A state of an open quantum system is described by a density matrix, whose dynamics is governed by a Liouvillian superoperator. Within a general framework, we explore fundamental properties of both first-order dissipative phase transitions and second-order dissipative phase transitions associated with a symmetry breaking. In the critical region, we determine the general form of the steady-state density matrix and of the Liouvillian eigenmatrix whose eigenvalue defines the Liouvillian spectral gap. We illustrate our exact results by studying some paradigmatic quantum optical models exhibiting critical behavior.

An easily solvable quantum master equation has long been sought that takes into account memory effects induced on the system by the bath, i.e., non-Markovian effects. We briefly review the post-Markovian master equation (PMME), which is relatively easy to solve, and analyze a simple example where solutions obtained exhibit non-Markovianity. We apply the distinguishability measure introduced by Breuer et al., and we also explicitly analyze the divisibility of the associated quantum dynamical maps. We give a mathematical condition on the memory kernel used in the PMME that guarantees non-$CP$-divisible dynamics.

Silicon photonics holds the promise of the miniaturization of quantum communication devices. Recently, silicon chip optical transmitters for quantum key distribution (QKD) have been built and demonstrated experimentally. Nonetheless, these silicon chips suffer substantial phase- and polarization-dependent loss (PDL) which, if unchecked, could compromise the security of QKD systems due to overestimation of the secret key rate. Here, first, we restore the security by regarding single photons without phase and polarization dependence as untagged and secure qubits. Next, by using a postselection technique, we implement a secure QKD protocol that provides a high key generation rate even in the presence of severe phase- and polarization-dependent loss. Our solution is simple to realize in a practical experiment, as it does not require any hardware modification.

Accurate atomic structure calculations of complicated atoms with four or more valence electrons begin to push the memory and time limits of supercomputers. This paper presents a robust method of decreasing the size of ab initio configuration interaction and many-body perturbation theory calculations without undermining the accuracy of the resulting atomic spectra. Our method makes it possible to saturate the CI matrix in atoms with many valence electrons. We test our method on the five-valence-electron atom tantalum and verify the convergence of the calculated energies. We then apply the method to calculate spectra and isotope shifts of tantalum's superheavy analog dubnium. Isotope-shift calculations can be used to predict the spectra of superheavy isotopes which may be produced in astrophysical phenomena.

Positronium collisions with rare-gas atoms are treated using the free-electron-gas approximation for exchange and correlation potential. The results confirm the absence of the Ramsauer-Townsend minimum in elastic scattering cross sections, but show lower cross sections in the lower-energy region when compared to previous pseudopotential calculations. This is explained by a more attractive ab initio correlation potential as compared to the previously used empirical potential. The results in the thermal-energy region agree very well with most swarm measurements for all rare-gas atoms. At higher energies, the results are compared with beam experiments and agreement for heavier rare-gas atoms Ar, Kr, and Xe is found to be very good. For He and Ne, some discrepancies with beam measurements are observed. This is explained by a poorer performance of the free-electron-gas potentials, based on the statistical Thomas-Fermi model, for systems with fewer electrons.

We propose a scheme of fast three-qubit Toffoli quantum gate for ultracold neutral-atom qubits. The scheme is based on Stark-tuned three-body Förster resonances, which we have observed in our recent experiment [D. B. Tretyakov et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 173402 (2017)]. The three-body resonance corresponds to a transition when the three interacting atoms change their states simultaneously, and it occurs at a different dc electric field with respect to the two-body Förster resonance. A combined effect of three-body and two-body Förster interactions in external electric and magnetic fields near the three-body resonance results in complex coherent behavior of the populations and phases of collective states of a three-atom system. We have found that it is possible to obtain experimental conditions suitable to implement three-qubit Toffoli gate with 98.3% fidelity and less than 3 $\mu \mathrm{s}$ duration.

The binding-energy spectrum and electron-momentum spectra of valence orbitals of benzene were measured via a high-resolution electron-momentum spectrometer at incident energies of 600 and 1200 eV plus the binding energy. The experimental momentum profiles were compared with the results from a plane-wave impulse approximation (PWIA) calculation using Dyson orbitals obtained from symmetry-adapted-cluster configuration-interaction calculations. For the ${1e}_{1\mathrm{g}}, {3e}_{2\mathrm{g}}, {3e}_{1\mathrm{u}}$, and ${2b}_{1\mathrm{u}}$ orbitals, the discrepancy between the experimental distributions and the PWIA calculations was tentatively assigned to the distorted wave effects. The current high-resolution electron-momentum spectroscopy results provide the experimental benchmark for rigorous distorted-wave calculations about benzene in the future.

We have studied, experimentally and theoretically, the ionization probability of carbonyl sulfide (OCS) molecules in intense linearly polarized 800-nm laser pulses as a function of the angle between the molecular axis and the laser polarization. Experimentally, the molecules are exposed to two laser pulses with a relative time delay. The first, weaker pulse induces a nuclear rotational wave packet within each molecule such that the ensemble exhibits preferential alignment in the laboratory frame at specific times. The second, stronger pulse induces ionization, and the variation in single and double ionization yields is measured as a function of the delay between the two pulses. The angular dependence of the ionization yield is extracted by fitting the delay-dependent yields to a sum of delay-dependent moments of the rotational wave packet's angular distribution. We compute these same angular-dependent strong-field ionization yields for OCS using time-dependent density-functional theory (TDDFT). For the single-ionization case, our measurements agree well with TDDFT calculations and with previous experiments. Furthermore, analysis of the simulated one-body density reveals that, when averaged over a laser cycle, the resulting hole is delocalized across the molecule for light polarized perpendicular to the molecular axis and mostly localized on the sulfur for parallel polarization. This suggests that preferential molecular alignment is a key parameter for controlling charge migration dynamics initiated by strong-field ionization. For double ionization, the agreement between experiment and theory is less compelling, reflecting the substantial challenges of computing double-ionization yields using TDDFT methods.

We reveal that the $p$-wave superfluid can be realized in a mixture of fermionic and $F=1$ bosonic gases. We derive a general set of the gap equations for gaps in the $s$ and $p$ channels. It is found that the spin-spin Bose-Fermi interactions favor the $p$-wave pairing and naturally suppress the pairing in the $s$ channel. The gap equations for the polar phase of $p$-wave superfluid fermions are numerically solved. Our study suggests a way to realize a pure $p$-wave superfluid in a well-controlled environment of atomic physics.

Semitransparent mirrors are standard elements in light optics for splitting light beams or creating two versions of the same image. Such mirrors do not exist in electron optics, although they could be beneficial in existing techniques such as electron interferometry and holography and could enable alternative electron imaging and spectroscopy techniques. We propose a design for an electron beam splitter using the concept of quantum interaction-free measurement (IFM). The design combines an electron resonator with a weak phase grating. Fast switching gates allow electrons to enter and exit the resonator. While in the resonator, the phase grating transfers intensity from the direct beam into one of the weakly diffracted beams at each pass. To make the beam splitter an efficient two-port splitter, the intensity in all other diffracted beams is blocked by an aperture. The IFM principle minimizes the loss of total intensity by this aperture. We use a scattering matrix method to analyze the performance of the beam splitter, including the effects of inelastic scattering in the phase grating. This design can be generalized to beam splitters for not only electrons, but also photons, neutrons, atoms, and other quantum mechanical systems.

We study the mesoscopic light transport and emission dynamics in a photonic structure made up of monodisperse scatterers as it undergoes an order-disorder structural transition. We have found a prominent tunable gaplike resonance in samples with 100% induced disorder due to the formation of clusters which consist of scatterers with short-range order. The wavelength-dependent decay rate for an emitter embedded inside the photonic structure at different levels of induced disorder is investigated. Surprisingly, the sample with 100% induced disorder exhibits comparable emission rates with 0% induced-disorder sample which indicates a similar local density of photon states (LDOS) variations in both limits of the disorder. The results are interpreted as the effect of LDOS suppression on the emission of light caused by the gaplike resonance which is in accordance with the theory.

In this work an exactly solvable model of $N$ two-level systems interacting with a single bosonic dephasing reservoir is considered to unravel the role played by collective non-Markovian dephasing. We show that phase estimation with entangled states for this model can exceed the standard quantum limit and demonstrate Heisenberg scaling with the number of atoms for an arbitrary temperature. For a certain class of reservoir densities of states decoherence can be suppressed in the limit of a large number of atoms and the Heisenberg limit can be restored for arbitrary interrogation times. We identify the second class of densities when the Heisenberg scaling can be restored for any finite interrogation time. We also find the third class of densities when the standard quantum limit can be exceeded only on the initial stage of dynamics in the Zeno regime.

In the last decade Grice [Phys. Rev. A 84, 042331 (2011)] and Ewert and van Loock [Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 140403 (2014)] found linear optical networks achieving near-unit efficiency unambiguous Bell state discrimination, when fed with increasingly complex ancillary states. However, except for the vacuum ancilla case [Appl. Phys. B 72, 67 (2001)], the optimality of these schemes is unknown. Here, the optimality of these networks is investigated through analytical and numerical means. We show an analytical upper bound to the success probability for interferometers that preserve the polarization of the input photons, saturated by both Grice's and Ewert–van Loock's strategies. Furthermore, such an upper bound links the complexity of their ancilla states with the scaling of their performance. We also show a computer-aided approach to the optimization of such measurement schemes for generic interferometers, by simulating an optical network supplied with various kinds of ancillary input states. We numerically confirm the optimality of known small schemes. We use both methods to investigate other ancilla states, some of them never studied before.

We investigate the time-optimal solution of the selective control of two uncoupled spin 1/2 particles. Using the Pontryagin maximum principle, we derive the global time-optimal pulses for two spins with different offsets. We show that the Pontryagin Hamiltonian can be written as a one-dimensional effective Hamiltonian. The optimal fields can be expressed analytically in terms of elliptic integrals. The time-optimal control problem is solved for the selective inversion and excitation processes. A bifurcation in the structure of the control fields occurs for a specific offset threshold. In particular, we show that for small offsets, the optimal solution is the concatenation of regular and singular extremals.

We theoretically demonstrate the feasibility of separation of various of intracycle interferences in photoelectron momentum distributions (PMDs) with a polarization-gated (PG) pulse constructed by a left-circularly polarized and a time-delayed right-circularly polarized few-cycle laser pulse. By numerically solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation, our simulations show that the intercycle interference pattern is suppressed and a clear interference pattern with rightward curved stripes emerges in PMDs with appropriate laser parameters. This interference pattern can be well reproduced by a quantum-trajectory Monte Carlo (QTMC) simulation and, moreover, with the help of QTMC analysis, up to three types of intracycle interferences can be identified. It is further revealed that the nonvanishing transverse electric-field component in the PG pulse plays an important role in separating various of intracycle interferences in PMDs by properly distributing the interference stripes of electron wave packets, emitted within different time windows, into different momentum regions and suppressing the forward-rescattering photoelectron holography.

Electron-positron pair creation from a vacuum in an oscillating potential with multiple well-barrier structures is investigated by the computational quantum field theory. For the potential with a well-barrier structure, it is found that when the distance between the well and barrier is large, the pair yield is only double of that in a single oscillating potential well. However, when the distance is small, the pair yield is much larger than the sum of the pairs created individually by the tunneling mechanism and by the photon absorption regime. This result is also analyzed by the energy spectrum of created pairs. Furthermore, for the potential with multiple well-barrier structures, it is discovered that pair creation process can be further enhanced by increasing the number of well-barrier structures. This designed field may be used to create observable pairs in the laboratory.

Using a second-order quantum virial expansion, we theoretically study the high-temperature thermodynamics of spin-polarized Fermi gases with $p$-wave interaction confined in two-dimensional harmonic traps. The second virial coefficient is calculated based on the energy spectrum of two harmonically trapped fermions. We find that the two-body spectrum can correctly be evaluated only when the $p$-wave effective range is properly considered, which is referred to as the well-known Wigner's bound. According to the quantum virial expansion, the high-temperature thermodynamics of the system is then discussed based on the two-body solutions. In addition, we investigate the high-temperature behavior of $p$-wave contacts in harmonic traps within the quantum virial expansion, which characterize a set of universal relations of strongly interacting spin-polarized Fermi gases. Our results can provide an accurate benchmark at high temperature for future numerical simulations as well as high-precision thermodynamic measurements of harmonically trapped spin-polarized Fermi gases in two dimensions.

In this paper, we propose a method to create an atomic frequency comb (AFC) in hot atomic vapors using the piecewise adiabatic passage (PAP) technique. Due to the Doppler effect, the trains of pulses used for PAP give rise to a velocity-dependent transfer of the atomic population from the initial state to the target one, thus forming a velocity comb whose periodicity depends not only on the repetition rate of the applied pulses but also on the specific atomic transitions considered. We highlight the advantages of using this transfer technique with respect to standard methods and discuss, in particular, its application to store a single telecom photon in an AFC quantum memory using a high density Ba atomic vapor.

Detecting a change point is a crucial task in statistics that has been recently extended to the quantum realm. A source state generator that emits a series of single photons in a default state suffers an alteration at some point and starts to emit photons in a mutated state. The problem consists in identifying the point where the change took place. In this Rapid Communication, we build a pseudo-on-demand single-photon source to prepare the photon sequences, and consider a learning agent that applies Bayesian inference on experimental data to solve this problem. This learning machine adjusts the measurement over each photon according to the past experimental results and finds the change position in an online fashion. Our results show that the local-detection success probability can be largely improved by using such a machine-learning technique. This protocol provides a tool for improvement in many applications where a sequence of identical quantum states is required.