Quantum Zeno and anti-Zeno effects are studied in a symmetric nonlinear optical coupler, which is composed of two nonlinear (${\chi }^{\left(2\right)}$) waveguides that are interacting with each other via the evanescent waves. Both waveguides operate under second harmonic generation. However, to study quantum Zeno and anti-Zeno effects one of them is considered as the system and the other one is considered as the probe. Considering all the fields involved as weak, a completely quantum mechanical description is provided, and the analytic solutions of Heisenberg's equations of motion for all the field modes are obtained using a perturbative technique. Photon number statistics of the second harmonic mode of the system is shown to depend on the presence of the probe, and this dependence is considered as quantum Zeno and anti-Zeno effects. Further, it is established that as a special case of the momentum operator for ${\chi }^{\left(2\right)}-{\chi }^{\left(2\right)}$ symmetric coupler we can obtain momentum operator of ${\chi }^{\left(2\right)}-{\chi }^{\left(1\right)}$ asymmetric coupler with linear (${\chi }^{\left(1\right)}$) waveguide as the probe, and, in such a particular case, the expressions obtained for Zeno and anti-Zeno effects with nonlinear probe (which we referred to as nonlinear quantum Zeno and anti-Zeno effects) may be reduced to the corresponding expressions with linear probe (which we referred to as the linear quantum Zeno and anti-Zeno effects). Linear and nonlinear quantum Zeno and anti-Zeno effects are rigorously investigated, and it is established that, in the stimulated case, we may switch between quantum Zeno and anti-Zeno effects just by controlling the phase of the second harmonic mode of the system or probe.

We analyze the sensitivity of a spin chain modeled by an undirected weighted connected graph exhibiting perfect state transfer to small perturbations in readout time and edge weight in order to obtain physically relevant bounds on the probability of state transfer. At the heart of our analysis is the concept of the numerical range of a matrix; our analysis of edge weight errors additionally makes use of the spectral and Frobenius norms.

Round-robin differential-phase-shift quantum key distribution (RRDPS QKD) has been proposed to raise the noise tolerability of the channel. However, in practice, the measurement device in RRDPS QKD may be imperfect. Here, we show that, with these imperfections, the security of RRDPS may be damaged by proposing two attacks for RRDPS systems with uncharacterized measurement devices. One is valid even for a system with unit total efficiency, while the other is valid even when a single-photon state is sent. To prevent these attacks, either security arguments need to be fundamentally revised or further practical assumptions on the measurement device should be put.

Accurate knowledge about the energy loss of ions in matter is essential in many problems, ranging from fundamental to applied nuclear physics. Indeed, there is a recent and increasing demand for new data on stopping cross sections measured with high accuracy and with a rigorous budget of their uncertainty sources. In the present paper we describe an accurate and traceable approach to determine the stopping cross sections in pure elemental materials—aluminum and molybdenum—for protons in the energy range of 0.9–3.6 MeV by the transmission method. The main sources of uncertainties here considered are (i) (random) the uncertainty in the peak positions and in the Gaussian fits and (ii) (systematic) the presence of thickness nonuniformity (a special procedure has been developed to correct it as far as possible). The accuracy in the final stopping cross section is $0.63\%$ ($0.32\%$ random and $0.54\%$ systematic) for Al and $1.5\%$ ($0.44\%$ random and $1.4\%$ systematic) for Mo, both mainly limited by the quality and homogeneity of the foils. For Al, this high accuracy represents an improvement compared to previous publications and serves as a benchmark for our procedure. For Mo, even though the uncertainty is somewhat higher, our results will help in improving the few data currently available in the energy range here considered. The data were also compared to the most commonly employed theoretical models (srim 1985, srim 2013, pstar, and casp 5.2) and Monte Carlo codes (geant 3 and geant 4). The experimental results are electronically available as supplemental material.

Double photoelectron momentum spectra of the helium atom are calculated ab initio at extreme ultraviolet and near-infrared wavelengths. At short wavelengths two-photon double-ionization yields, two-electron energy spectra, and triply differential cross sections agree with results from recent literature. At the near-infrared wavelength of $780\mathrm{nm}$ the experimental single-to-double-ionization ratio is reproduced up to intensities of $4\times {10}^{14}\mathrm{W}/{\mathrm{cm}}^2$, and two-electron energy spectra and joint angular distributions are presented. The time-dependent surface flux approach is extended to full $3+3$ spatial dimensions and systematic error control is demonstrated. We analyze our differential spectra in terms of an experimentally accessible quantitative measure of correlation.

It is shown that homogeneous line-broadening in a diffuse cold atom cloud is proportional to the resonant optical depth of the cloud. Furthermore, it is demonstrated how the strong directionality of the coherent interactions causes the cloud's spectra to depend strongly on its shape, even when the cloud is held at constant densities. These two numerical observations can be predicted analytically by extending the single-photon wave-function model. Lastly, elongating a cloud along the line of laser propagation causes the excitation probability distribution to deviate from the exponential decay predicted by the Beer–Lambert law to the extent where the atoms at the back of the cloud are more excited than the atoms at the front. These calculations are conducted at the low densities relevant to recent experiments.

We revisit the operation of the Stark decelerator and present an optimized operation scheme, which substantially improves the efficiency of the decelerator at both low and high final velocities, relevant for trapping experiments and collision experiments, respectively. Both experimental and simulation results show that this mode of operation outperforms the schemes which have hitherto been in use. This mode of operation could potentially be extended to other deceleration techniques.

We investigate separations of trapped balanced two-component atomic Fermi gases with repulsive contact interaction. Candidates for ground-state densities are obtained from the imaginary-time evolution of a nonlinear pseudo-Schrödinger equation in three dimensions, rather than from the cumbersome variational equations of the underlying energy density functional. With the employed hydrodynamical approach, gradient corrections to the Thomas-Fermi approximation are conveniently included and are shown to be vital for reliable density profiles. We provide critical repulsion strengths that mark the onset of phase transitions in a harmonic trap. We present transitions from identical density profiles of the two fermion species towards isotropic and anisotropic separations for various confinements, including harmonic and double-well-type traps. Our proposed method is suited for arbitrary trap geometries and can be straightforwardly extended to study dynamics in the light of ongoing experiments on degenerate Fermi gases.

Many-body eigenfunctions of the total spin operator can be constructed from the spin and spatial wave functions with nontrivial permutation symmetries. Spin-dependent interactions can lead to relaxation of the spin eigenstates to the thermal equilibrium. A mechanism that stabilizes the many-body entangled states is proposed here. Surprisingly, despite coupling with the chaotic motion of the spatial degrees of freedom, the spin relaxations can be suppressed by destructive quantum interference due to spherical vector and tensor terms of the spin-dependent interactions. Tuning the scattering lengths by the method of Feshbach resonances, readily available in cold atomic laboratories, can enhance the relaxation time scales by several orders of magnitude.

It is shown both experimentally and by numerical simulations that fifth-order intensity autocorrelations of femtosecond laser pulses can be obtained from two-beam noncollinear six-wave mixing in air. A numerical analysis of competing direct and six-wave-assisted third-harmonic-generation pathways showed that these measurements are suitable for the background-free temporal characterization of laser pulses. Reshaping of the pulse and 10 fs subpulse formation during the primary stages of light filamentation were observed using the proposed method.

It is important to control and tune the Fano-resonance spectra to achieve a large slope with, in addition, a relatively high extinction ratio for low-power optical switching and high-sensitivity sensing. Here, we explore the evolution of sharp asymmetric Fano-like line shapes in a three-cavity array with local parity-time ($\mathcal{PT}$) symmetry. In this three-cavity configuration, a single cavity is coupled to a $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric combination of two cavities via a common waveguide. The influences of local $\mathcal{PT}$ symmetry on the asymmetric Fano-like line shapes are investigated by monitoring the output transmission spectra at various system parameters. It is found that both the slope and the extinction ratio within the sharp asymmetric line shapes can be significantly enhanced by introducing the $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric unit, compared with the configuration of two indirectly coupled cavities. Subsequently we discuss the application of such a $\mathcal{PT}$-assisted configuration as a family of high-sensitivity refractive index sensors by numerical analysis. For practical parameters based on microring resonators, the best sensitivity of refractive index sensors is more than five orders of magnitude larger than two indirectly coupled lossy cavities. The proposed scheme can be implemented in current state-of-the-art experiments. This investigation can help us to understand the interplay between the Fano resonance and $\mathcal{PT}$ symmetry.

A method is presented to transfer a system of two-level atoms from a spin coherent state to a maximally spin squeezed Dicke state, relevant for quantum metrology and quantum information processing. The initial state is the ground state of an initial linear Hamiltonian that is gradually turned into a final quadratic Hamiltonian whose ground state is the selected Dicke state. We use compensating operators to suppress diabatic transitions to unwanted states that would occur if the change were not slow. We discuss the possibilities of constructing the compensating operators by sequential application of quadratic Hamiltonians available in experiments.

We propose a modified quantum energy teleportation scheme that uses arbitrary-dimensional qudit probes and polynomially localized Hamiltonians. We find that with an appropriate scaling of parameters, the teleported energy scales with the teleportation distance more favorably than the nonlocal tails of the Hamiltonians. We show that by allowing the exchange of arbitrary amounts of information between agents and in a suitable limit, an arbitrarily large amount of energy can be teleported through a massless quantum field.

A measured lifetime of exceptional accuracy has been reported for the $2p {}^2{P}_{3/2}$ state of $\mathrm{Ar}^{13+}$ that is in good agreement with theory, neglecting the effect of the anomalous magnetic moment. When perturbation theory is used to estimate the effect of the latter, the discrepancy increases. In this paper, results from a fully relativistic variational calculation are presented. By using the Gordon transformation, an expression is derived for the transition matrix element. Lifetimes without and with the effect of the anomalous magnetic moment are reported, both in excellent agreement with perturbation theory.

The nonrelativistic closed orbits of an electron interacting with a unit positive charge in the presence of homogeneous magnetic and electric fields are investigated. A simplified theoretical model is proposed utilizing appropriate initial conditions in semiparabolic coordinates for arbitrary magnetic- and electric-field alignments. The evolution of both the angular spectrum of orbits and the shape and duration of individual orbits, as the electric-field intensity and scaled energy are increased, is shown for the cases of both parallel and crossed fields. Orbit mixing in the high-field regime is investigated in the case of parallel fields, giving an indication of the system moving from the quasi-Landau chaotic regime to the electric-field-induced (Stark effect) regular regime. For crossed fields, it is shown that the Garton-Tomkins orbits lead to a pair of orbits that have opposite behaviors as a function of the electric-field intensity.

We derive general conditions for the emergence of singlet Feshbach molecules in the presence of artificial Zeeman fields for arbitrary mixtures of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling in two or three dimensions. We focus on the formation of two-particle bound states resulting from interactions between ultracold $\text{spin-}1/2$ fermions, under the assumption that interactions are short ranged and occur only in the $s\text{-wave}$ channel. In this case, we calculate explicitly binding energies of Feshbach molecules and bound-state energy thresholds and analyze their dependence on spin-orbit couplings, Zeeman fields, interactions, and center-of-mass momentum, paying particular attention to the experimentally relevant case of spin-orbit couplings with equal Rashba and Dresselhaus (ERD) amplitudes.

We address the precision of optical interferometers fed by quantum and semiclassical Gaussian states involving passive and/or active elements, such as beam splitters, photodetectors, and optical parametric amplifiers. We first address the ultimate bounds to precision by discussing the behavior of the quantum Fisher information. We then consider photodetection at the output and calculate the sensitivity of the interferometers taking into account the nonunit quantum efficiency of the detectors. Our results show that in the ideal case of photon number detectors with unit quantum efficiency the best configuration is the symmetric one, namely, a passive (active) interferometer with a passive (active) detection stage: in this case one may achieve Heisenberg scaling of sensitivity by suitably optimizing over Gaussian states at the input. On the other hand, in the realistic case of detectors with nonunit quantum efficiency, the performances of the passive scheme are unavoidably degraded, whereas detectors involving optical parametric amplifiers allow us to fully compensate for the presence of loss in the detection stage, thus restoring the Heisenberg scaling.

The orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light and matter waves is a parameter that has been getting increasingly more attention over the past couple of years. Beams with a well-defined OAM, the so-called vortex beams, are applied already in, e.g., telecommunication, astrophysics, nanomanipulation, and chiral measurements in optics and electron microscopy. Also, the OAM of a wave induced by the interaction with a sample has attracted a lot of interest. In all these experiments it is crucial to measure the exact (local) OAM content of the wave, whether it is an incoming vortex beam or an exit wave after interacting with a sample. In this work we investigate the use of spiral phase plates (SPPs) as an alternative to the programmable phase plates used in optics to measure OAM. We derive analytically how these can be used to study the local OAM components of any wave function. By means of numerical simulations we illustrate how the OAM of a pure vortex beam can be measured. We also look at a sum of misaligned vortex beams and show how, by using SPPs, the position and the OAM of each individual beam can be detected. Finally, we look at the OAM induced by a magnetic dipole on a free-electron wave and show how the SPP can be used to localize the magnetic poles and measure their “magnetic charge.” Although our findings can be applied to study the OAM of any wave function, our findings are of particular interest for electron microscopy where versatile programmable phase plates do not yet exist.

The saturation threshold of a probe pulse in an ultrafast electronic-resonance-enhanced (ERE) coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy (CARS) configuration is calculated. We demonstrate that while the underdamping condition is a sufficient condition for saturation of ERE-CARS with the long-pulse excitations, a transient gain must be achieved to saturate the ERE-CARS signal for the ultrafast probe regime. We identify that the area under the probe pulse can be used as a definitive parameter to determine the criterion for a saturation threshold for ultrafast ERE-CARS. From a simplified analytical solution and a detailed numerical calculation based on density-matrix equations, the saturation threshold of ERE-CARS is compared for a wide range of probe-pulse durations from the 10-ns to the 10-fs regime. The theory explains both qualitatively and quantitatively the saturation thresholds of resonant transitions and also gives a predictive capability for other pulse duration regimes. The presented criterion for the saturation threshold will be useful in establishing the design parameters for ultrafast ERE-CARS.

Using ab initio non-Born-Oppenheimer simulations, we demonstrate the amplification of XUV radiation in a high-harmonic-generation-type process using the example of the hydrogen molecular ion. A small fraction of the molecules is pumped to a dissociative excited state from which IR-assisted XUV amplification is observed. We show that starting at sufficiently high IR driving field intensities, the ground-state molecules become quasitransparent for XUV radiation, while due to stabilization, gain from excited states is maintained. While the basic physics should also be observable in atomic media, the main advantage of the investigated molecular laser is, first, efficient lasing from field-free excited states with a high mean angular momentum and, second, the possibility to tune the amplified XUV frequency windows via control of the internuclear distance.