Microwave pump-probe experiments starting with a cold gas of Rb $34s$ atoms confirm that cusped line shapes observed in dipole-dipole broadened microwave transitions are due to atoms which are widely separated and exhibit small dipole-dipole energy shifts. When the experiments are interpreted in terms of a nearest-neighbor model, they demonstrate that it is possible to select pairs of atoms based on their separation and orientation.

Electromagnetically-induced-transparency (EIT) cooling is a ground-state cooling technique for trapped particles. EIT offers a broader cooling range in frequency space compared to more established methods. In this work, we experimentally investigate EIT cooling in strings of trapped atomic ions. In strings of up to 18 ions, we demonstrate simultaneous ground-state cooling of all radial modes in under 1 ms. This is a particularly important capability in view of emerging quantum simulation experiments with large numbers of trapped ions. Our analysis of the EIT cooling dynamics is based on a technique enabling single-shot measurements of phonon numbers, by rapid adiabatic passage on a vibrational sideband of a narrow transition.

We theoretically investigate the behavior of a moving impurity immersed in a sea of fermionic atoms that are confined in a quasiperiodic (bichromatic) optical lattice within a standard variational approach. We consider both repulsive and attractive contact interactions for such a simple many-body localization problem of Fermi polarons. The variational approach enables us to access relatively large systems and therefore may be used to understand many-body localization in the thermodynamic limit. The energy and wave function of the polaron states are found to be strongly affected by the quasirandom lattice potential and their experimental measurements (i.e., via radio-frequency spectroscopy or quantum gas microscope) therefore provide a sensitive way to underpin the localization transition. We determine a phase diagram by calculating two critical quasirandom disorder strengths, which correspond to the onset of the localization of the ground-state polaron state and the many-body localization of all polaron states, respectively. Our predicted phase diagram could be straightforwardly examined in current cold-atom experiments.

Optically trapped nanospheres in high vacuum experience little friction and hence are promising for ultrasensitive force detection. Here we demonstrate measurement times exceeding ${10}^5$ s and zeptonewton force sensitivity with laser-cooled silica nanospheres trapped in an optical lattice. The sensitivity achieved exceeds that of conventional room-temperature solid-state force sensors by over an order of magnitude, and enables a variety of applications including electric-field sensing, inertial sensing, and gravimetry. The particle is confined at the antinodes of the optical standing wave, and by studying the motion of a particle which has been moved to an adjacent trapping site, the known spacing of the antinodes can be used to calibrate the displacement spectrum of the particle. Finally, we study the dependence of the trap stability and lifetime on the laser intensity and gas pressure, and examine the heating rate of the particle in vacuum without feedback cooling.

We report quantum enhancement of Faraday rotation spin noise spectroscopy by polarization squeezing of the probe beam. Using natural abundance Rb in 100 Torr of ${\mathrm{N}}_2$ buffer gas and squeezed light from a subthreshold optical parametric oscillator stabilized 20 GHz to the blue of the $D_1$ resonance, we observe that an input squeezing of 3.0 dB improves the signal-to-noise ratio by 1.5 to 2.6 dB over the combined (power)$\otimes$(number density) ranges (0.5–4.0 mW)$\otimes (1.5\times {10}^{12}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-3}$ to $1.3\times {10}^{13} {\mathrm{cm}}^{-3}$), covering the ranges used in optimized spin noise spectroscopy experiments. We also show that squeezing improves the tradeoff between statistical sensitivity and broadening effects, a previously unobserved quantum advantage.

The mesoscopic characteristics of a quantum dot (QD), which make the dipole approximation (DA) break down, provide a new dimension to manipulate light-matter interaction [M. L. Andersen et al., Nat. Phys. 7, 215 (2011)]. Here we investigate the power spectrum and the second-order correlation property of the fluorescence from a resonantly driven QD placed on a planar metal. It is revealed that due to the pronounced QD spatial extension and the dramatic variation of the triggered surface plasmon near the metal, the fluorescence has a notable contribution from the quadrupole moment. The $\pi$-rotation symmetry of the fluorescence to the QD orientation under the DA is broken. By manipulating the QD orientation and quadrupole moment, the spectrum can be switched between the Mollow triplet and a single peak, and the fluorescence characterized by the antibunching in the second-order correlation function can be changed from the weak to the strong radiation regime. Our result is instructive for utilizing the unique mesoscopic effects to develop nanophotonic devices.

We study the protection of subradiant states by the symmetry of the atomic distributions in the Dicke limit, in which collective Lamb shifts cannot be neglected. We find that antisymmetric states are subradiant states for distributions with reflection symmetry. Continuous symmetry can also be used to achieve subradiance. This study is relevant to the problem of robust quantum memory with long storage time and fast readout.

In this paper, we study entropic uncertainty relations on a finite-dimensional Hilbert space and provide several tighter bounds for multimeasurements, with some of them also valid for Rényi and Tsallis entropies besides the Shannon entropy. We employ majorization theory and actions of the symmetric group to obtain an admixture bound for entropic uncertainty relations for multimeasurements. Comparisons among all bounds for multimeasurements are given in two figures.

Analytical evidence for the physical relevance of generalized Pauli constraints (GPCs) has recently been provided in Schilling et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 040404 (2013)]: Natural occupation numbers $\vec{\lambda }\equiv \left({\lambda }_i\right)$ of the ground state of a model system in the regime of weak couplings $\kappa$ of three spinless fermions in one spatial dimension were found extremely close, at a distance $D_{\min }\sim {\kappa }^8$ to the boundary of the allowed region. We provide a self-contained and complete study of this quasipinning phenomenon. In particular, we develop tools for its systematic exploration and quantification. We confirm that quasipinning in one dimension occurs also for larger particle numbers and extends to intermediate coupling strengths, but vanishes for very strong couplings. We further explore the nontriviality of our findings by comparing quasipinning by GPCs to potential quasipinning by the less restrictive Pauli exclusion principle constraints. This allows us to eventually confirm the significance of GPCs beyond Pauli's exclusion principle.

The near-resonant dressing of cold strontium gases and Bose-Einstein condensates contained in an optical dipole trap (ODT) with the $5s30s{}^{3}S_1$ Rydberg state is investigated as a function of the effective two-photon Rabi frequency, detuning, and dressing time. The measurements demonstrate that a rapid decrease in the ground-state atom population in the ODT occurs even for weak dressing and when well detuned from resonance. This decrease is attributed to Rydberg atom excitation, which can lead to direct escape from the trap and to population of very long-lived $5s5p{}^{3}P_{0,2}$ metastable states. The effects of interactions between Rydberg atoms, including those populated by blackbody radiation, are analyzed. The work has important implications when considering the use of Rydberg dressing to control the interactions between dressed ground-state atoms.

Combining the partial-Fourier-transform approach with Wenzel-Kramers-Brillouin approximation, we theoretically study the strong-field tunneling ionization of diatomic and polyatomic molecules. First we obtain the analytical expression of momentum distribution at the tunnel exit of diatomic molecules, and then we calculate the alignment-dependent ionization rate at different laser intensities and internuclear distances. We show that the internuclear distance has a significant effect on the alignment dependence of the ionization rate. Using this approach, we can also separate the contributions of each atomic center and show the interference effect between them. Finally, we extend this method to a polyatomic molecule, benzene, as an example.

We discuss phase-locking phenomenon at low-level of quanta and quantum statistics for parametrically driven nonlinear Kerr resonator (PDNR). Oscillatory mode of PDNR is created in the process of a degenerate down-conversion of photons under interaction with a train of external Gaussian pulses. We calculate the distribution of photon-number states, the second-order correlation function of photons, the Wigner functions of cavity mode showing two-fold symmetry in phase space, and we analyze formation of phase-locked states in the regular as well as the quantum chaotic regime of the PDNR.

We consider a system consisting of a large individual quantum dot with excitonic resonance coupled to a single-mode photonic cavity in the nonlinear regime when exciton-exciton interaction becomes important. Quantum statistics of coupled exciton-photon modes is studied for two regimes of driving: a monochromatic input field and a field with periodically time-modulated amplitude. We show that sub-Poissonian statistics for both modes are realized in the case of monochromatic driving for transient and steady-state regimes in the presence of decoherence and cavity-induced feedback. We also demonstrate that variances of quantum fluctuations of photon and exciton numbers display oscillations in the case of modulated input. In this case, we show an improvement of the degree of sub-Poissonian statistics and antibunching for both modes at periodic sequence of definite time intervals in comparison with the case of the steady-state regime for monochromatic driving. We also observe the Wigner functions with negative values in phase space for a time-modulated exciton-photon system.

Quantum nonlocality can be revealed “via local contextuality” in qudit-qudit entangled systems with $d>2$, that is, through the violation of inequalities containing Alice-Bob correlations that admit a local description, and Alice-Alice correlations (between the results of sequences of measurements on Alice's subsystem) that admit a local (but contextual) description. A fundamental question to understand the respective roles of entanglement and local contextuality is whether nonlocality via local contextuality exists when the parties have only qubit-qubit entanglement. Here we respond affirmatively to this question. This result further clarifies the connection between contextuality and nonlocality and opens the door for observing nonlocality via local contextuality in actual experiments.

We present a procedure to completely determine the complex modular values of arbitrary observables of pre- and postselected ensembles, which works experimentally for all measurement strengths and all postselected states. This procedure allows us to discuss the physics of modular and weak values in interferometric experiments involving a qubit meter. We determine both the modulus and the argument of the modular value for any measurement strength in a single step, by simultaneously controlling the visibility and the phase in a quantum eraser interference experiment. Modular and weak values are closely related. Using entangled qubits for the probed and meter systems, we show that the phase of the modular and weak values has a topological origin. This phase is completely defined by the intrinsic physical properties of the probed system and its time evolution. The physical significance of this phase can thus be used to evaluate the quantumness of weak values.

Fast entangling gates have been proposed for trapped ions that are orders of magnitude faster than current implementations. We present here a detailed analysis of the challenges involved in performing a successful fast gate. We show that the rotating wave approximation is stable with respect to pulse numbers: the time scale on which we can neglect terms rotating at the atomic frequency is negligibly affected by the number of pulses in the fast gate. In contrast, we show that the laser pulse instability does give rise to a pulse-number-dependent effect; the fast gate infidelity is compounded with the number of applied imperfect pulses. Using the dimensional reduction method presented here, we find bounds on the pulse stability required to achieve two-qubit gate fidelity thresholds.

Estimation of channel parameters is important for extending the range and increasing the key rate of continuous-variable quantum key distribution protocols. We propose an estimator for the channel noise parameter based on the method-of-moments. The method-of-moments finds an estimator from the moments of the output distribution of the protocol. This estimator has the advantage of being able to use all of the states shared between Alice and Bob. Other estimators are limited to a smaller publicly revealed subset of the states. The proposed estimator has a lower variance for the high-loss channel than what has previously been proposed. We show that the method-of-moments estimator increases the key rate by up to an order of magnitude at the maximum transmission of the protocol.

Spectroscopic parameters (line intensity factor, pressure self-broadening, and shifting coefficients) of ${\mathrm{C}}_2{\mathrm{H}}_2$ at $1.4\mu \mathrm{m}$ were accurately measured using a dual-laser approach, based upon the technique of optical phase locking. This generated an absolute frequency scale underneath the absorption spectra. A pair of extended-cavity diode lasers was used. One of them, the probe laser, is forced to maintain a precise frequency offset from a reference laser, which is an optical frequency standard based on noise-immune cavity-enhanced optical heterodyne molecular spectroscopy. Laser-gas interaction takes place inside an isothermal multipass cell that is stabilized at the temperature of the triple point of water. The fidelity in the observation of the shape associated to the $P_e$(14) line of the $2{\nu }_3+{\nu }_5$ band allowed us to measure the spectroscopic parameters, with a global uncertainty for the line strength of 0.22%.

We present an experimental and computational analysis of dissociative double ionization of ${\mathrm{N}}_2$ and CO molecules under electron impact. Experiments are performed at three energies, viz. 1, 3, and 5 keV, in order to observe the effect of impact energy on the dissociative ionization kinematics. We compare the kinetic energy release (KER) distributions of the charge symmetric dissociation channels of ${\mathrm{N}}_2^{2+}$ and ${\mathrm{CO}}^{2+}$ at these impact energies. An approximately linear trend between the transition energy and the expected KER values is inferred on the basis of the calculated potential energy curves of the dications. Experimentally, the normalized differential KER cross sections for these channels show an increasing trend in the low KER range and a decreasing trend in the high KER range as the electron-impact energy is increased. This observation indicates that the transition probability for excitation to different molecular ion states is not only a function of energy difference between the ground and excited states, but also a complicated function of the impact energy. In addition, nature of the observed trend in the differential KER cross sections differs significantly from their differential transition probability, which are calculated using inelastic collision model for fast-electron-impact case.

We use Rabi spectroscopy to explore the low-energy excitation spectrum of a finite-temperature Bose gas of rubidium atoms across the phase transition to a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). To record this spectrum, we coherently drive the atomic population between two spin states. A small relative displacement of the spin-specific trapping potentials enables sideband transitions between different motional states. The intrinsic nonlinearity of the motional spectrum, mainly originating from two-body interactions, makes it possible to resolve and address individual excitation lines. Together with sensitive atom counting, this constitutes a feasible technique to count single excited atoms of a BEC and to determine the temperature of nearly pure condensates. As an example, we show that for a nearly pure BEC of $N=800$ atoms the first excited state has a population of less than five atoms, corresponding to an upper bound on the temperature of $30\mathrm{nK}$.