Ultracold polar molecules as qudits
We discuss how the internal structure of ultracold molecules, trapped in the motional ground state of optical tweezers, can be used to implement qudits. We explore the rotational, fine and hyperfine structure of 40Ca19F and 87Rb133Cs, which are examples of molecules with 2Σ and 1Σ electronic ground states, respectively. In each case we identify a subset of levels within a single rotational manifold suitable to implement a four-level qudit. Quantum gates can be implemented using two-photon microwave transitions via levels in a neighboring rotational manifold. We discuss limitations to the usefulness of molecular qudits, arising from off-resonant excitation and decoherence. As an example, we present a protocol for using a molecular qudit of dimension d = 4 to perform the Deutsch algorithm.