The 100 most-cited articles in Physical Review A, 2021

Quantum computers can be used for supervised learning by treating parametrized quantum circuits as models that map data inputs to predictions. While a lot of work has been done to investigate the practical implications of this approach, many important theoretical properties of these models remain unknown. Here, we investigate how the strategy with which data are encoded into the model influences the expressive power of parametrized quantum circuits as function approximators. We show that one can naturally write a quantum model as a partial Fourier series in the data, where the accessible frequencies are determined by the nature of the data-encoding gates in the circuit. By repeating simple data-encoding gates multiple times, quantum models can access increasingly rich frequency spectra. We show that there exist quantum models which can realize all possible sets of Fourier coefficients, and therefore, if the accessible frequency spectrum is asymptotically rich enough, such models are universal function approximators.

Reducing measurement errors in multiqubit quantum devices is critical for performing any quantum algorithm. Here we show how to mitigate measurement errors by a classical postprocessing of the measured outcomes. Our techniques apply to any experiment where measurement outcomes are used for computing expected values of observables. Two error-mitigation schemes are presented based on tensor product and correlated Markovian noise models. Error rates parametrizing these noise models can be extracted from the measurement calibration data using a simple formula. Error mitigation is achieved by applying the inverse noise matrix to a probability vector that represents the outcomes of a noisy measurement. The error-mitigation overhead, including the number of measurements and the cost of the classical postprocessing, is exponential in $\ensuremath{\epsilon}n$, where $\ensuremath{\epsilon}$ is the maximum error rate and $n$ is the number of qubits. We report experimental demonstration of our error-mitigation methods on IBM Quantum devices using stabilizer measurements for graph states with…

We propose a quantum algorithm to solve systems of nonlinear differential equations. Using a quantum feature map encoding, we define functions as expectation values of parametrized quantum circuits. We use automatic differentiation to represent function derivatives in an analytical form as differentiable quantum circuits (DQCs), thus avoiding inaccurate finite difference procedures for calculating gradients. We describe a hybrid quantum-classical workflow where DQCs are trained to satisfy differential equations and specified boundary conditions. As a particular example setting, we show how this approach can implement a spectral method for solving differential equations in a high-dimensional feature space. From a technical perspective, we design a Chebyshev quantum feature map that offers a powerful basis set of fitting polynomials and possesses rich expressivity. We simulate the algorithm to solve an instance of Navier-Stokes equations and compute density, temperature, and velocity profiles for the fluid flow in a convergent-divergent nozzle.

Engineering light-matter interactions at the quantum level has been central to the pursuit of quantum optics for decades. Traditionally, this has been done by coupling emitters, typically natural atoms and ions, to quantized electromagnetic fields in optical and microwave cavities. In these systems, the emitter is approximated as an idealized dipole, as its physical size is orders of magnitude smaller than the wavelength of light. Recently, artificial atoms made from superconducting circuits have enabled new frontiers in light-matter coupling, including the study of ``giant'' atoms which cannot be approximated as simple dipoles. Here, we explore an implementation of a giant artificial atom, formed from a transmon qubit coupled to propagating microwaves at multiple points along an open transmission line. The nature of this coupling allows the qubit radiation field to interfere with itself, leading to some striking giant-atom effects. For instance, we observe strong frequency-dependent couplings of the qubit energy levels to the electromagnetic modes of the transmission line. Combined…

The authors show how to evaluate, with near-term quantum computers, high-order derivatives of expectation values with respect to the variational parameters of quantum circuits. The authors also study how such derivatives are affected by statistical noise. Their theoretical results are then tested with both numerical simulations and experiments.

Quantum signal processing (QSP) is a powerful quantum algorithm to exactly implement matrix polynomials on quantum computers. Asymptotic analysis of quantum algorithms based on QSP has shown that asymptotically optimal results can in principle be obtained for a range of tasks, such as Hamiltonian simulation and the quantum linear system problem. A further benefit of QSP is that it uses a minimal number of ancilla qubits, which facilitates its implementation on near-to-intermediate term quantum architectures. However, there is so far no classically stable algorithm allowing computation of the phase factors that are needed to build QSP circuits. Existing methods require the use of variable precision arithmetic and can only be applied to polynomials of a relatively low degree. We present here an optimization-based method that can accurately compute the phase factors using standard double precision arithmetic operations. We demonstrate the performance of this approach with applications to Hamiltonian simulation, eigenvalue filtering, and quantum linear system problems. Our numerical…

The Poisson equation has wide applications in many areas of science and engineering. Although there are some quantum algorithms that can efficiently solve the Poisson equation, they generally require a fault-tolerant quantum computer, which is beyond the current technology. We propose a variational quantum algorithm (VQA) to solve the Poisson equation, which can be executed on noisy intermediate-scale quantum devices. In detail, we first adopt the finite-difference method to transform the Poisson equation into a linear system. Then, according to the special structure of the linear system, we find an explicit tensor product decomposition, with only $(2{log}_{2}n+1)$ items, of its coefficient matrix under a specific set of simple operators, where $n$ is the dimension of the coefficient matrix. This implies that the proposed VQA needs fewer quantum measurements, which dramatically reduces the required quantum resources. Additionally, we design observables to efficiently evaluate the expectation values of the simple operators on a quantum computer. Numerical experiments demonstrate that…

Noise dominates every aspect of near-term quantum computers, rendering it exceedingly difficult to carry out even small computations. In this paper we are concerned with the modeling of noise in noisy intermediate-scale quantum computers. We focus on three error groups that represent the main sources of noise during a computation and present quantum channels that model each source. We engineer a noise model that combines all three noise channels and simulates the evolution of the quantum computer using its calibrated error rates. We run various experiments of our model, showcasing its behavior compared to other noise models and an IBM quantum computer. We find that our model provides a better approximation of the quantum computer's behavior than the other models. Following this, we use a genetic algorithm to optimize the parameters used by our noise model, bringing the behavior of the model even closer to the quantum computer. Finally, a comparison between the pre- and postoptimization parameters reveals that, according to our model, certain operations can be more or less erroneous…

We investigate the performance of a quantum battery exposed to local Markovian and non-Markovian dephasing noises. The battery is initially prepared as the ground state of a one-dimensional transverse $XY$ model with open boundary condition and is charged (discharged) via interactions with local bosonic reservoirs. We show that in the transient regime, the quantum battery (QB) can store energy faster and has a higher maximum extractable work, quantified via ergotropy, when it is affected by local phase-flip or bit-flip Markovian noise compared to the case when there is no noise in the system. In both the charging and discharging processes, we report the enhancement in work output as well as in ergotropy when all the spins are affected by a non-Markovian Ohmic bath in both the transient and the steady-state regimes, thereby showing a counterintuitive advantage of decoherence in the QB. In both Markovian and non-Markovian cases, we identify the system parameters and the corresponding noise models which lead to maximum enhancement of work output and ergotropy. Moreover, we show that…

We investigate the localization and topological transitions in a one-dimensional (interacting) non-Hermitian quasiperiodic lattice, which is described by a generalized Aubry-Andr\'e-Harper model with irrational modulations in the off-diagonal hopping and on-site potential and with non-Hermiticities from the nonreciprocal hopping and complex potential phase. For noninteracting cases, we reveal that the nonreciprocal hopping (the complex potential phase) can enlarge the delocalization (localization) region in the phase diagrams spanned by two quasiperiodic modulation strengths. We show that the localization transition is always accompanied by a topological phase transition characterized the winding numbers of eigenenergies in three different non-Hermitian cases. Moreover, we find that a real-complex eigenenergy transition in the energy spectrum coincides with (occurs before) these two phase transitions in the nonreciprocal (complex potential) case, while the real-complex transition is absent with the coexistence of the two non-Hermiticities. For interacting spinless fermions, we…

Complex numbers are widely used in both classical and quantum physics and are indispensable components for describing quantum systems and their dynamical behavior. Recently, the resource theory of imaginarity has been introduced, allowing for a systematic study of complex numbers in quantum mechanics and quantum information theory. In this work we develop theoretical methods for the resource theory of imaginarity, motivated by recent progress within theories of entanglement and coherence. We investigate imaginarity quantification, focusing on the geometric imaginarity and the robustness of imaginarity, and apply these tools to the state conversion problem in imaginarity theory. Moreover, we analyze the complexity of real and general operations in optical experiments, focusing on the number of unfixed wave plates for their implementation. We also discuss the role of imaginarity for local state discrimination, proving that any pair of real orthogonal pure states can be discriminated via local real operations and classical communication. Our study reveals the significance of complex…

A quantum battery is a temporary energy-storage system. We construct a quantum battery model of an $N$-spin chain with nearest-neighbor hopping interaction and investigate the quantum battery's charging process. We obtain the maximum energy in the quantum battery charged by a coherent cavity driving field or a thermal heat bath. We confirm that for a finite-length spin chain, thermal charging results in a nonzero ergotropy, contradicting a previous result: An incoherent heat source cannot charge a single-spin quantum battery. The nearest-neighbor hopping interaction induces energy-band splitting, enhancing the energy storage and the ergotropy of the quantum battery. We find a critical point in the energy and ergotropy resulting from the ground-state quantum phase transition after which the energy significantly enhances. Finally, we also find that disorder increases the energy of the quantum battery.

We propose a high-rate generation method of optical Schr\"odinger cat states. Thus far, photon subtraction from squeezed vacuum states has been a standard method in cat-state generation, but its constraints on experimental parameters limit the generation rate. In this paper, we consider the state generation by photon number measurement in one mode of two-mode Gaussian states, which is a generalization of conventional photon subtraction, and derive the conditions to generate high-fidelity and large-amplitude cat states. Our method relaxes the constraints on experimental parameters, allowing us to optimize them and attain a high generation rate. Supposing realistic experimental conditions, the generation rate of cat states with large amplitudes ($|\ensuremath{\alpha}|\ensuremath{\ge}2)$ can exceed megacounts per second, about ${10}^{3}$ to ${10}^{6}$ times better than typical rates of conventional photon subtraction. This rate would be improved further by the progress of related technologies. The ability to generate non-Gaussian states at a high rate is important in quantum computing…

Derivation of a quantum master equation for a system weakly coupled to a bath which takes into account nonsecular effects, but nevertheless has the mathematically correct Gorini-Kossakowski-Lindblad-Sudarshan form (in particular, it preserves positivity of the density operator) and also satisfies the standard thermodynamic properties is a known long-standing problem in theory of open quantum systems. The nonsecular terms are important when some energy levels of the system or their differences (Bohr frequencies) are nearly degenerate. We provide a fully rigorous derivation of such equation based on a formalization of the weak-coupling limit for the general case.

The quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) has become a cornerstone of contemporary quantum applications development. In QAOA, a quantum circuit is trained---by repeatedly adjusting circuit parameters---to solve a problem instance. Several recent findings have reported parameter concentration effects in QAOA and their presence has become one of folklore: while empirically observed, the concentrations have not been defined and analytical approaches remain scarce, focusing on limiting system sizes while neglecting parameter scaling as system size increases. We found that optimal QAOA circuit parameters concentrate as an inverse polynomial in the problem size, providing an optimistic result for improving circuit training. Our results are analytically demonstrated for QAOA at $p=1,2$ (corresponding to 2 and 4 tunable parameters, respectively). The technique is also applicable for higher depths wherein the concentration effect is cross verified numerically. Parameter concentrations allow for training on a fraction $w

We obtain worst-case performance guarantees for $p=2$ and 3 QAOA for MaxCut on uniform 3-regular graphs. Previous work by Farhi et al. obtained a lower bound on the approximation ratio of 0.692 for $p=1$. We find a lower bound of 0.7559 for $p=2$, where worst-case graphs are those with no cycles $\ensuremath{\le}5$. This bound holds for any 3-regular graph evaluated at particular fixed parameters. We conjecture a hierarchy for all $p$, where worst-case graphs have with no cycles $\ensuremath{\le}2p+1$. Under this conjecture, the approximation ratio is at least 0.7924 for all 3-regular graphs and $p=3$. In addition, using an indistinguishable argument we find an upper bound on the worst-case approximation ratio for all $p$, which indicates classes of graphs for which there can be no quantum advantage for at least $p<6$.

We theoretically study the role of the exceptional point (EP) in a non-Hermitian cavity magnomechanical (CMM) system, with a tunable dissipative magnon-photon coupling. We find that the EP emerging in such a system can radically change the properties of photons and phonons. As a result, flexible on-off optical transmission, coherent switching of slow and fast lights, and enhanced mechanical cooling deep into the ground state can be achievable by approaching the EP. Detailed comparisons between this system and its Hermitian counterpart are given. Our results show that EP-assisted CMM devices can serve as tools for applications in optical communications and electromechanical switching or sensing.

The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL) Muon g-2 Experiment has measured the anomalous precession frequency a μ ≡ (g μ -2)/2 of the muon to a combined precision of 0.46 parts per million with data collected during its first physics run in 2018.This paper documents the measurement of the magnetic field in the muon storage ring.The magnetic field is monitored by systems and calibrated in terms of the equivalent proton spin precession frequency in a spherical water sample at 34.7 • C. The measured field is weighted by the muon distribution resulting in ω p , the denominator in the ratio ω a / ω p that together with known fundamental constants yields a μ .The reported uncertainty on ω p for the Run-1 data set is 114 ppb consisting of uncertainty contributions from frequency extraction, calibration, mapping, tracking, and averaging of 56 ppb, and contributions from fast transient fields of 99 ppb.

The author proves that the contemporary variational approach to quantum-enhanced algorithms enables a universal model of quantum computation. This brings the resources required for universal quantum computation closer to contemporary quantum processors.

Based on the selective excitations of the forward and backward propagating resonant guided modes, we achieve $dual$ bound states in the continuum ($dual$ BICs) in a compound grating waveguide structure composed of a four-part periodic grating layer and a waveguide layer. Assisted by the quasi-BIC corresponding to forward propagating resonant guided mode (quasi-BIC 1) and the one corresponding to backward propagating resonant guided mode (quasi-BIC 2), large $positive$ and $negative$ GH shifts can be simultaneously realized. Also, in contrast to the GH shift enhanced by conventional transmission-type resonance, large positive and negative GH shifts assisted by dual quasi-BICs possess 100% reflectance, which can be more easily detected and utilized. Our work provides a route to design GH-shift-based high-performance sensors, wavelength division (de)multiplexers and light storage devices.

The authors propose a nonreciprocal phonon laser in a spinning microwave magnomechanical system, consisting of a spinning microwave resonator coupled to an yttrium-iron-garnet sphere. These results could potentially be useful for manipulating cavity magnomechanical systems through the Fizeau light-dragging effect.

Optical spin-Hall effect (SHE) exhibits many intriguing features as a linearly polarized (LP) light beam strikes an interface at incident angles around the Brewster angle, but the underlying physics remains obscure. Here, we elucidate the physics through reanalyzing this problem employing rigorous calculations and the Berry phase concept. As a circularly polarized (CP) light beam strikes an optical interface, the reflected light beam contains two components, a spin-flipped abnormal mode acquiring geometric phases (thus exhibiting a spin-Hall shift) and a spin-maintained normal mode without such phases. Strengths of these two modes are determined by the incident angle and the optical properties of the interface. Under the LP incidence, however, a spin component inside the reflected light beam must be the sum of normal and abnormal components of reflected light beams corresponding to CP incidences with different helicity, which thus sensitively depends on the incident angle. In particular, at incident angles near the Brewster one, reflection coefficients for two CP components exhibit…

In this work, the authors theoretically investigate high-order harmonic generation from a three-dimensional topological insulator. They find that the surface states enhance the harmonic yield for circularly polarized fields. Such behaviors could be linked to the conical shape of the energy bands near the Dirac point in the Brillouin zone, as well as the associated interband transition dipole moments that form vortexlike features at the cusp of the cone.

Nonlinear topological photonics, which explores topics common to the fields of topological phases and nonlinear optics, is expected to open up a new paradigm in topological photonics. Here, we demonstrate second-harmonic generation (SHG) via nonlinear interaction of double topological valley-Hall kink modes in all-dielectric photonic crystals (PhCs). We first show that two topological frequency band gaps can be created around a pair of frequencies, ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}$ and $2{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}$, by gapping out the corresponding Dirac points in two-dimensional honeycomb PhCs. Valley-Hall kink modes along a kink-type domain wall interface between two PhCs placed together in a mirror-symmetric manner are generated within the two frequency band gaps. Importantly, through full-wave simulations and mode dispersion analysis, we demonstrate that tunable, bidirectional phase-matched SHG via nonlinear interaction of the valley-Hall kink modes inside the two band gaps can be achieved. In particular, by using Stokes parameters associated with the magnetic part of the valley-Hall…

Recent studies show that hybrid quantum systems based on magnonics provide a new and promising platform for generating macroscopic quantum states involving a large number of spins. Here, we show how to entangle two magnon modes in two massive yttrium-iron-garnet (YIG) spheres using cavity optomagnonics, where magnons couple to high-quality optical whispering gallery modes supported by the YIG sphere. The spheres can be as large as 1 mm in diameter and each sphere contains more than ${10}^{18}$ spins. The proposal is based on the asymmetry of the Stokes and anti-Stokes sidebands generated by the magnon-induced Brillouin light scattering in cavity optomagnonics. This allows one to utilize the Stokes and anti-Stokes scattering process, respectively, for generating and verifying the entanglement. Our work indicates that cavity optomagnonics could be a promising system for preparing macroscopic quantum states.

We use numerical simulations to demonstrate third-harmonic generation with near-unity nonlinear circular dichroism (CD) and high conversion efficiency $({10}^{\ensuremath{-}2}\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}{\text{W}}^{\ensuremath{-}2})$ in asymmetric Si-on-$\mathrm{Si}{\mathrm{O}}_{2}$ metasurfaces. The working principle relies on the spin-selective excitation of a quasibound state in the continuum, characterized by a very high $(>{10}^{5})$ quality factor. By tuning multimode interference with the variation of the metasurface geometrical parameters, we show the possibility to control both linear CD and nonlinear CD. Our results pave the way for the development of all-dielectric metasurfaces for nonlinear chiro-optical devices with high conversion efficiency.

Nonlinear spectroscopy and microscopy techniques are ubiquitous in a wide range of applications across physics and biology. However, these usually rely on high-powered pulsed laser systems. A promising alternative is to exploit entangled two-photon absorption (ETPA), which can lead to tens of orders of magnitude lower incident fluxes than in conventional two-photon absorption schemes. However, the role of different entangled degrees of freedom in ETPA was unclear following recent experimental studies, when compared to earlier theoretical works. Here, we first demonstrate a linear dependence of the ETPA rate with the photon-pair rate, a clear signature of ETPA, and estimate the values for the concentration-dependent ETPA cross section for Rhodamine 6G. We then investigate the signature of energy-time entanglement and polarization dependence in the ETPA fluorescence rate and demonstrate a strong dependence of the signal on the interphoton delay that reflects the coherence time of the entangled two-photon wave packet.

Preconditioning is the most widely used and effective way for treating ill-conditioned linear systems in the context of classical iterative linear system solvers. We introduce a quantum primitive called fast inversion, which can be used as a preconditioner for solving quantum linear systems. The key idea of fast inversion is to directly block encode a matrix inverse through a quantum circuit implementing the inversion of eigenvalues via classical arithmetics. We demonstrate the application of preconditioned linear system solvers for computing single-particle Green's functions of quantum many-body systems, which are widely used in quantum physics, chemistry, and materials science. We analyze the complexities in three scenarios: the Hubbard model, the quantum many-body Hamiltonian in the plane-wave-dual basis, and the Schwinger model. We also provide a method for performing Green's function calculation in second quantization within a fixed-particle manifold and note that this approach may be valuable for simulation more broadly. Aside from solving linear systems, fast inversion also…

Point-to-point quantum privacy communication over a standard telecommunication fiber link can be implemented by continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV QKD). However, as communication networks develop, the two-party CV QKD system may hardly meet the requirements of secret key sharing of multiple users (at least three users). In this paper, we consider a protocol called quantum secret sharing (QSS) which allows a legitimate user, a so-called dealer, to share a secret key with multiple remote users through an insecure quantum channel. These users can correctly recover the dealer's secret key only when they work cooperatively. We carry out QSS with discretely modulated coherent states (DMCSs) because they are easy to prepare and resilient to losses. An asymptotic security proof for the proposed DMCS-based QSS protocol against both eavesdroppers and dishonest users is presented. Numerical simulation based on a linear bosonic channel shows that the maximal transmission distance of the DMCS-based QSS protocol reaches more than 100 km, and it can be further lengthened by…

We demonstrate the use of multiple atomic-level Rydberg-atom schemes for continuous frequency detection of radio-frequency (RF) fields. Resonant detection of RF fields by electromagnetically induced transparency and Autler-Townes (AT) splitting in Rydberg atoms is typically limited to frequencies within the narrow bandwidth of a Rydberg transition. By applying a second field resonant with an adjacent Rydberg transition, far-detuned fields can be detected through a two-photon resonance AT splitting. This two-photon AT splitting method is several orders of magnitude more sensitive than off-resonant detection using the Stark shift. We present the results of various experimental configurations and a theoretical analysis to illustrate the effectiveness of this multiple level scheme. These results show that this approach allows for the detection of frequencies in a continuous band between resonances with adjacent Rydberg states.

We investigate the single-photon scattering spectra of a giant atom coupled to a one-dimensional waveguide via multiple connection points or a continuous coupling region. Using a full quantum mechanical method, we obtain the general analytic expressions for the single-photon scattering coefficients, which are valid in both the Markovian and the non-Markovian regimes. We summarize the influences of the nondipole effects, mainly caused by the phases accumulated by photons traveling between coupling points, on the scattering spectra. We find that under the Markovian limit, the phase decay is detuning independent, resulting in Lorentzian line shapes characterized by the Lamb shifts and the effective decay rates, while in the non-Markovian regime, the accumulated phases become detuning dependent, giving rise to non-Lorentzian line shapes, characterized by multiple side peaks and total transmission points. Another interesting phenomenon in the non-Markovian regime is the generation of a broad photonic band gap by a single giant atom. We further generalize the case of discrete coupling…

We simulate the effects of different types of noise in state preparation circuits of variational quantum algorithms. We first use a variational quantum eigensolver to find the ground state of a Hamiltonian in the presence of noise and adopt two quality measures in addition to the energy, namely, fidelity and concurrence. We then extend the task to the one of constructing, with a layered quantum circuit ansatz, a set of general random target states. We determine the optimal circuit depth for different types and levels of noise, and observe that the variational algorithms mitigate the effects of noise by adapting the optimized parameters. We find that the inclusion of redundant parameterized gates makes the quantum circuits more resilient to noise. For such overparameterized circuits, different sets of parameters can result in the same final state in the noiseless case, which we denote as parameter degeneracy. Numerically, we show that this degeneracy can be lifted in the presence of noise, with some states being significantly more resilient to noise than others. We also show that the…

Dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates represent a powerful platform for the exploration of quantum many-body phenomena arising from long-range interactions. A series of recent experiments has demonstrated the formation of supersolid states of matter. Subsequent theoretical works have shown that quantum fluctuations can affect the underlying phase transition and may lead to the emergence of supersolids with various lattice structures in dipolar condensates. In this work, we explore the signatures of such different geometries in confined finite condensates. In addition to previously found triangular lattices, our analysis reveals a rich spectrum of states, from honeycomb patterns to striped supersolids. By optimizing relevant parameters, we show that transitions between distinct supersolids should be observable in current experiments.

Parity-time ($\mathcal{PT}$)-symmetric systems, featuring real eigenvalues despite their non-Hermitian nature, undergo spontaneous $\mathcal{PT}$ symmetry breaking at the exceptional point (EP). The phase transition from $\mathcal{PT}$ symmetry to $\mathcal{PT}$ symmetry breaking has shown exotic functionalities in the classical realm, such as loss-induced transparency or lasing revival. This transition is also expected to produce a more unconventional effect in pure quantum $\mathcal{PT}$ devices. Here, we report experimental evidences of spontaneous $\mathcal{PT}$ symmetry breaking in a single cold $^{40}\mathrm{Ca}^{+}$ ion and, more importantly, a counterintuitive effect of perfect quantum coherence occurring at the EP. Excellent agreement between experimental results and theoretical predictions is identified. In view of the versatile role of cold ions in building a quantum memory or processor, our experiment provides an alternative platform to explore $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric physics and utilize pure quantum EP effects.

Quantum emitters interacting with photonic band-gap materials lead to the appearance of qubit-photon bound states that mediate decoherence-free, tunable emitter-emitter interactions. Recently, it has been shown that when these band gaps have a topological origin, like in the photonic Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model, these qubit-photon bound states feature chiral shapes and certain robustness to disorder. In this paper, we consider a more general situation where the emitters interact with an extended SSH photonic model with longer-range hoppings that displays a richer phase diagram than its nearest-neighbor counterpart, e.g., phases with larger winding numbers. In particular, we first study the features of the qubit-photon bound states when the emitters couple to the bulk modes in the different phases, discern their connection with the topological invariant, and show how to further tune their shape through the use of giant atoms, i.e., nonlocal couplings. Then, we consider the coupling of emitters to the edge modes appearing in the different topological phases. Here, we show that…

We revisit the interaction of a first-quantized atomic system (consisting of two charged quantum particles) with the quantum electromagnetic field, pointing out the subtleties related to the gauge nature of electromagnetism and the effect of multipole approximations. We connect the full minimal-coupling model with the typical effective models used in quantum optics and relativistic quantum information such as the Unruh-DeWitt (UDW) model and the dipole coupling approximation. We point out in what regimes different degrees of approximation are reasonable and in what cases effective models need to be refined to capture the features of the light-matter interaction. This is particularly important when considering the center of mass (COM) of the atom as a quantum system that can be delocalized over multiple trajectories. For example, we show that the simplest UDW approximation with a quantum COM fails to capture crucial R\"ontgen terms coupling COM and internal atomic degrees of freedom with each other and the field. Finally we show how effective dipole interaction models can be…

We study single-photon scattering via a giant $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}$-type atom, where both atomic transitions are coupled with the modes of a single waveguide at two separated points. The giant-atom structure introduces phase-dependent interference effects to both elastic (frequency-preserving) and inelastic (frequency-converting) scattering processes, which modify the corresponding decay rates (as well as the transition frequencies) such that the giant atom is capable of accessing the various limits of a small one. The condition of the optimal frequency conversion is also identified and shown to be phase dependent. Moreover, we consider the combination of the giant-atom interference and the Sagnac quantum interference by further inserting a Sagnac interferometer at each of the coupling points. It is shown that the two kinds of interference effects are compatible and play independent roles such that efficient frequency conversion with unit efficiency can be achieved in addition to the phase-dependent phenomena induced by the giant-atom structure.

Due to the limitations of present-day quantum hardware, it is especially critical to design algorithms that make the best possible use of available resources. When simulating quantum many-body systems on a quantum computer, straightforward encodings that transform many-body Hamiltonians into qubit Hamiltonians use $N$ of the available basis states of an $N$-qubit system, whereas ${2}^{N}$ are in theory available. We explore an efficient encoding that uses the entire set of basis states, where terms in the Hamiltonian are mapped to qubit operators with a Hamiltonian that acts on the basis states in Gray code order. This encoding is applied to the commonly studied problem of finding the ground-state energy of a deuteron with a simulated variational quantum eigensolver (VQE). It is compared to a standard ``one-hot'' encoding, and various trade-offs that arise are analyzed. The energy distribution of VQE solutions has smaller variance than the one obtained by the one-hot encoding even in the presence of simulated hardware noise, despite an increase in the number of measurements. The…

Out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs) have been extensively used over the past few years to study information scrambling and quantum chaos in many-body systems. In this paper, we extend the formalism of the averaged bipartite OTOC of Styliaris et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 030601 (2021)] to the case of open quantum systems. The dynamics is no longer unitary but it is described by more general quantum channels (trace preserving, completely positive maps). This ``open bipartite OTOC'' can be treated in an exact analytical fashion and is shown to amount to a distance between two quantum channels. Moreover, our analytical form unveils competing entropic contributions from information scrambling and environmental decoherence such that the latter can obfuscate the former. To elucidate this subtle interplay, we analytically study special classes of quantum channels, namely, dephasing channels, entanglement-breaking channels, and others. Finally, as a physical application we numerically study dissipative many-body spin chains and show how the competing entropic effects can be used to…

We explore both pure and mixed state Floquet dynamical quantum phase transitions (FDQFTs) in the one-dimensional $p$-wave superconductor with a time-driven pairing phase. In the Fourier space the model is recast to the noninteracting quasispins subjected to a time-dependent effective magnetic field. We show that FDQFTs occur within a range of driving frequency without resorting to any quenches. Moreover, FDQFTs appear in the region where quasispins are in the resonance regime. In the resonance regime, the population completely cycles the population between the spin down and up states. Additionally, we study the conditions for the appearance of FDQFTs using the entanglement spectrum and purity entanglement measure. Our results imply that the entanglement spectrum can truly capture the resonance regime where FDQFTs occur. Particularly, the dynamical topological region results in the degeneracy of the entanglement spectrum. It is shown that the boundary of the driven frequency range, over which the system reveals FDQFTs, is signaled by the purity entanglement measure.

Recently, an entropic uncertainty relation for multiple measurements was proposed by Liu et al. [Phys. Rev. A 91, 042133 (2015)]. However, the lower bound of the relation is not always tight with respect to different measurements. Herein, we improve the lower bound of the entropic uncertainty relation for multiple measurements, referred to as a simply constructed bound (SCB). We verify that the SCB is tighter than Liu et al.'s result for arbitrary mutually unbiased basis measurements, which might play a fundamental and crucial role in practical quantum information processing. Moreover, we optimize the SCB by considering mutual information and the Holevo quantity, and propose an optimized SCB. Notably, the proposed bounds are extrapolations of the behavior of two measurements to a larger collection of measurements. It is believed that our findings would shed light on entropy-based uncertainty relations in the multiple measurement scenario and will be beneficial for security analysis in quantum key distributions.

Quantum simulation can help us study poorly understood topics such as high-temperature superconductivity and drug design. However, existing quantum simulation algorithms for current quantum computers often have drawbacks that impede their application. Here, we provide a hybrid quantum-classical algorithm for simulating the dynamics of quantum systems. Our approach takes the ansatz wave function as a linear combination of quantum states. The quantum states are fixed, and the combination parameters are variationally adjusted. Unlike existing variational quantum simulation algorithms, our algorithm does not require any classical-quantum feedback loop and by construction bypasses the barren plateau problem. Moreover, our algorithm does not require any complicated measurements such as the Hadamard test. The entire framework is compatible with existing experimental capabilities and thus can be implemented immediately.

A single-qubit circuit can approximate any bounded complex function stored in the degrees of freedom defining its quantum gates. The single-qubit approximant presented in this work is operated through a series of gates that take as their parametrization the independent variable of the target function and an additional set of adjustable parameters. The independent variable is re-uploaded in every gate while the parameters are optimized for each target function. The output state of this quantum circuit becomes more accurate as the number of re-uploadings of the independent variable increases, i.e., as more layers of gates parameterized with the independent variable are applied. In this work, we provide two proofs of this claim related to both the Fourier series and the universal approximation theorem for neural networks, and we benchmark both methods against their classical counterparts. We further implement a single-qubit approximant in a real superconducting qubit device, demonstrating how the ability to describe a set of functions improves with the depth of the quantum circuit.…

We propose a fast and robust quantum state transfer protocol employing a Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chain, where the interchain couplings vary in time. Based on simple considerations around the terms involved in the definition of the adiabatic invariant, we construct an exponential time-driving function that successfully takes advantage of resonant effects to speed up the transfer process. Using optimal control theory, we confirm that the proposed time-driving function is close to optimal. To unravel the crucial aspects of our construction, we proceed to a comparison with two other approaches: one where the underlying Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chain is adiabatically time-driven and another where the underlying chain is topologically trivial and resonant effects are at work. By numerically investigating the resilience of each protocol to static noise, we highlight the robustness of the exponential driving.

The quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) is a near-term combinatorial optimization algorithm suitable for noisy quantum devices. However, little is known about performance guarantees for $p>2$. A recent work computing MaxCut performance guarantees for 3-regular graphs conjectures that any $d$-regular graph evaluated at particular fixed angles has an approximation ratio greater than some worst-case guarantee. In this work, we provide numerical evidence for this fixed angle conjecture for $p<12$. We compute and provide these angles via numerical optimization and tensor networks. These fixed angles serve for an optimization-free version of QAOA and have universally good performance on any 3-regular graph. Heuristic evidence is presented for the fixed angle conjecture on graph ensembles, which suggests that these fixed angles are ``close'' to global optimum. Under the fixed angle conjecture, QAOA has a larger performance guarantee than the Goemans Williamson algorithm on 3-regular graphs for $p\ensuremath{\ge}11$.

We propose a hybrid cavity magnomechanical system to realize and transfer the bipartite entanglements and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) steerings between magnons, photons, and phonons in the regime of stability of the system. As a parity-time-symmetric-like structure exhibiting the natural magnetostrictive magnon-phonon interaction, our passive-active cavity system can be explored to enhance the robust distant quantum entanglement and generate the relatively obvious asymmetric (even directional) EPR steering that is useful for the task with the highly asymmetric trusts of the bidirectional local measurements between two entangled states. It is of great interest that, based on such a tunable magnomechanical system, the perfect transfer between near and distant entanglements and steerings of different mode pairs is realized by adjusting the coupling parameters; in particular, we propose a perfect transfer scheme of steerings. These transferring processes suggest indeed an alternative method for quantum information storage and manipulation. In addition, the entanglements and steerings…

We propose a method for learning temporal data using a parametrized quantum circuit. We use the circuit that has a similar structure as the recurrent neural network, which is one of the standard approaches employed for this type of machine learning task. Some of the qubits in the circuit are utilized for memorizing past data, while others are measured and initialized at each time step for obtaining predictions and encoding a new input datum. The proposed approach utilizes the tensor product structure to get nonlinearity with respect to the inputs. Fully controllable, ensemble quantum systems such as an NMR quantum computer are a suitable choice of an experimental platform for this proposal. We demonstrate its capability with simple numerical simulations, in which we test the proposed method for the task of predicting cosine and triangular waves and quantum spin dynamics. Finally, we analyze the dependency of its performance on the interaction strength among the qubits in numerical simulation and find that there is an appropriate range of the strength. This work provides a way to…

Spectral clustering is a powerful unsupervised machine learning algorithm for clustering data with nonconvex or nested structures [A. Y. Ng, M. I. Jordan, and Y. Weiss, On spectral clustering: Analysis and an algorithm, in Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 14: Proceedings of the 2001 Conference (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2002), pp. 849--856]. With roots in graph theory, it uses the spectral properties of the Laplacian matrix to project the data in a low-dimensional space where clustering is more efficient. Despite its success in clustering tasks, spectral clustering suffers in practice from a fast-growing running time of $O({n}^{3})$, where $n$ is the number of points in the data set. In this work we propose an end-to-end quantum algorithm performing spectral clustering, extending a number of works in quantum machine learning. The quantum algorithm is composed of two parts: the first is the efficient creation of the quantum state corresponding to the projected Laplacian matrix, and the second consists of applying the existing quantum analog of the $k$-means algorithm…

The Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT)--Autler Townes (AT) splitting proportional to the target microwave electric field strength is an atom-based primary traceable standard in microwave electrometry. The minimum detected microwave electric field is limited when the EIT-AT splitting is indistinguishable. We design a method for auxiliary microwave-dressed Rydberg atoms that extends the electrometric span. We theoretically and experimentally show that the low bound of the direct SI-traceable microwave electric field is extended by two orders of magnitude, which is from several mV/cm to $\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{V}/\mathrm{cm}$ in a room-temperate Rb cell with a modest setup.

Computer-aided engineering techniques are indispensable in modern engineering developments. In particular, partial differential equations are commonly used to simulate the dynamics of physical phenomena, but very large systems are often intractable within a reasonable computation time, even when using supercomputers. To overcome the inherent limit of classical computing, we present a variational quantum algorithm for solving the Poisson equation that can be implemented in noisy intermediate-scale quantum devices. The proposed method defines the total potential energy of the Poisson equation as an expectation of certain observables, which are decomposed into a linear combination of Pauli operators and simple observables. The expectation value of these observables is then minimized with respect to a parameterized quantum state. Because the number of decomposed terms is independent of the size of the problem, this method requires relatively few quantum measurements. Numerical experiments demonstrate the faster computing speed of this method compared with classical computing methods and…

Quantum sensors offer the capability to reach unprecedented precision by operating at the standard quantum limit (SQL) or beyond by using quantum entanglement. But an emerging class of quantum sensors that use Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) to detect rf electric fields have yet to reach the SQL. In this work we prove that this discrepancy is due to fundamental limitations in the EIT probing mechanism. We derive the optimum sensitivity of a three-level quantum sensor based on EIT, or more generally coherent spectroscopy, and compare this to the SQL. We apply a minimal set of assumptions, while allowing strong probing fields, thermal broadening, and large optical depth. We derive the optimal laser intensities and optical depth, providing specific guidelines for sensitive operation under common experimental conditions. Clear boundaries of performance are established, revealing that ladder-EIT cannot achieve the SQL due to unavoidable absorption loss. The results may be applied to any EIT-based quantum sensor, but we particularly emphasize our results' importance…

We study the multimagnon blockade and magnon-induced tunneling in the hybrid ferromagnet-superconductor system, where a magnon mode representing the collective motion of spins in the yttrium iron garnet (YIG) sphere is coupled with a three-level $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}$-type fluxonium qubit via the virtual-photon excitation from the microwave cavity. By appropriately choosing the parameters, the single magnon blockade, multimagnon blockade including two- and three-magnon blockades, and magnon-induced tunneling could be achieved. Fortunately, the switch from magnon blockade to magnon-induced tunneling could be obtained via controlling the overall phase of the loop transition determined by the driving fields. Furthermore, the single-magnon blockade could be transformed into a multimagnon blockade via the phase modulation. The scheme we present may provide an alternative method to manipulate the few-magnon states and have potential applications in quantum communication and quantum information processing.

We introduce action quantum speed limits (QSLs) as a family of bounds on the minimal time to connect two states that, unlike the usual geometric approach, crucially depend on how the path is traversed, i.e., on the instantaneous speed. The two approaches provide consistent bounds when the instantaneous speed is optimized along a fixed path and we demonstrate this explicitly for the case of a thermalizing qubit employing techniques from optimal control theory. In addition, we critically analyze the interpretation of QSLs based on different choices of metric establishing that, in general, these open-system QSL times provide an indication of optimality with respect to the geodesic path, rather than necessarily being indicative of an achievable minimal time.

We consider strong two-body losses in bosonic gases trapped in one-dimensional optical lattices. We exploit the separation of timescales typical of a system in the many-body quantum Zeno regime to establish a connection with the theory of the time-dependent generalized Gibbs ensemble. Our main result is a simple set of rate equations that capture the simultaneous action of coherent evolution and two-body losses. This treatment gives an accurate description of the dynamics of a gas prepared in a Mott insulating state and shows that its long-time behavior deviates significantly from mean-field analyses. The possibility of observing our predictions in an experiment with $^{174}\mathrm{Yb}$ in a metastable state is also discussed.

Motivated by the parton picture of high-energy quantum chromodynamics, we develop a single-particle digitization strategy for the efficient quantum simulation of relativistic scattering processes in a $d+1$-dimensional scalar ${\ensuremath{\phi}}^{4}$ field theory. We work out quantum algorithms for initial state preparation, time evolution, and final state measurements. We outline a nonperturbative renormalization strategy in this single-particle framework.

We investigate coherent single-photon transport in a waveguide-QED structure containing two giant atoms. The unified analytical expressions of the single-photon scattering amplitudes applicable for different topological configurations are derived. The spectroscopic characteristics in different parameter regimes, especially the asymmetric Fano line shapes and the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT)-like spectra, are analyzed in detail. Specifically, we find that the appearance of Fano line shapes is influenced by not only the phase delays between coupling points but also the topologies of system. We also summarize the general conditions for appearance of EIT-like spectra by analyzing the master equation and verify these conditions by checking the corresponding analytical expressions of the scattering spectra. These phenomena may provide powerful tools for controlling and manipulating photon transport in future quantum networks.

The usage of non-Gaussian states to improve the phase sensitivity of interferometers has been studied before. In this paper, we introduce the multiphoton catalysis two-mode squeezed vacuum (MC-TMSV) state as an input of the Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) and study its phase sensitivity with photon-number parity measurement and the influence of photon losses. We also study the statistical properties of the MC-TMSV state in terms of the average photon number, the Wigner function, and the Mandel-$Q$ parameter. Our results show that the MC-TMSV state can exhibit stronger nonclassical characteristics, thereby making the phase sensitivity more precise with either the increase of the photon-catalyzed number or the decrease of the transmissivity. Furthermore, we also consider the effects of photon losses involving external- and internal-loss processes of the MZI, and we find that in both cases the sensitivity with the MC-TMSV state can be significantly better than that with the TMSV state under the same parameters especially in the serious photon losses and small initial squeezing…

We propose a general framework for quantum error mitigation that combines and generalizes two techniques: probabilistic error cancellation (PEC) and zero-noise extrapolation (ZNE). Similar to PEC, the proposed method represents ideal operations as linear combinations of noisy operations that are implementable on hardware. However, instead of assuming a fixed level of hardware noise, we extend the set of implementable operations by noise scaling. By construction, this method encompasses both PEC and ZNE as particular cases and allows us to investigate a larger set of hybrid techniques. For example, gate extrapolation can be used to implement PEC without requiring knowledge of the device's noise model, e.g., avoiding gate-set tomography. Alternatively, probabilistic error reduction can be used to estimate expectation values at intermediate virtual noise strengths (below the hardware level), leading to partially mitigated results at a lower sampling cost. Moreover, multiple results obtained with different noise-reduction factors can be further postprocessed with ZNE to better…

We study the energy-transfer process in quantum battery systems consisting of multiple central spins and bath spins. Here with ``quantum battery'' we refer to the central spins, whereas the bath serves as the ``charger.'' For the single-central-spin battery, we analytically derive the time evolutions of the energy transfer and the charging power with arbitrary number of bath spins. For the case of multiple central spins in the battery, we find the scaling-law relation between the maximum power ${P}_{\mathrm{max}}$ and the number of central spins ${N}_{B}$. It approximately satisfies a scaling law relation ${P}_{\mathrm{max}}\ensuremath{\propto}{N}_{B}^{\ensuremath{\alpha}}$, where scaling exponent $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ varies with the bath spin number $N$ from the lower bound $\ensuremath{\alpha}=1/2$ to the upper bound $\ensuremath{\alpha}=3/2$. The lower and upper bounds correspond to the limits $N\ensuremath{\rightarrow}1$ and $N\ensuremath{\gg}{N}_{B}$, respectively. In thermodynamic limit, by applying the Holstein-Primakoff transformation, we rigorously prove that the upper…

Circular dichroism is the differential rate of absorption of right- and left-handed circularly polarized light by chiral particles. Optical vortices which convey orbital angular momentum (OAM) possess a chirality associated with the clockwise or anticlockwise twisting of their wave front. Here it is highlighted that both oriented and randomly oriented chiral particles absorb photons from twisted beams at different rates depending on whether the vortex twists to the right or the left through a dipole coupling scheme. This is in contrast to previous studies that investigated dipole couplings with vortex modes in the paraxial approximation and showed no such chiral sensitivity to the vortex handedness: only in oriented media where electric quadrupole coupling contributes to optical activity effects due to absorption does such a mechanism exist for paraxial vortices. The distinct difference in the scheme highlighted in this work is that longitudinal fields are taken into account. Due to the vortex dichroism persisting in randomly oriented collections of chiral particles, the mechanism…

We analyze the properties of an impurity in a dilute Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). The quasiparticle residue of a static impurity in an ideal BEC is known to vanish exponentially with increasing particle number, leading to a bosonic orthogonality catastrophe. Here we introduce a conceptually simple variational ansatz for mobile impurities which accurately describes their macroscopic dressing in the regime close to orthogonality, including back-action onto the BEC as well as boson-boson repulsion beyond the Bogoliubov approximation. This ansatz predicts that the orthogonality catastrophe also occurs in the mobile case, whenever the BEC becomes ideal. Finally, we show that our ansatz agrees well with recent experimental results.

Brun, Devetak, and Hsieh [Science 314, 436 (2006)] demonstrated that preshared entanglement between the sender and receiver enables quantum communication protocols that have better parameters than schemes without the assistance of entanglement. Subsequently, the same authors derived a version of the so-called quantum Singleton bound that relates the parameters of the entanglement-assisted quantum-error-correcting codes proposed by them. We present an entanglement-assisted quantum communication scheme with parameters violating this bound in certain ranges. For a fixed transmission rate, our scheme allows one to correct a larger fraction of errors.

Time variations of the proton-to-electron mass ratio are signatures of ultralight dark matter particles coupling to ordinary matter. The authors propose to use laser-cooled SrOH molecules to search for such signals to exquisite precision.

The authors extend the scope of the resource theory of entanglement from bipartite states to bipartite channels, the most general quantum objects that can be shared between two distant parties. A family of measures of dynamical entanglement is defined and a dynamical resource theory of entangled channels is established.

We propose a method named as double-scanning method to improve the key rate of measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD) drastically. In the method, two parameters are scanned simultaneously to tightly estimate the counts of single-photon pairs and the phase-flip error rate jointly. Numerical results show that the method in this work can improve the key rate by $35%--280%$ in a typical experimental setup. Besides, we study the optimization of MDI-QKD protocol with all parameters including the source parameters and failure probability parameters, over symmetric channel or asymmetric channel. Compared with the optimized results with only the source parameters, the all-parameter-optimization method could improve the key rate by about $10%$.

Non-Abelian gauge fields emerge naturally in the description of adiabatically evolving quantum systems having degenerate levels. Here we show that they also play a role in Thouless pumping in the presence of degenerate bands. To this end we consider a photonic Lieb lattice having two degenerate nondispersive modes and show that, when the lattice parameters are slowly modulated, the propagation of the photons bears the fingerprints of the underlying non-Abelian gauge structure. The nondispersive character of the bands enables a high degree of control on photon propagation. Our work paves the way to the generation and detection of non-Abelian gauge fields in photonic and optical lattices.

We study the massive point-vortex model introduced in Richaud et al. [A. Richaud, V. Penna, R. Mayol, and M. Guilleumas, Phys. Rev. A 101, 013630 (2020)], which describes two-dimensional point vortices of one species that have small cores of a different species. We derive the relevant Lagrangian itself, based on the time-dependent variational method with a two-component Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) trial function. The resulting Lagrangian resembles that of charged particles in a static electromagnetic field, where the canonical momentum includes an electromagnetic term. The simplest example is a single vortex with a rigid circular boundary, where a massless vortex can only precess uniformly. In contrast, the presence of a sufficiently large filled vortex core renders such precession unstable. A small core mass can also lead to small radial oscillations, which are, in turn, clear evidence of the associated inertial effect. Detailed numerical analysis of coupled two-component GP equations with a single vortex and small second-component core confirms the presence of such radial oscillations,…

Dissipative Kerr solitons are localized structures that exist in nonlinear optical cavities. They lead to the formation of microcombs---chip-scale frequency combs that could facilitate precision frequency synthesis and metrology by capitalizing on advances in silicon photonics. Previous demonstrations have mainly focused on anomalous dispersion cavities. Notwithstanding, localized structures also exist in the normal dispersion regime in the form of circulating dark pulses, but their physical dynamics is far from being understood. Here, we explore dark-pulse Kerr combs generated in normal dispersion optical microresonators and report the discovery of reversible switching between coherent dark-pulse combs, whereby distinct states can be accessed deterministically. Furthermore, we reveal that the formation of dark-pulse Kerr combs is associated with the appearance of another resonance, a feature that has never been observed for dark pulses and is ascribed to soliton behavior. These results contribute to understanding the nonlinear physics in normal dispersion nonlinear cavities and…

We investigate the interaction of laser pulses carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) with a symmetry-broken ladder-type quantum coupling scheme involving three internal states. A weak probe beam acts on the lower leg of the ladder scheme, while a control beam of higher intensity drives the upper leg. In contrast to natural atoms, such a model with broken symmetry allows generating a sum-frequency signal beam between the most upper and lower quantum states, forming a cyclic closed-loop configuration of light-matter interaction. We propose situations for the efficient transfer of optical vortices to the generated signal beam via a nonlinear three-wave mixing process. It is demonstrated that the exchange process can occur both in the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and the Autler-Townes splitting (ATS) regimes. The transition between the EIT and ATS conversion schemes can smoothly happen by simply tuning the knob of the control field. It is shown that the ATS regime is considerably more favorable than the EIT to achieve maximum energy conversion efficiency between…

We study at the single-photon level the nonreciprocal excitation transfer between emitters coupled with a common waveguide. Non-Markovian retarded effects are taken into account due to the large separation distance between different emitter-waveguide coupling ports. It is shown that the excitation transfer between the emitters of a small-atom dimer can be obviously nonreciprocal by introducing between them a coherent coupling channel with nontrivial coupling phase. We prove that for dimer models the nonreciprocity cannot coexist with the decoherence-free giant-atom structure although the latter markedly lengthens the lifetime of the emitters. In view of this, we further propose a giant-atom trimer which supports both nonreciprocal transfer (directional circulation) of the excitation and greatly lengthened lifetime. Such a trimer model also exhibits incommensurate emitter-waveguide entanglement for different initial states in which case the excitation transfer is, however. reciprocal. We believe that the proposals in this paper are of potential applications in large-scale quantum…

Non-Hermitian dynamics has been widely studied to enhance the precision of quantum sensing; and non-reciprocity can be a powerful resource for non-Hermitian quantum sensing, as nonreciprocity allows to arbitrarily exceed the fundamental bound on the measurement rate of any reciprocal sensors. Here we establish fundamental limits on signal-to-noise ratio for reciprocal and nonreciprocal non-Hermitian quantum sensing. In particular, for two-mode linear systems with two coherent drives, an approximately attainable uniform bound on the best possible measurement rate per photon is derived for both reciprocal and nonreciprocal sensors. This bound is only related to the coupling coefficients and, in principle, can be made arbitrarily large. Our results thus demonstrate that a conventional reciprocal sensor with two drives can simulate any nonreciprocal sensor. This work also demonstrates a clear signature on how the excitation signals affect the signal-to-noise ratio in non-Hermitian quantum sensing.

We have derived the complete formula for the ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}^{7}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}m$ contribution to energy levels of an arbitrary triplet state of the helium atom, performed numerical calculations for the $2{\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}}^{3}S$ and $2{\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}}^{3}P$ states, and thus improved the theoretical accuracy of ionization energies of these states by more than an order of magnitude. Using the nuclear charge radius extracted from the muonic helium Lamb shift, we obtain the theoretical prediction in excellent agreement with the measured $2{\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}}^{3}S\ensuremath{-}2{\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}}^{3}P$ transition energy [X. Zheng et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 263002 (2017)]. At the same time, we observe significant discrepancies with experiments for the $2{\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}}^{3}S\ensuremath{-}3{\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}}^{3}D$ and $2{\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}}^{3}P\ensuremath{-}3{\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}}^{3}D$ transitions.

In this paper, the authors introduce and study a matrix formalism that allows describing the interplay between coherence and orbital angular momentum in partially coherent light beams. The matrix is an analog of the known coherence-polarization matrix, and can be combined with the latter to yield a general characterization of second-order correlations in stationary light fields of arbitrary polarization and orbital angular momentum.

We study the question of how to decompose Hilbert space into a preferred tensor-product factorization without any preexisting structure other than a Hamiltonian operator, in particular the case of a bipartite decomposition into ``system'' and ``environment.'' Such a decomposition can be defined by looking for subsystems that exhibit quasiclassical behavior. The correct decomposition is one in which pointer states of the system are relatively robust against environmental monitoring (their entanglement with the environment does not continually and dramatically increase) and remain localized around approximately classical trajectories. We present an in-principle algorithm for finding such a decomposition by minimizing a combination of entanglement growth and internal spreading of the system. Both of these properties are related to locality in different ways. This formalism is relevant to questions in the foundations of quantum mechanics and the emergence of spacetime from quantum entanglement.

The photoionization yield is analyzed for three-dimensional quantum systems with finite number of discrete spectrum states driven by unipolar subcycle and few-cycle electromagnetic pulse with a duration much less than ``the Kepler period,'' electron oscillation period in the ground state. The yield for such objects---symmetric quantum dots and those described by the zero-radius potential---is compared with the yield for hydrogen atom. In all these cases, the standard Keldysh ionization theory is inapplicable. It is shown that ionization probability is determined by the ratio of the electric pulse area (integral of the electric field strength over time) and its characteristic value inversely proportional to the size of the electron localization, and not by the pulse energy or its maximum intensity.

Higher-order exceptional points (EPs), resulting from non-Hermitian degeneracies, have shown greater advantages in sensitive enhancement than second-order EPs (EP2s). Therefore, seeking higher-order EPs in various quantum systems is important for quantum information science. Here we propose a benchmark cavity optomechanical (COM) system consisting of a mechanical resonator coupled to two cavities via radiation pressure for predicting the third-order exceptional point (EP3). We first give the pseudo-Hermitian condition for the non-Hermitian COM system by taking the bath effects into account. Then we consider the mechanical gain effect, and we find that the pseudo-Hermitian COM system without $\mathcal{PT}$ symmetry can host both EP3 and EP2 for symmetric and asymmetric cavities. In the symmetric case, only EP3 or EP2 can be predicted in the parameter space, but EP3 and EP2 can be transformed into each other by tuning the optomechanical coupling strength in the asymmetric case. We further consider the case of one cavity with gain. For this case, the pseudo-Hermitian COM system is…

We propose a scheme to realize nonreciprocal photon blockade and directional amplification in a spinning resonator with clockwise and counterclockwise traveling modes coupled to a stationary two-level atom. By manipulating the rotational frequency of the resonator, the two-level atom can be resonant with one of the traveling modes and largely detuned from the other one. Nonreciprocal conventional photon blockade is induced by the difference of the detunings between the two-level atom and the optical modes traveling in different directions. Besides that, nonreciprocal unconventional photon blockade (UPB) based on the quantum interference can also be observed in the system. Based on the mechanism for nonreciprocal UPB, directional amplification of the blockaded photons is predicted by driving the spinning resonator and stationary two-level atom simultaneously. Our proposal will be applicable to achieve highly efficient nonreciprocal single-photon devices for applications in chiral quantum information processing.

Quantum key distribution (QKD) allows unconditionally secure communication based on the laws of quantum mechanics rather than assumptions about computational hardness. Optimizing the operation parameters of a given QKD implementation is indispensable in order to achieve high secure key rates. So far, there exists no model that accurately describes entanglement-based QKD with continuous-wave pump lasers. We analyze the underlying mechanisms for QKD with temporally uniform pair-creation probabilities and develop a simple but accurate model to calculate optimal tradeoffs for maximal secure key rates. In particular, we find an optimization strategy of the source brightness for given losses and detection-time resolution. All experimental parameters utilized by the model can be inferred directly in standard QKD implementations, and no additional assessment of device performance is required. Comparison with experimental data shows the validity of our model. Our results yield a tool to determine optimal operation parameters for already existing QKD systems, to plan a full QKD implementation…

We develop a method to characterize arbitrary superpositions of light orbital angular momentum (OAM) with high fidelity by using astigmatic transformation and machine-learning processing. In order to identify each superposition unequivocally, we combine two intensity measurements. The first one is the direct image of the input beam, which is invariant for positive and negative OAM components. The second one is an image obtained using an astigmatic transformation, which allows distinguishing between positive and negative topological charges. Samples of these image pairs are used to train a convolution neural network and achieve high-fidelity recognition of arbitrary OAM superpositions.

In the development of microwave-to-optical (MO) quantum transducers, suppressing added noise induced by the optical excitation remains a major challenge. Here we report an integrated superconducting cavity electro-optic circuit based on single crystalline thin-film aluminum nitride of ultralow microwave and optical losses. We demonstrate efficient bi-directional MO conversion at milli-Kelvin temperatures, with near-ground state microwave thermal excitation $({\overline{n}}_{\mathrm{e}}=0.09\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.06)$, despite the peak power of the optical drive exceeding the cooling power of the dilution refrigerator mixing chamber. Our dynamical study further reveals different light-induced noise generation mechanisms and provides crucial guidelines for optimizing electro-optic circuits in future hybrid microwave-optical quantum links.

We estimate and analyze the error rates and the resource overheads of the repetition cat qubit approach to universal and fault-tolerant quantum computation. The cat qubits stabilized by two-photon dissipation exhibit an extremely biased noise where the bit-flip error rate is exponentially suppressed with the mean number of photons. In a recent work we suggested that the remaining phase-flip error channel could be suppressed using a one-dimensional repetition code. Indeed, using only bias-preserving gates on the cat qubits, it is possible to build a universal set of fault-tolerant logical gates at the level of the repetition cat qubit. In this paper we perform Monte Carlo simulations of all the circuits implementing the protected logical gates, using a circuit-level error model. Furthermore, we analyze two different approaches to implement a fault-tolerant Toffoli gate on repetition cat qubits. These numerical simulations indicate that very low logical error rates could be achieved with a reasonable resource overhead, and with parameters that are within the reach of near-term circuit…

We investigate the rotational properties of a dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate trapped in a toroidal geometry. Studying the ground states in the rotating frame and at fixed angular momenta, we observe that the condensate acts in distinctly different ways depending on whether it is in the superfluid or in the supersolid phase. We find that intriguingly, the toroidal dipolar condensate can support a supersolid persistent current which occurs at a local minimum in the ground state energy as a function of angular momentum, where the state has a vortex solution in the superfluid component of the condensate. The decay of this state is prevented by a barrier that in part consists of states where a fraction of the condensate mimics solid-body rotation in a direction opposite to that of the vortex. Furthermore, we find that superfluid condensates may enter the supersolid phase when forced to take angular momentum. Last, the rotating toroidal supersolid shows hysteretic behavior that is qualitatively different depending on the superfluid fraction of the condensate.

We theoretically investigate supersolidity in three-dimensional dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates. We focus on the role of trap geometry in determining the dimensionality of the resulting droplet arrays, which range from one-dimensional to zigzag, through to two-dimensional supersolids in circular traps. Supersolidity is well established in one-dimensional arrays, and may be just as favorable in two-dimensional arrays provided that one appropriately scales the atom number to the trap volume. We develop a tractable variational model---which we benchmark against full numerical simulations---and use it to study droplet crystals and their excitations. We also outline how exotic ring and stripe states may be created with experimentally feasible parameters. Our work paves the way for future studies of two-dimensional dipolar supersolids in realistic settings.

Optimization of unitary transformations in variational quantum algorithms benefits highly from efficient evaluation of cost function gradients with respect to amplitudes of unitary generators. We propose several extensions of the parameter-shift rule to formulating these gradients as linear combinations of expectation values for generators with general eigenspectra (i.e., with more than two eigenvalues). Our approaches are exact and do not use any auxiliary qubits; instead they rely on a generator eigenspectrum analysis. Two main directions in the parameter-shift-rule extensions are (1) polynomial expansion of the exponential unitary operator based on a limited number of different eigenvalues in the generator and (2) decomposition of the generator as a linear combination of low-eigenvalue operators (e.g., operators with only two or three eigenvalues). These techniques have a range of scalings for the number of needed expectation values with the number of generator eigenvalues from quadratic (for polynomial expansion) to linear and even ${log}_{2}$ (for generator decompositions).…

The task of estimating the ground state of Hamiltonians is an important problem in physics with numerous applications ranging from solid-state physics to combinatorial optimization. We provide a hybrid quantum-classical algorithm for approximating the ground state of a Hamiltonian that builds on the powerful Krylov subspace method in a way that is suitable for current quantum computers. Our algorithm systematically constructs the ansatz by using any given choice of the initial state and the unitaries describing the Hamiltonian. The only task of the quantum computer is to measure overlaps and no feedback loops are required. The measurements can be performed efficiently on current quantum hardware without requiring any complicated measurements such as the Hadamard test. Finally, a classical computer solves a well-characterized quadratically constrained optimization program. Our algorithm can reuse previous measurements to calculate the ground state of a wide range of Hamiltonians without requiring additional quantum resources. Further, we demonstrate our algorithm for solving a class…

Adiabatic gauge potential is the origin of nonadiabatic transitions. In counterdiabatic driving, which is a method of shortcuts to adiabaticity, adiabatic gauge potential can be used to realize identical dynamics to adiabatic time evolution without requiring slow change of parameters. We introduce an algebraic expression of adiabatic gauge potential. Then, we find that the explicit form of adiabatic gauge potential can be easily determined by some algebraic calculations. We demonstrate this method by using a single-spin system, a two-spin system, and the transverse Ising chain. Moreover, we derive a lower bound for fidelity to adiabatic time evolution based on the quantum speed limit. This bound enables us to know the worst case performance of approximate adiabatic gauge potential. We can also use this bound to find dominant terms in adiabatic gauge potential to suppress nonadiabatic transitions. We apply this bound to magnetization reversal of the two-spin system and to quantum annealing of the transverse Ising chain. Adiabatic gauge potential reflects structure of energy…

We propose how to achieve significantly enhanced quantum refrigeration and entanglement by coupling a pumped auxiliary cavity to an optomechanical cavity. We obtain both analytical and numerical results and find optimal-refrigeration and -entanglement conditions under the auxiliary-cavity-assisted (ACA) mechanism. Our method leads to a significant amplification in the net refrigeration rate and reveals that the ACA entanglement has a much stronger noise robustness in comparison with the unassisted case. By appropriately designing the ACA mechanism, an effective mechanical susceptibility can be well adjusted, and a genuine tripartite entanglement of cooling-cavity photons, auxiliary-cavity photons, and phonons can be generated. Specifically, we show that both optomechanical refrigeration and entanglement can be greatly enhanced for the blue-detuned driving of the auxiliary cavity but suppressed for the red-detuned case. Our work paves a way towards further quantum control of macroscopic mechanical systems and the enhancement and protection of fragile quantum resources.

The fundamental question of how to best simulate quantum systems using conventional computational resources lies at the forefront of condensed matter and quantum computation. It impacts both our understanding of quantum materials and our ability to emulate quantum circuits. Here we present an exact formulation of quantum dynamics via factorized generalized measurements which maps quantum states to probability distributions with the advantage that local unitary dynamics and quantum channels map to local quasistochastic matrices. This representation provides a general framework for using state-of-the-art probabilistic models in machine learning for the simulation of quantum many-body dynamics. Using this framework, we have developed a practical algorithm to simulate quantum circuits using an attention network based on a powerful neural network ansatz responsible for the most recent breakthroughs in natural language processing. We demonstrate our approach by simulating circuits that build Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger and linear graph states of up to 60 qubits, as well as a variational…

We investigate the dynamics of a giant atom (or atoms) in a waveguide QED scenario, where the atom couples to the coupled resonator waveguide via two sites. For a single-giant-atom setup, we find that the atomic dissipation rate can be adjusted by tuning its size. For the two-giant-atom system, the waveguide will induce the controllable individual and collective dissipation as well as effective interatom coupling. As a result, we can realize theoretically the robust entangled state preparation and nonreciprocal excitation evolution. We hope our study can be applied in quantum information processing based on a photonic and acoustic waveguide setup.

The authors experimentally prepare and investigate the properties of a strongly interacting imbalanced mixture of bosonic 41K impurities immersed in a Fermi sea of ultracold 6Li atoms. Two configurations have been explored: a thermal regime described by the Fermi polaron picture and a partially Bose-Einstein-condensed regime described by coexisting Fermi and Bose polarons.

We consider discrete-modulation protocols for continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) that employ a modulation constellation consisting of a finite number of coherent states and that use a homodyne- or a heterodyne-detection receiver. We establish a security proof for collective attacks in the asymptotic regime, and we provide a formula for an achievable secret-key rate. Previous works established security proofs for discrete-modulation CV-QKD protocols that use two or three coherent states. The main constituents of our approach include approximating a complex, isotropic Gaussian probability distribution by a finite-size Gauss-Hermite constellation, applying entropic continuity bounds, and leveraging previous security proofs for Gaussian-modulation protocols. As an application of our method, we calculate secret-key rates achievable over a lossy thermal bosonic channel. We show that the rates for discrete-modulation protocols approach the rates achieved by a Gaussian-modulation protocol as the constellation size is increased. For pure-loss channels, our results indicate…

Fault-tolerant implementation of quantum gates is one of preconditions for realizing quantum computation. The platform of Rydberg atoms is one of the most promising candidates for achieving quantum computation. We propose to implement a controlled-$Z$ gate on Rydberg atoms where an amplitude-modulated field is employed to induce Rydberg antiblockade. Gate robustness against the fluctuations in the Rydberg-Rydberg interaction can be largely enhanced by adjusting amplitude-modulated field. Furthermore, we introduce a Landau-Zener-St\"uckelberg transition on the target atom so as to improve the gate resilience to the deviation in the gate time and the drift in the pulse amplitude. With feasible experimental parameters, one can achieve the gate with low fidelity errors caused by atomic decay, interatomic dipole-dipole force, and Doppler effects. Finally, we generalize the gate scheme into multiqubit cases, where resilient multiqubit phase gates can be obtained in one step with an unchanged gate time as the number of qubits increases.

Recently, a theoretical and an experimental protocol known as quantum-gravity-induced entanglement of masses (QGEM) has been proposed to test the quantum nature of gravity using two mesoscopic masses, each placed in a superposition of two locations. If after eliminating all nongravitational interactions between them the particles become entangled, one can conclude that the gravitational potential is induced via a quantum mediator, i.e., graviton. In this paper we explore extensions of the QGEM experiment to multidimensional quantum objects and examine a range of different experiment geometries, in order to determine which would generate entanglement faster. We conclude that when a sufficiently high decoherence rate is introduced, multicomponent superpositions can outperform the two-qubit setup. With low decoherence however, and given a maximum distance $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}x$ between any two spatial states of a superposition, a set of two qubits placed in spatial superposition parallel to one another will outperform all other models given realistic experimental parameters.…

Variational quantum algorithms that are used for quantum machine learning rely on the ability to automatically differentiate parametrized quantum circuits with respect to underlying parameters. Here we propose the rules for differentiating quantum circuits (unitaries) with arbitrary generators. Unlike the standard parameter-shift rule valid for unitaries generated by operators with spectra limited to at most two unique eigenvalues (represented by involutory and idempotent operators), our approach also works for generators with a generic nondegenerate spectrum. Based on a spectral decomposition, we derive a simple recipe that allows explicit derivative evaluation. The derivative corresponds to the weighted sum of measured expectations for circuits with shifted parameters. The number of function evaluations is equal to the number of unique positive nonzero spectral gaps (eigenvalue differences) for the generator. We apply the approach to relevant examples of two-qubit gates, among others showing that the so-called fermionic simulation (fSim) gate can be differentiated using four…

We investigate theoretically nonreciprocal chaos in a spinning optomechanical resonator. We find that under the Sagnac effect induced by spinning a resonator, the chaotic motion can exhibit unidirectional behavior. More specifically, the chaotic motion takes place when the spinning resonator is driven in a chosen direction, whereas it cannot emerge when the driving laser is applied in the opposite direction. Moreover, due to the Sagnac effect, we show that nonreciprocal chaos can resist the backscattering losses. The underlying reason for these phenomena is that the Sagnac effect induces an opposite frequency shift between clockwise and counterclockwise optical modes. Our work opens up a new route to achieve nonreciprocal chaos with the current experimental technology and may provide theoretical guidance for the production of a directional chaos signal generator.

A generic qubit unitary operator affected by depolarizing noise is duplicated and inserted in a quantum switch process, realizing a superposition of causal orders. The characterization of the resulting switched quantum channel is worked out for its action on the joint state of the probe-control qubit pair. The switched channel is then specifically investigated for the important metrological task of phase estimation on the noisy unitary operator, with the performance assessed by the Fisher information, classical or quantum. A comparison is made with conventional techniques of estimation where the noisy unitary is directly probed in a one-stage or two-stage cascade with definite order or several uses of them with two or more qubits. In the switched channel with indefinite order, specific properties are reported, meaningful for estimation and not present with conventional techniques. It is shown that the control qubit, although it never directly interacts with the unitary, can nevertheless be measured alone for effective estimation, while discarding the probe qubit that interacts with…

We study a minimal model that has a driven-dissipative quantum phase transition, namely, a Kerr nonlinear oscillator subject to driving and dissipation. Using mean-field theory, exact diagonalization, and the Keldysh formalism, we analyze the critical phenomena in this system, showing which aspects can be captured by each approach and how the approaches complement each other. Then critical scaling and finite-size scaling are calculated analytically using the quantum Langevin equation. The physics contained in this simple model is surprisingly rich: it includes a continuous phase transition, ${Z}_{2}$ symmetry breaking, $\mathcal{PT}$ symmetry, state squeezing, and critical fluctuations. Due to its simplicity and solvability, this model can serve as a paradigm for exploration of open quantum many-body physics.

The tractability of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model at the large $N$ limit makes it ideal to theoretically study its chaotic non-Fermi liquid behavior and holographic duality properties. We show that the complex SYK Hamiltonian emerges from a system of spinless itinerant fermionic atoms in an optical kagome lattice with a strong disorder. We discuss the regimes supporting flat band spectra in a kagome lattice, where the system can be nondispersive. Random interaction between nondispersive fermions is induced due to randomly distributed immobile impurities in the optical lattice, that impede the presence of itinerant fermions at their locations. We show that the proposed setup represents a maximally chaotic system and is a reliable experimental platform to realize the SYK model and study its exotic behavior. We show that the velocity distribution of the released fermions is a sensitive probe of the many-body Wigner-Dyson spectral density of states while the averaged many-body Loschmidt echo scheme can measure two-point out-of-time-ordered correlation functions of the SYK system.

The authors demonstrate that, under mild measurement assumptions, two qubits cannot both be recycled to generate Bell nonlocality between multiple independent observers on each side. The authors also derive corresponding ``one-sided monogamy relations'' that rule out two-sided recycling for a wide range of parameters and propose a possible experimental test.

A striking feature of non-Hermitian tight-binding Hamiltonians is the high sensitivity of both spectrum and eigenstates to boundary conditions. Indeed, if the spectrum under periodic boundary conditions is point gapped by opening the lattice the non-Hermitian skin effect will necessarily occur. Finding the exact skin eigenstates may be demanding in general, and many methods in the literature are based on recurrence equations for the eigenstates' components. Here we devise a general procedure based on the Green's function method to calculate the eigenstates of non-Hermitian tight-binding Hamiltonians under open boundary conditions. We apply it to the Hatano-Nelson and non-Hermitian Su-Schrieffer-Heeger models and finally we contrast the edge states localization with that of bulk states.