A cross-Kerr interaction produces a phase shift on two modes of light proportional to the number of photons in both modes and is sometimes called cross-phase modulation. Cross-Kerr nonlinearities have many applications in classical and quantum nonlinear optics, including the possibility of a deterministic and all-optical controlled-phase gate. We calculate the one- and two-photon $S$ matrices for fields propagating in a medium where the cross-Kerr interaction is spatially distributed at discrete interaction sites comprised of atoms. For the interactions considered, we analyze the cases where the photons copropagate and counterpropagate through the medium and give a physical interpretation to the differences between the two cases. Finally, we obtain the $S$ matrix in the limit of infinitely long chains, showing that it corresponds to a perfect controlled-phase operation.

We study the phase sensitivity in the conventional SU(2) and nonconventional SU(1,1) interferometers with a coherent and squeezed vacuum input state via quantum Cramer-Rao bound. We explicitly construct the detection scheme that gives the optimal phase sensitivity. For practical purposes, we show that in the presence of photon loss, both interferometers with proper homodyne detections are nearly optimal. We also find that unlike the coherent state and the squeezed vacuum state, the effects of imperfect detector on the phase sensitivity cannot be asymptotically removed for a generic coherent-squeezed state.

The Rabi model, a two-level atom coupled to a harmonic oscillator, can undergo a second-order quantum phase transition (QPT) [M.-J. Hwang et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 180404 (2015)]. Here we show that the Rabi QPT accompanies critical behavior in the higher-energy excited states, i.e., the excited-state QPT (ESQPT). We derive analytic expressions for the semiclassical density of states, which show a logarithmic divergence at a critical energy eigenvalue in the broken symmetry (superradiant) phase. Moreover, we find that the logarithmic singularities in the density of states lead to singularities in the relevant observables in the system such as photon number and atomic polarization. We corroborate our analytical semiclassical prediction of the ESQPT in the Rabi model with its numerically exact quantum mechanical solution.

Discovered in the 19th century, the Brewster effect is known to occur for transverse-magnetic waves in regular optical dielectrics; however, it is believed to arise for transverse-electric (TE) waves only in systems with magnetic responses, i.e., nonunity effective relative permeability. This paper introduces a scheme to realize the TE Brewster effect in a homogeneous dielectric interface without magnetic responses, by adding ultrathin two-dimensional (2D) materials such as graphene. In particular, the effect remains even for waves approaching normal incidence, spanning from terahertz to visible frequencies. In contrast to the conventional Brewster effect, the graphene-assisted TE Brewster effect is asymmetric, and can be achieved only when the incidence is from the higher-refractive-index side. Moreover, graphene layers can tailor a total-internal-reflection dielectric interface into zero reflection, accompanied by perfect absorption. This control over TE waves enabled by ultrathin 2D materials may lead to a variety of applications, such as atomically thin absorbers, polarizers, and antireflection coating.

Multiqubit quantum gates are natural quantum operations derived from various decompositions of quantum evolutions. Recently, linear-depth quantum circuits were proposed for an arbitrary $n$-qubit Toffoli gate with ancillary qubits [M. Saeedi and M. Pedram, Phys. Rev. A 87, 062318 (2013)]. Their circuits are based on an equivalent representation of the not gate regardless of the global phase. However, we find that this equivalence cannot be extended to the controlled-not gate or the $n$-qubit Toffoli gate. By reevaluating their circuits, we argue that their linear-depth quantum circuits could realize the joint operations of an $n$-qubit Toffoli gate and an $n$-qubit phase-flip gate.

We derive sufficient conditions for the memory-kernel governing nonlocal master equation which guarantee a legitimate (completely positive and trace-preserving) dynamical map. It turns out that these conditions provide natural parametrizations of the dynamical map being a generalization of the Markovian semigroup. This parametrization is defined by the so-called legitimate pair—monotonic quantum operation and completely positive map—and it is shown that such a class of maps covers almost all known examples from the Markovian semigroup, the semi-Markov evolution, up to collision models and their generalization.

In this work we study a system that consists of $2M$ matter qubits that interact through a boson sampling circuit, i.e., an $M$-port interferometer, embedded in two different architectures. We prove that, under the conditions required to derive a master equation, the qubits evolve according to effective bipartite $XY$ spin Hamiltonians, with or without local and collective dissipation terms. This opens the door to the simulation of any bipartite spin or hard-core boson models and exploring dissipative phase transitions as the competition between coherent and incoherent exchange of excitations. We also show that in the purely dissipative regime this model has a large number of exact and approximate dark states, whose structure and decay rates can be estimated analytically. We finally argue that this system may be used for the adiabatic preparation of boson sampling states encoded in the matter qubits.

We propose some protocols to implement various classes of bipartite unitary operations on two remote parties with the help of repeater nodes in-between. We also present a protocol to implement a single-qubit unitary with parameters determined by a remote party with the help of up to three repeater nodes. It is assumed that the neighboring nodes are connected by noisy photonic channels, and the local gates can be performed quite accurately, while the decoherence of memories is significant. A unitary is often a part of a larger computation or communication task in a quantum network, and to reduce the amount of decoherence in other systems of the network, we focus on the goal of saving the total time for implementing a unitary including the time for entanglement preparation. We review some previously studied protocols that implement bipartite unitaries using local operations and classical communication and prior shared entanglement, and apply them to the situation with repeater nodes without prior entanglement. We find that the protocols using piecewise entanglement between neighboring nodes often require less total time compared to preparing entanglement between the two end nodes first and then performing the previously known protocols. For a generic bipartite unitary, as the number of repeater nodes increases, the total time could approach the time cost for direct signal transfer from one end node to the other. We also prove some lower bounds of the total time when there are a small number of repeater nodes. The application to position-based cryptography is discussed.

Randomness is an indispensable resource in modern science and information technology. Fortunately, an experimentally simple procedure exists to generate randomness with well-characterized devices: measuring a quantum system in a basis complementary to its preparation. Towards realizing this goal one may consider using atoms or superconducting qubits, promising candidates for quantum information processing. However, their unavoidable interaction with the electromagnetic field affects their dynamics. At large time scales, this can result in decoherence. Smaller time scales in principle avoid this problem, but may not be well analyzed under the usual rotating wave and single mode approximation (RWA and SMA) which break the relativistic nature of quantum field theory. Here, we use a fully relativistic analysis to quantify the information that an adversary with access to the field could get on the result of an atomic measurement. Surprisingly, we find that the adversary's guessing probability is not minimized for atoms initially prepared in the ground state (an intuition derived from the RWA and SMA model).

In this work we explore the validity of employing a modified version of the nonrelativistic structure code civ3 for heavy, highly charged systems, using Na-like tungsten as a simple benchmark. Consequently, we present radiative and subsequent collisional atomic data compared with corresponding results from a fully relativistic structure and collisional model. Our motivation for this line of study is to benchmark civ3 against the relativistic grasp${}^0$ structure code. This is an important study as civ3 wave functions in nonrelativistic $R$-matrix calculations are computationally less expensive than their Dirac counterparts. There are very few existing data for the W LXIV ion in the literature with which we can compare except for an incomplete set of energy levels available from the NIST database. The overall accuracy of the present results is thus determined by the comparison between the civ3 and grasp${}^0$ structure codes alongside collisional atomic data computed by the $R$-matrix Breit-Pauli and Dirac codes. It is found that the electron-impact collision strengths and effective collision strengths computed by these differing methods are in good general agreement for the majority of the transitions considered, across a broad range of electron temperatures.

We study the shift of rotational levels of a diatomic polar molecule due to its van der Waals interaction with a gently curved dielectric surface at temperature $T$, and submicron separations. The molecule is assumed to be in its electronic and vibrational ground state, and the rotational degrees are described by a rigid rotor model. We show that under these conditions retardation effects and surface dispersion can be neglected. The level shifts are found to be independent of $T$, and given by the quantum state averaged classical electrostatic interaction of the dipole with its image on the surface. We use a derivative expansion for the static Green's function to express the shifts in terms of surface curvature. We argue that the curvature induced line splitting is experimentally observable, and not obscured by natural linewidths and thermal broadening.

Total and differential cross sections for mutual neutralization in ${\mathrm{He}}^{+}$ and ${\mathrm{H}}^{-}$ collisions at low to intermediate (0.001 eV to 100 eV) are calculated ab initio and fully quantum mechanically. Atomic final-state distributions and isotope effects are investigated. The theoretical model includes dynamics on eleven coupled states of ${}^2\mathrm{\Sigma }^{+}$ symmetry, where autoionization is incorporated. The potential-energy curves, autoionization widths, and nonadiabatic couplings of electronic resonant states of HeH are computed by combining structure calculations with electron scattering calculations. The nuclear dynamics is studied using a strict diabatic representation of the resonant states. Effects of rotational couplings between ${}^2\mathrm{\Sigma }^{+}$ and ${}^2\mathrm{\Pi }$ electronic states are investigated in the pure precession approximation.

We propose a classical trajectory Monte Carlo method to describe two-center collisions with two active electrons. The approach is based on switching between standard four-body and three-body descriptions and it is therefore easy to implement. We demonstrate the reliability of the approach for fundamental H+H and ${\mathrm{H}}^{+}+{\mathrm{H}}^{-}$ collisions that neither four-body nor three-body classical methods describe satisfactorily.

Diffraction of matter waves is an important demonstration of the fact that objects in nature possess a mixture of particlelike and wavelike properties. Unlike in the case of light diffraction, matter waves are subject to a vacuum-mediated interaction with diffraction obstacles. Here we present a detailed account of this effect through the calculation of the attractive Casimir-Polder potential between a dielectric sphere and an atomic beam. Furthermore, we use our calculated potential to make predictions about the diffraction patterns to be observed in an ongoing experiment where a beam of indium atoms is diffracted around a silicon-dioxide sphere. The result is an amplification of the on-axis bright feature, which is the matter-wave analog of the well-known “Poisson spot” from optics. Our treatment confirms that the diffraction patterns resulting from our complete account of the sphere Casimir-Polder potential are indistinguishable from those found via a large-sphere nonretarded approximation in the discussed experiments, establishing the latter as an adequate model.

We analyze theoretically the quantization of conductance occurring with cold bosonic atoms trapped in two reservoirs connected by a constriction with an attractive gate potential. We focus on temperatures slightly above the condensation threshold in the reservoirs. We show that a conductance step occurs, coinciding with the appearance of a condensate in the constriction. Conductance relies on a collective process involving the quantum condensation of an atom into an elementary excitation and the subsequent quantum evaporation of an atom, in contrast with ballistic fermion transport. The value of the bosonic conductance plateau is strongly enhanced compared to fermions and explicitly depends on temperature. We highlight the role of the repulsive interactions between the bosons in preventing them from collapsing into the constriction. We also point out the differences between the bosonic and fermionic thermoelectric effects in the quantized conductance regime.

In this article, we consider an interesting class of optical and other systems in which the interaction or coupling makes the systems $\mathcal{PT}$ symmetric. We aim to compare their dynamical behaviors with that of the usual $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric systems with intrinsic loss-gain terms. In particular, we focus on the interesting nonreciprocal nature of the $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric systems which has a promising application in optical diodes and optical isolators. We check whether the nonreciprocal nature is common to all $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric systems and, if not, what are the situations under which it can be observed. Due to the recent interest in studying spontaneous symmetry breaking in coupled waveguide systems, we here present such symmetry-breaking bifurcations in certain reciprocal and nonreciprocal $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric systems.

Four standard quantum optics models, that is, the Rabi, Dicke, Jaynes-Cummings, and Tavis-Cummings models, were proposed by physicists many decades ago. Despite their relative simple forms and many previous theoretical works, their physics at a finite $N$, especially inside the superradiant regime, remain unknown. In this work, by using the strong-coupling expansion and exact diagonalization (ED), we study the $Z_2\text{-U}\left(1\right)$ Dicke model with independent rotating-wave coupling $g$ and counterrotating-wave coupling $g^{\prime }$ at a finite $N$. This model includes the four standard quantum optics models as its various special limits. We show that in the superradiant phase, the system's energy levels are grouped into doublets with even and odd parity. Any anisotropy $\beta =g^{\prime }/g\ne 1$ leads to the oscillation of parities in both the ground and excited doublets as the atom-photon coupling strength increases. The oscillations will be pushed to the infinite coupling strength in the isotropic $Z_2$ limit $\beta =1$. We find nearly perfect agreement between the strong-coupling expansion and the ED in the superradiant regime when $\beta$ is not too small. We also compute the photon correlation functions, squeezing spectrum, and number correlation functions that can be measured by various standard optical techniques.

We present a hybrid optomechanical scheme to achieve dynamical squeezing of position quadrature of a mesoscopic mechanical oscillator, that can be externally controlled by classical fields. A membrane-in-the-middle setup is employed, in which an atom in $\mathrm{\Lambda }$ configuration is considered to be trapped on either side of the membrane inside the cavity. We show that a considerable amount of squeezing (beyond the 3-dB limit) can be achieved and maintained at a transient time scale that is not affected by the spontaneous emission of the atom. Squeezing depends upon the initial preparation of atomic states. Further, a strong effective coupling (larger than the relevant decay rates) between the atom and the oscillator can be attained by using large control fields that pump the atom and the cavity. The effects of cavity decay and the phononic bath on squeezing are studied. The results are supported by the detailed analytical calculations.

We study Rydberg atoms modulated by strong radio-frequency (rf) fields with a frequency of 70 MHz. The Rydberg atoms are prepared in a room-temperature cesium cell, and their level structure is probed using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). As the rf field increases from the weak- into the strong-field regime, the range of observed rf-induced phenomena progresses from ac level shifts through increasingly pronounced and numerous rf modulation sidebands to complex state mixing and level crossings with $\mathrm{high}-l$ hydrogenlike states. Weak anharmonic admixtures in the rf field generate clearly visible modifications in the Rydberg EIT spectra. A Floquet analysis is employed to model the Rydberg spectra, and good agreement with the experimental observations is found. Our results show that all-optical spectroscopy of Rydberg atoms in vapor cells can serve as an antenna-free, atom-based, and calibration-free technique to measure rf electric fields and to analyze their higher-harmonic contents.

Vortices and vortex arrays have been used as a hallmark of superfluidity in rotated, ultracold Fermi gases. These superfluids can be described in terms of an effective field theory for a macroscopic wave function representing the field of condensed pairs, analogous to the Ginzburg-Landau theory for superconductors. Here we establish how rotation modifies this effective field theory, by rederiving it starting from the action of Fermi gas in the rotating frame of reference. The rotation leads to the appearance of an effective vector potential, and the coupling strength of this vector potential to the macroscopic wave function depends on the interaction strength between the fermions, due to a renormalization of the pair effective mass in the effective field theory. The mass renormalization derived here is in agreement with results of functional renormalization-group theory. In the extreme Bose-Einstein condensate regime, the pair effective mass tends to twice the fermion mass, in agreement with the physical picture of a weakly interacting Bose gas of molecular pairs. Then we use our macroscopic-wave-function description to study vortices and the critical rotation frequencies to form them. Equilibrium vortex state diagrams are derived and they are in good agreement with available results of the Bogoliubov–de Gennes theory and with experimental data.