Measurement-based synthesis of multiqubit entangled states in superconducting cavity QED

Entangled multiqubit states may be generated through a dispersive collective quantum nondemolition measurement of superconducting qubits coupled to a microwave transmission line resonator. Using the quantum trajectory approach, we analyze the stochastic measurement traces that would be observed in experiments. We illustrate the synthesis of three-qubit W and Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states, and we analyze how the fidelity and the entanglement evolve in time during the measurement. We discuss the influence of decoherence and relaxation, as well as of imperfect control over experimental parameters. We show that the desired states can be generated on time scales much faster than the qubit decoherence rates.