-bound state spectrum (fermionic resonances), quasinormal mode frequencies, and greybody factors. Furthermore, by establishing an exact energy balance equation – representing the first law of thermodynamics for Dirac fields – we derive the Hawking radiation flux purely from chiral flux conservation at the event horizon. This work not only provides a closed hydrodynamic theory for spin-1/2 fluids but also establishes a unified framework for analyzing quantum information and fermion dynamics in strong gravitational backgrounds.

Motivated by several open problems in the Afham-Ferrie theory of generalized fidelity, we study polar fidelities, Holevo bases, and unitary factors on \(\Pd\), the cone of \(d\times d\) complex positive definite matrices. We prove that, for every fixed pair \(P,Q\in\Pd\), the one-sided polar fidelities \(x\mapsto F_{P^x}(P,Q)\) and \(x\mapsto F_{Q^x}(P,Q)\), as well as their symmetrization, are nondecreasing on \((-\infty,1]\) and nonincreasing on \([1,\infty)\). Hence the polar paths realize exactly the interval \([\FM(P,Q),\FU(P,Q)]\) on \([-1,1]\), yielding pointwise, generally pair-dependent realizations of all \(z\)-fidelity values with \(z\ge1/2\) and of the Log-Euclidean fidelity as generalized fidelities. We also show that for \(d\ge2\) and \(0<z<1/2\), such realization fails in general, even for interior fidelities. We further solve the fixed-pair Holevo-base equation \(F_R(P,Q)=\FH(P,Q)\), classify all Holevo bases, and classify exactly which unitary factors of generalized fidelity can arise from a base \(R\). These are precisely the unitaries \(W\) for which \(P^{-1/2}Q^{1/2}W\) is similar to a positive definite matrix. This recovers the special-unitary constraint and disproves the global reverse inclusion \(SU(d)\) for \(d\ge2\).

Two-dimensional van der Waals materials exhibit a variety of correlated electron phases, and optical driving offers a promising route toward manipulating them. For example, cavity-enhanced, continuous-wave (CW) Raman excitation has been suggested as a way to coherently and superradiantly populate phonons or charge density waves via material excitons. A steady-state phonon population may be sustained with sufficiently strong electron-phonon coupling to drive novel collective response. We describe an apparatus built to meet the requirements of such an experimental program: Namely, an ultrahigh-vacuum system housing a length-tunable confocal Fabry-Pérot cavity with an intracavity sample, both cryogenically cooled and stabilized against vibrations. A four-axis nanopositioner aligns the sample and supports electrical leads for sample carrier density modulation and transport measurements. Transmission through the multimode cavity enables in situ sample imaging for alignment; the sample is a transition metal dichalcogenide in this work. Operating near the confocal geometry concentrates the optical field into a localized supermode that substantially enhances light-matter coupling. This enhancement is preserved despite the millimeter-scale cavity length, which provides room for sample alignment and exchange.

Microwave devices capable of near-quantum-limited signal processing are essential components in the toolbox of solid-state quantum technologies. The manipulation and readout of single-photon microwave signals through amplifiers, mixers, isolators, etc. must fulfill strict requirements in terms of signal integrity to ensure reliable operation. These active microwave quantum devices operate in complex cryo-electronic setups. This poses challenges to their characterization, since all relevant figures of merit must be expressed at the reference planes of their ports. Even though cryogenic S-parameter calibration is non-trivial, metrological approaches are converging toward rigorous methods. Furthermore, preserving signal integrity must be quantified via absolute noise levels at the ports of the Device Under Test (DUT), requiring an absolute power reference. In this work, we present an in situ noise metrology protocol based on substituting a controllable noise source for the DUT. We motivate this choice by showing that placing the noise source at the DUT input impacts the separability of the calibration from the DUT characteristics. Our proposed architecture combines Planck spectroscopy using a Variable Temperature Stage with Short-Open-Load-Reciprocal scattering-parameter calibration, so that noise and scattering quantities are referred to the same cryogenic reference planes. In this configuration, the readout-chain calibration is separated from the internal dynamics of the DUT. As a demanding use case, we apply the protocol to a Josephson Traveling Wave Parametric Amplifier and extract its gain and input-referred added noise under pump conditions activating multimode nonlinear behavior. This illustrates how our device-agnostic protocol supports portable noise characterization of nonlinear cryogenic microwave devices.