Since the pioneering works by Landau, Zener, Stückelberg, and Majorana (LZSM), it has been known that driving a quantum two-level system results in tunneling between its states. Even though the ...interference between these transitions is known to be important, it is only recently that it became both accessible, controllable, and useful for manipulating a growing number of quantum systems. Here, we systematically study various aspects of LZSM physics and review the relevant literature, significantly expanding the review article in Ref. 504.
Quantum Simulators Buluta, Iulia; Nori, Franco
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
10/2009, Letnik:
326, Številka:
5949
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Quantum simulators are controllable quantum systems that can be used to simulate other quantum systems. Being able to tackle problems that are intractable on classical computers, quantum simulators ...would provide a means of exploring new physical phenomena. We present an overview of how quantum simulators may become a reality in the near future as the required technologies are now within reach. Quantum simulators, relying on the coherent control of neutral atoms, ions, photons, or electrons, would allow studying problems in various fields including condensed-matter physics, high-energy physics, cosmology, atomic physics, and quantum chemistry.
We propose to create and stabilize long-lived macroscopic quantum superposition states in atomic ensembles. We show that using a fully quantum parametric amplifier can cause the simultaneous decay of ...two atoms and, in turn, create stabilized atomic Schrödinger cat states. Remarkably, even with modest parameters these intracavity atomic cat states can have an extremely long lifetime, up to 4 orders of magnitude longer than that of intracavity photonic cat states under the same parameter conditions, reaching tens of milliseconds. This lifetime of atomic cat states is ultimately limited to several seconds by extremely weak spin relaxation and thermal noise. Our work opens up a new way toward the long-standing goal of generating large-size and long-lived cat states, with immediate interests both in fundamental studies and noise-immune quantum technologies.
Quantum spin Hall effect of light Bliokh, Konstantin Y.; Smirnova, Daria; Nori, Franco
Science,
06/2015, Letnik:
348, Številka:
6242
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Maxwell's equations, formulated 150 years ago, ultimately describe properties of light, from classical electromagnetism to quantum and relativistic aspects. The latter ones result in remarkable ...geometric and topological phenomena related to the spin-1 massless nature of photons. By analyzing fundamental spin properties of Maxwell waves, we show that free-space light exhibits an intrinsic quantum spin Hall effect—surface modes with strong spin-momentum locking. These modes are evanescent waves that form, for example, surface plasmon-polaritons at vacuum-metal interfaces. Our findings illuminate the unusual transverse spin in evanescent waves and explain recent experiments that have demonstrated the transverse spin-direction locking in the excitation of surface optical modes. This deepens our understanding of Maxwell's theory, reveals analogies with topological insulators for electrons, and offers applications for robust spin-directional optical interfaces.
Optical nonlinearity has been widely used to try to produce optical isolators. However, this is very difficult to achieve due to dynamical reciprocity. Here, we show the use of the chiral cross-Kerr ...nonlinearity of atoms at room temperature to realize optical isolation, circumventing dynamical reciprocity. In our approach, the chiral cross-Kerr nonlinearity is induced by the thermal motion of N-type atoms. The resulting cross phase shift and absorption of a weak probe field are dependent on its propagation direction. This proposed optical isolator can achieve more than 30 dB of isolation ratio, with a low loss of less than 1 dB. By inserting this atomic medium in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer, we further propose a four-port optical circulator with a fidelity larger than 0.9 and an average insertion loss less than 1.6 dB. Using atomic vapor embedded in an on-chip waveguide, our method may provide chip-compatible optical isolation at the single-photon level of a probe field.
Superconducting circuits based on Josephson junctions exhibit macroscopic quantum coherence and can behave like artificial atoms. Recent technological advances have made it possible to implement ...atomic-physics and quantum-optics experiments on a chip using these artificial atoms. This Review presents a brief overview of the progress achieved so far in this rapidly advancing field. We not only discuss phenomena analogous to those in atomic physics and quantum optics with natural atoms, but also highlight those not occurring in natural atoms. In addition, we summarize several prospective directions in this emerging interdisciplinary field.
A quantum system weakly coupled to a zero-temperature environment will relax, via spontaneous emission, to its ground-state. However, when the coupling to the environment is ultra-strong the ...ground-state is expected to become dressed with virtual excitations. This regime is difficult to capture with some traditional methods because of the explosion in the number of Matsubara frequencies, i.e., exponential terms in the free-bath correlation function. To access this regime we generalize both the hierarchical equations of motion and pseudomode methods, taking into account this explosion using only a biexponential fitting function. We compare these methods to the reaction coordinate mapping, which helps show how these sometimes neglected Matsubara terms are important to regulate detailed balance and prevent the unphysical emission of virtual excitations. For the pseudomode method, we present a general proof of validity for the use of superficially unphysical Matsubara-modes, which mirror the mathematical essence of the Matsubara frequencies.
We propose a method for the fast generation of nonclassical ground states of the Rabi model in the ultrastrong and deep-strong coupling regimes via the shortcuts-to-adiabatic (STA) dynamics. The ...time-dependent quantum Rabi model is simulated by applying parametric amplification to the Jaynes-Cummings model. Using experimentally feasible parametric drive, this STA protocol can generate large-size Schrödinger cat states, through a process that is ∼10 times faster compared to adiabatic protocols. Such fast evolution increases the robustness of our protocol against dissipation. Our method enables one to freely design the parametric drive, so that the target state can be generated in the lab frame. A largely detuned light-matter coupling makes the protocol robust against imperfections of the operation times in experiments.
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