We investigate theoretically the inner-shell electron effects in strong-field double ionization of Xe by a comparative study with two different three-dimensional semiclassical models, i.e., the widely used helium-like model and an improved Green–Sellin–Zachor (GSZ) model. The enhanced double-ionization signals through sequential ionization and recollision-induced excitation with subsequent field ionization are identified as two origins of the nonstructured pattern in the correlated electron momentum spectrum observed in a recent experiment [Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 103001 (2014)]. The relationship between these enhancements and the inner-shell electrons is revealed by back analysis of the classical trajectories.

In this paper, we explore the spatiotemporal dynamics of spontaneous and stimulated forward Brillouin scattering. This general treatment incorporates the optomechanical coupling produced by boundary-induced radiation pressures (boundary motion) and material-induced electrostrictive forces (photoelastic effects), permitting straightforward application to a range of emerging micro- and nanoscale optomechanical systems. Through a self-consistent fully coupled nonlinear treatment, developed within a general Hamiltonian framework, we establish the connection between the power spectral density of spontaneously scattered light in forward Brillouin interactions and the nonlinear coupling strength. We show that, in sharp contrast to backward Brillouin scattering, noise-initiated stimulated forward Brillouin scattering is forbidden in the majority of experimental systems. In fact, the single-pass gain, which characterizes the threshold for energy transfer in back-scattering processes, is negative for a large class of forward Brillouin devices. Beyond this frequent experimental case, we explore mechanisms for dispersive symmetry breaking that lead to amplification and dynamics reminiscent of backward Brillouin scattering.

We present a full multimode treatment of the interaction of the quantized radiation field with a single two-level atom in a one-dimensional waveguide configuration. Starting with an incident pulse consisting of an arbitrary (finite) number of photons in a general initial state, we derive the equations of motion and a closed-form expression for the shape of the pulse after its interaction with the atom. We then specialize our results to the two-photon case where a number of analytical results can be derived, for both unidirectional and bidirectional systems. We study the effects of different pulse shapes, the manifestations of the entangled, so-called bound state of the two photons, single- and two-photon detection probabilities, and provide simple approximate results for the strong-coupling (or adiabatic, or long-pulse) regime. We also discuss the requirements for a true unidirectional setup, and the application of such a setup to photon sorting proposed by Witthaut, Lukin, and Sørensen [Europhys. Lett. 97, 50007 (2012)].

A metamaterial formed by superconducting circuits or quantum dots can serve as an active lasing medium when coupled to a microwave resonator. For these artificial atoms, in contrast to real atoms, variations in their parameters cannot be avoided. In this paper, we examine the influence of disorder on such a multiatom lasing setup. We find that the lasing process evolves into a self-organized stationary state that is quite robust against disorder. The reason is that photons created by those atoms which are in or close to resonance with the resonator stimulate the emission also of more detuned atoms. Not only the number of photons grows with the number of atoms but also the width of the resonance as a function of the detuning. Similar properties are found for other types of disorder such as variations in the individual coupling. We present relations on how the allowed disorder scales with the number of atoms and confirm it by a numerical analysis. We also provide estimates for the sample-to-sample variations to be expected for setups with moderate numbers of atoms.

A class of derivative nonlinear Schrödinger equation with cubic-quintic-septic-nonic nonlinear terms describing the propagation of ultrashort optical pulses through a nonlinear medium with higher-order Kerr responses is investigated. An intensity-dependent chirp ansatz is adopted for solving the two coupled amplitude-phase nonlinear equations of the propagating wave. We find that the dynamics of field amplitude in this system is governed by a first-order nonlinear ordinary differential equation with a tenth-degree nonlinear term. We demonstrate that this system allows the propagation of a very rich variety of solitary waves (kink, dark, bright, and gray solitary pulses) which do not coexist in the conventional nonlinear systems that have appeared so far in the literature. The stability of the solitary wave solution under some violation on the parametric conditions is investigated. Moreover, we show that, unlike conventional systems, the nonlinear Schrödinger equation considered here meets the special requirements for the propagation of a chirped solitary wave on a continuous-wave background, involving a balance among group velocity dispersion, self-steepening, and higher-order nonlinearities of different nature.

Resonant energy transfer, energy transfer up-conversion, and energy pooling are considered within optical cavities to elucidate the relationship between exciton dynamics and donor-acceptor separation distance. This is accomplished by using perturbation theory to derive analytic expressions for the electric dipole coupling tensors of perfect planar and rectangular channel reflectors—directly related to a number of important energy-transfer processes. In the near field, the separation dependence along the cavity axis is not influenced by the cavity and is essentially the same as for three-dimensional free space. This is in sharp contrast with the reduced sensitivity to separation found in idealized low-dimensional settings. The cavity dynamics only correspond to their reduced-dimensional counterparts in the far field where such excitonic processes are not typically of interest. There is an intermediate regime, though, where sufficiently small cavities cause a substantial decrease in separation sensitivity that results in one component of the dipole-dipole coupling tensor being much larger than those of free space.

We analyze collective properties of $N$-qubit states. In particular, we exhaustively discuss the localization aspect of distributions in the measurement space and introduce the concept of Gaussian states in the macroscopic limit. The effect of local shifts on the localization and Gaussianity is analyzed.

We study the environmentally assisted local transitionless dynamics in closed spin systems driven through quantum critical points. In general the shortcut to adaiabaticity (STA) in quantum critical systems requires highly nonlocal control Hamiltonians. In this work we develop an approach to achieve local shortcuts to adiabaticity (LSTA) in spin chains, using local control fields which scale polynomially with the system size, following universal critical exponents. We relate the control fields to reduced fidelity susceptibility and use the transverse Ising model in one dimension to exemplify our generic results. We also extend our analysis to achieve LSTA in central spin models.

The basic question is addressed of how the space dimension $d$ is encoded in the Hilbert space of $N$ identical fermions. There appears a finite number $N{!}^{d-1}$ of many-body wave functions, called shapes, which cannot be generated by trivial combinatorial extension of the one-dimensional ones. A general algorithm is given to list them all in terms of standard Slater determinants. Conversely, excitations which can be induced from the one-dimensional case are bosonized into a system of distinguishable bosons, called Euler bosons, much like the electromagnetic field is quantized in terms of photons distinguishable by their wave numbers. Their wave functions are given explicitly in terms of elementary symmetric functions, reflecting the fact that the fermion sign problem is trivial in one dimension. The shapes act as vacua for the Euler bosons. They are the natural generalization of the single-Slater-determinant form for the ground state to more than one dimension. In terms of algebraic invariant theory, the shapes are antisymmetric invariants which finitely generate the $N$-fermion Hilbert space as a graded algebra over the ring of symmetric polynomials. Analogous results hold for identical bosons.

The maximally entangled state can be in a mixed state as well as the well-known pure state. Taking the negativity as a measure of entanglement, we study the entanglement dynamics of bipartite, mixed maximally entangled states (MMESs) in multipartite cavity-reservoir systems. It is found that the MMES can exhibit the phenomenon of entanglement sudden death, which is quite different from the asymptotic decay of the pure-Bell-state case. We also find that maximal entanglement cannot guarantee maximal nonlocality, and the MMES does not correspond to the state with maximal measurement-induced nonlocality (MIN). In fact, the value and dynamic behavior of the MIN for the MMESs are dependent on the mixed-state probability. In addition, we investigate the distributions of negativity and the MIN in a multipartite system, where the two types of correlations have different monogamous properties.

We show that a quantum-limited phase-preserving amplifier can act as a which-path information eraser when followed by heterodyne detection. This “beam splitter with gain” implements a continuous joint measurement on the signal sources. As an application, we propose heralded concurrent remote entanglement generation between two qubits coupled dispersively to separate cavities. Dissimilar qubit-cavity pairs can be made indistinguishable by simple engineering of the cavity driving fields providing further experimental flexibility and the prospect for scalability. Additionally, we find an analytic solution for the stochastic master equation, a quantum filter, yielding a thorough physical understanding of the nonlinear measurement process leading to an entangled state of the qubits. We determine the concurrence of the entangled states and analyze its dependence on losses and measurement inefficiencies.

We report calculated elastic integral, differential, and momentum transfer cross sections for electron impact with the tetrahalides ${\mathrm{SiF}}_4$ and ${\mathrm{GeF}}_4$. The cross sections were computed with the Schwinger multichannel method with pseudopotentials in the static-exchange and static-exchange plus polarization approximations and for energies up to 12 eV. Our results are compared with theoretical and experimental results available in the literature, and in general the agreement is quite good. In addition, we report the presence of a Ramsauer-Townsend minimum and of a $T_2$ shape resonance in the integral cross section of ${\mathrm{SiF}}_4$, and the presence of a virtual state and also of a $T_2$ shape resonance in the ${\mathrm{GeF}}_4$ cross section. These features were also observed and discussed by some experiments and calculations.

Recently three-dimensional topological quantum materials with gapless energy spectra have attracted considerable interest in many branches of physics. Besides the celebrated example, Dirac and Weyl points which possess gapless point structures in the underlying energy dispersion, the topologically protected gapless spectrum, can also occur along a ring, named Dirac and Weyl nodal rings. Ultracold atomic gases provide an ideal platform for exploring new topological materials with designed symmetries and dispersion. However, whether Dirac and Weyl rings can exist in the single-particle spectrum of cold atoms remains elusive. Here we propose a realistic model for realizing Dirac and Weyl rings in the single-particle band dispersion of a cold-atom optical lattice. Our scheme is based on a previously experimentally implemented Raman coupling setup for realizing spin-orbit coupling. Without the Zeeman field, the model preserves both pseudo-time-reversal and inversion symmetries, allowing Dirac rings. The Dirac rings split into Weyl rings with a Zeeman field that breaks the pseudo-time-reversal symmetry. We examine the superfluidity of attractive Fermi gases in this model and also find Dirac and Weyl rings in the quasiparticle spectrum.

We observe evidence of first-order superfluid-to-Mott-insulator quantum phase transitions in a lattice-confined antiferromagnetic spinor Bose-Einstein condensate. The observed signatures include the hysteresis effect, significant heatings across the phase transitions, and changes in spin populations due to the formation of spin singlets in the Mott-insulator phase. The nature of the phase transitions is found to strongly depend on the ratio of the quadratic Zeeman energy to the spin-dependent interaction. Our observations are qualitatively understood by the mean field theory and suggest tuning the quadratic Zeeman energy is a new approach to realize superfluid-to-Mott-insulator phase transitions.

We explore the collective excitation of two-species Bose-Einstein condensates (TBECs) confined in quasi-two-dimensional optical lattices. For this we use a set of coupled discrete nonlinear Schrödinger equations to describe the system and we employ Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov theory with the Popov approximation to analyze the quasiparticle spectra at zero temperature. The ground-state geometry, evolution of quasiparticle energies, structure of quasiparticle amplitudes, and dispersion relations are examined in detail. We observe that the TBEC acquires a side-by-side density profile when it is tuned from the miscible to the immiscible phase. In addition, the quasiparticle energies are softened as the system is tuned towards phase separation, but harden after phase separation and mode degeneracies are lifted. In terms of structure, in the miscible phase the quasiparticles have well-defined azimuthal quantum numbers, but that is not the case for the immiscible phase.

The correlated atoms in a tilted optical lattice driven by an ac field are studied within the Hubbard model. By making use of both photon-assisted tunneling and coherent destructive tunneling effects, we can move a pair of strongly correlated atoms in the lattice via manipulating the global amplitude of the driving field. We propose a scheme for creating entanglement between the particle pair and a single particle through interacting oscillations. Our model may provide a new building block for investigating quantum computing and quantum information processing with ultracold atoms in optical lattices.

Traditionally, spectroscopy is performed by examining the position of absorption lines. However, at frequencies near the transition frequency, additional information can be obtained from the phase shift. In this work we consider the information about the transition frequency obtained from both the absorption and the phase shift, as quantified by the Fisher information in an interferometric measurement. We examine the use of multiple single-photon states, NOON states, and numerically optimized states that are entangled and have multiple photons. We find the optimized states that improve over the standard quantum limit set by independent single photons for some atom number densities.

It has been shown that perfect photon absorption can occur in the linear excitation regime of cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED), in which photons from two identical light fields coupled into two ends of the cavity are completely absorbed and result in excitation of the polariton state of the CQED system. The output light from the cavity is totally suppressed by destructive interference and the polariton state can only decay incoherently back to the ground state. Here we analyze perfect photon absorption and the onset of optical bistability in the nonlinear regime of the CQED and show that perfect photon absorption persists in the nonlinear regime of the CQED below the threshold of optical bistability. Therefore perfect photon absorption is a phenomenon that can be observed in both linear and nonlinear regimes of CQED. Furthermore, our study reveals that optical bistability is influenced by input-light interference and can be manipulated by varying the relative phase of the two input fields.