Employing the relativistic coupled-cluster method, comparative studies of the parity nonconserving electric dipole amplitudes for the $7s{}^{2}S_{1/2}\to 6d{}^{2}D_{5/2}$ transitions in ${}^{210}\mathrm{Fr}$ and ${}^{211}\mathrm{Fr}$ isotopes have been carried out. It is found that these transition amplitudes, sensitive only to the nuclear spin-dependent effects, are enhanced substantially owing to the very large contributions from the electron core-polarization effects in Fr. This translates to a relatively large and, in principle, measurable induced light shift, which would be a signature of nuclear spin-dependent parity nonconservation that is dominated by the nuclear anapole moment in a heavy atom like Fr. A plausible scheme to measure this quantity using the Cyclotron and Radioisotope Center (CYRIC) facility at Tohoku University has been outlined.

We propose a scheme for generating two-dimensional turbulence in harmonically trapped atomic condensates with the novelty of controlling the polarization (net rotation) of the turbulence. Our scheme is based on an initial giant (multicharged) vortex which induces a large-scale circular flow. Two thin obstacles, created by blue-detuned laser beams, speed up the decay of the giant vortex into many singly quantized vortices of the same circulation; at the same time, vortex-antivortex pairs are created by the decaying circular flow past the obstacles. Rotation of the obstacles against the circular flow controls the relative proportion of positive and negative vortices, from the limit of strongly anisotropic turbulence (almost all vortices having the same sign) to that of isotropic turbulence (equal number of vortices and antivortices). Using this scheme, we numerically study the decay of two-dimensional quantum turbulence as a function of the polarization. Finally, we present a model for the decay rate of the vortex number which fits our numerical experiment curves, with the novelty of taking into account polarization time dependence.

$p$-wave interaction in cold atoms may give rise to exotic topological superfluids. However, the realization of $p$-wave interaction in a cold atom system is experimentally challenging. Here we propose a simple scheme to synthesize effective $p$-wave interaction in conventional $s$-wave interacting quantum gases. The key idea is to load atoms into a spin-dependent optical lattice potential. Using two concrete examples involving spin-1/2 fermions, we show how the original system can be mapped into a model describing spinless fermions with nearest-neighbor $p$-wave interaction, whose ground state can be a topological superfluid that supports Majorana fermions under proper conditions. Our proposal has the advantage that it does not require spin-orbit coupling or loading atoms onto higher orbitals, which is the key in earlier proposals to synthesize effective $p$-wave interaction in $s$-wave quantum gases, and may provide a completely new route for realizing $p$-wave topological superfluids.

We formulate a trade-off relation between information and disturbance in quantum measurement from an estimation-theoretic point of view. The information and disturbance are characterized in terms of the classical Fisher information and the average loss of the quantum Fisher information, respectively. We identify the necessary condition for various divergences between two quantum states to satisfy similar relations.

We study the performance of two measures of non-Markovianity in detecting memory effects in two-qubit dephasing channels. By combining independent Markovian and non-Markovian noise on the qubits, our results show that the trace distance measure is able to detect the memory effects when at least one of the local channels displays non-Markovianity. A measure based on channel capacity, in turn, becomes nonzero when the global two-qubit dynamics shows memory effects. We apply these schemes to a well-known superdense coding protocol and demonstrate an optimal noise configuration to maximize the information transmission with independent local noises.

A theoretical and experimental investigation on elastic electron scattering by two small esters, namely, methyl formate and ethyl acetate, is reported. Experimental differential, integral, and momentum-transfer cross sections are given in the 30–1000 eV and ${10}^{\circ }–{120}^{\circ }$ ranges. The relative-flow technique was used to determine such quantities. Particularly for methyl formate, a theoretical study was also carried out in the 1–500 eV range. A complex optical potential derived from a Hartree-Fock molecular wave function was used to represent the collision dynamics, whereas the Padé approximation was used to solve the scattering equations. In addition, calculations based on the framework of the independent-atom model (IAM) were also performed for both targets. In general, there is good agreement between our experimental data and the present theoretical results calculated using the Padé approximation. The theoretical results using the IAM also agree well with the experimental data at 200 eV and above. Moreover, for methyl formate, our calculations reveal a ${}^2{A}^{\prime \prime }$ $\left({\pi }^{*}\right)$ resonance at about 3.0 eV and a ${\sigma }^{*}$-type resonance centered at about 8.0 eV in the ${}^2{A}^{\prime }$ scattering channel. The ${\pi }^{*}$ resonance is also seen in other targets containing a carbonyl group.

Aiming at efficient numerical treatment of tunneling ionization of atoms and molecules by midinfrared (IR) lasers, exterior time-scaling (ETS) theory is formulated as a generalization of the time-scaled coordinate approach. The key idea of ETS is the division of the spatial volume into a small region around the nucleus and its outside; the radial coordinates are time scaled only in the outer region. The continuum components of photoelectron wave packets are prevented from reaching the edge of the spatial simulation volume, enabling the long-time evolution of wave packets with a relatively small number of basis functions without concerns of electron reflections. On the other hand, the bound-state components are free from shrinking toward the origin because of non-time-scaling in the inner region. Hence, the equations of motion in ETS are less stiff than the ones in the original time-scaled coordinate approach in which the shrinking bound states make the equations of motion seriously stiff. For numerical implementation of ETS, the working equations are derived in terms of finite-element discrete-variable-representation functions. Furthermore, the stiffness-free Lanczos time propagator is introduced to remove any persistent stiffness in the treatment of mid-IR lasers due to the involvement of hundreds of angular momentum states. The test calculations for atomic hydrogen interacting with linearly polarized mid-IR pulses demonstrate the accuracy and numerical efficiency of this scheme and exhibit its special capability if there is no recollision with the parent ion. Hence, ETS will show its true potential for the detailed analysis of photoelectron wave-packet dynamics in circularly or near-circularly polarized mid-IR fields.

We study the ground-state phase diagram and the quantum phase transitions in spin-1 Bose gases with Raman-induced spin-orbit coupling. In addition to the Bose-Einstein condensates with uniform density, three types of stripe condensation phases that simultaneously break the U(1) symmetry and the translation symmetry are identified. The transitions between these phases are investigated, and the occurrences of the various tricritical points are predicted. The excitation spectra in the plane-wave phase and the zero-momentum phase show rich roton-maxon structures, and their instabilities indicate the tendency to develop the crystalline order. We propose the atomic gas of ${}^{23}\mathrm{Na}$ could be a candidate for observing the stripe condensate with high contrast fringes.

We have studied numerically the Hamiltonian dynamics of two same-sign point vortices in an effectively two-dimensional, harmonically trapped Bose-Einstein condensate. We have found in the phase space of the system an impenetrable wall that divides the dynamics into two distinct and exhaustive types. In the two-dimensional position-coordinate space, the first type corresponds to intersecting single-vortex orbits and the second type to orbits that have no points in common. The two types are also easily distinguished in the two-dimensional space spanned by the radial and angular velocities of the vortices: In the first type, both single-vortex orbits are the same simple loop in this two-dimensional space, whereas in the second type the two orbits constitute two nonintersecting loops. The phase-space-dividing wall is distinct from the bifurcation curve of rigidly rotating states found by Navarro et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 225301 (2013)].

We analyze the finite-temperature effects on the phase diagram describing the insulating properties of interacting one-dimensional bosons in a quasiperiodic lattice. We examine thermal effects by comparing experimental results to exact diagonalization for small-sized systems and to density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) computations. At weak interactions, we find short thermal correlation lengths, indicating a substantial impact of temperature on the system coherence. Conversely, at strong interactions, the obtained thermal correlation lengths are significantly larger than the localization length, and the quantum nature of the $T=0$ Bose-glass phase is preserved up to a crossover temperature that depends on the disorder strength. Furthermore, in the absence of disorder, we show how quasiexact finite-$T$ DMRG computations, compared to experimental results, can be employed to estimate the temperature, which is not directly accessible in the experiment.

We propose an approach for producing high-flux isolated-attosecond pulses (IAPs) based on noncollinear geometry of high-order harmonic generation (HHG). By combining a main driving pulse and an ultrashort gating pulse in the interaction medium to form a tilt wave front in a very narrow overlapping time region, the attosecond pulses generated in this region are spatially separated from the original beam in the far field. It gives a way of extracting IAPs as well as fully characterizing an attosecond-pulse train (APT). Since this approach set no restriction on the pulse duration of the main driving pulse, it is particularly suitable for high-flux IAP generation by a high-energy laser which usually has multicycle pulse duration.

Spontaneous emission enhancement is theoretically investigated in multiperiodic metal-dielectric multilayers (multiperiodic hyperboliclike metamaterials or photonic hypercrystals) where the unit cell consists of two layers of different dielectrics alternating with identical metallic layers. It is shown that the Purcell factor in such multiperiodic structures exceeds the Purcell factor in ordinary periodic hyperbolic or plasmonic metamaterials by a factor of 4, which in general makes it possible to maximize interaction between emitting centers and nearby plasmonic structures. This enhancement is numerically characterized and shown to be related to the interplay between surface and volume plasmonic excitations in the multilayer metamaterial. We separately identify the influence of proximity between the emitter and the closest metal-dielectric boundary (including the quenching effect and the enhanced coupling of the dipole radiation and surface plasmon polaritons) and the effects related to the structural composition of the hypercrystal. The Purcell-factor modification brought about by placing a cavity layer into a multiperiodic structure was also characterized.

The photon blockade is a hallmark of quantum light transport through a single two-level system that can accommodate only one photon. Here, we theoretically show that two-photon transmission can be suppressed even for a system of a large number of quantum dots in a cavity when the biexciton nonlinearity is taken into account. We reveal the nonmonotonous dependence of the second-order correlation function of the transmitted photons on the biexciton binding energy. The blockade is realized by proper tuning of the biexciton resonance that controls the collective superradiant modes.

Current parameter estimation techniques rely on photodetectors which have a low efficiency and thus are based on gathering averaged statistics. Recently it was claimed that perfect photodetction will change the nature of sensing algorithms and will increase the sensing efficiency beyond the immediate effect of a higher collection efficiency. In this paper we bring up the observation that perfect photodetection implies Heisenberg scaling $\left(\frac{1}{T}\right)$ for parameter estimations. We analyze a specific example in detail.

A longstanding question is whether it is possible to delegate computational tasks securely—such that neither the computation nor the data is revealed to the server. Recently, both a classical and a quantum solution to this problem were found [C. Gentry, in Proceedings of the 41st Annual ACM Symposium on the Theory of Computing (Association for Computing Machinery, New York, 2009), pp. 167–178; A. Broadbent, J. Fitzsimons, and E. Kashefi, in Proceedings of the 50th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos, CA, 2009), pp. 517–526]. Here, we study the first step towards the interplay between classical and quantum approaches and show how coherence can be used as a tool for secure delegated classical computation. We show that a client with limited computational capacity—restricted to an XOR gate—can perform universal classical computation by manipulating information carriers that may occupy superpositions of two states. Using single photonic qubits or coherent light, we experimentally implement secure delegated classical computations between an independent client and a server, which are installed in two different laboratories and separated by $50\mathrm{m}$. The server has access to the light sources and measurement devices, whereas the client may use only a restricted set of passive optical devices to manipulate the information-carrying light beams. Thus, our work highlights how minimal quantum and classical resources can be combined and exploited for classical computing.

Amplitude noise, which inflicts a random two-qubit term, is one of the main obstacles preventing the implementation of a high-fidelity two-body gate below the fault-tolerance threshold. This noise is difficult to refocus as any refocusing technique could only tackle noise with frequency below the operation rate. Since the two-qubit-gate speed is normally the slowest rate in the system, it constitutes the last bottleneck toward an implementation of a gate below the fault-tolerant threshold. Here we propose to use composite pulses as a dynamical decoupling approach in order to reduce two-qubit-gate noise for trapped-ion systems. This is done by refocusing the building blocks of ultrafast entangling gates, where the amplitude noise is reduced to shot-to-shot noise. We present detailed simulations showing that the fault-tolerance threshold could be achieved using the proposed approach.

Local distinguishability of orthogonal quantum states is an area of active research in quantum information theory. However, most of the relevant results are about local distinguishability in bipartite Hilbert space and very little is known about the multipartite case. In this paper we present a generic method to construct a completable $n$-partite $(n\ge 3)$ product basis with only $2n$ members, which exhibits nonlocality without entanglement with $n$ parties, each holding a system of any finite dimension. We give an effective proof of the nonlocality of the completable multipartite product basis. In addition, we construct another incomplete multipartite product basis with a smaller number of members that cannot be distinguished by local operations and classical communication in a $d_1\otimes d_2\otimes \cdots \otimes d_n$ quantum system, where $n\ge 3$ and $d_i\ge 2$ for $i=1,2,...,n$. The results can lead to a better understanding of the phenomenon of nonlocality without entanglement in any multipartite quantum system.

We study theoretically the resonance interaction between two atoms located near a dielectric-plate surface with quantum electrodynamics. One atom is initially excited and the other one is in the ground state. The effect of the surface exerted on the atoms can sufficiently change the interatomic resonance interaction. This near-surface effect on resonance interaction can be used to control atoms and can help to build on-chip quantum devices, new types of light sources, and quantum storage devices.

We present a derivation of the finite nuclear mass corrections to the Casimir-Polder interaction between two atomic systems in the ground state. Equivalently, we show how the long-range asymptotics of the adiabatic correction is modified due to the finite speed of light. We show that in addition to the contribution resulting from the finite-mass correction to atomic polarizabilities, a further contribution exists.