We demonstrate ladder-type electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) using an optical nanofiber suspended in a warm rubidium vapor. The signal and control fields are both guided along the nanofiber, which enables strong nonlinear interactions with the surrounding atoms at relatively low powers. Transit-time broadening is found to be a significant EIT decoherence mechanism in this tightly confined waveguiding geometry. Nonetheless, we observe significant EIT and controlled polarization rotation using control-field powers of only a few microwatts in this relatively robust warm-atom nanofiber system.

Various measures have been suggested recently for quantifying the coherence of a quantum state with respect to a given basis. We first use two of these, the $l_1$-norm and relative entropy measures, to investigate tradeoffs between the coherences of mutually unbiased bases. Results include relations between coherence, uncertainty, and purity; tight general bounds restricting the coherences of mutually unbiased bases; and an exact complementarity relation for qubit coherences. We further define the average coherence of a quantum state. For the $l_1$-norm measure this is related to a natural “coherence radius” for the state and leads to a conjecture for an $l_2$-norm measure of coherence. For relative entropy the average coherence is determined by the difference between the von Neumann entropy and the quantum subentropy of the state and leads to upper bounds for the latter quantity. Finally, we point out that the relative entropy of coherence is a special case of G-asymmetry, which immediately yields several operational interpretations in contexts as diverse as frame alignment, quantum communication, and metrology, and suggests generalizing the property of quantum coherence to arbitrary groups of physical transformations.

The preparation of quantum states using short quantum circuits is one of the most promising near-term applications of small quantum computers, especially if the circuit is short enough and the fidelity of gates high enough that it can be executed without quantum error correction. Such quantum state preparation can be used in variational approaches, optimizing parameters in the circuit to minimize the energy of the constructed quantum state for a given problem Hamiltonian. For this purpose we propose a simple-to-implement class of quantum states motivated by adiabatic state preparation. We test its accuracy and determine the required circuit depth for a Hubbard model on ladders with up to 12 sites (24 spin orbitals), and for small molecules. We find that this ansatz converges faster than previously proposed schemes based on unitary coupled clusters. While the required number of measurements is astronomically large for quantum chemistry applications to molecules, applying the variational approach to the Hubbard model (and related models) is found to be far less demanding and potentially practical on small quantum computers. We also discuss another application of quantum state preparation using short quantum circuits, to prepare trial ground states of models faster than using adiabatic state preparation.

We investigate a shift of the maximum of photoelectron momentum distributions (PEMDs) produced in the ionization of a model atom by intense half-cycle and one-cycle circularly polarized pulses. Our analysis approaches the problem from two complementary directions: by solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation (TDSE) and by using the adiabatic theory. The TDSE results show that the maximum is shifted along the ridge of the PEMD in the polarization plane from the position corresponding to the maximum of the ionizing field to a later ionization moment. The direction of this longitudinal shift agrees with that observed and discussed in relation to the attoclock technique. In addition, we found a transverse shift of the maximum resulting from the fact that the ridge expands in the radial direction from the position predicted by classical mechanics. The PEMDs obtained from the adiabatic theory are in quantitative agreement with the TDSE results. In particular, the uniform adiabatic asymptotics closely reproduces the transverse shift of the ridge and partially reproduces the longitudinal shift of the maximum of the PEMD. The adiabatic theory also yields a simple analytic formula describing the transverse shift.

Making use of a generalized quantum theory of paraxial light propagation where the radiation-axis and the temporal coordinates play exchanged roles, we discuss the potential of bulk nonlinear optical media in cavityless configurations for quantum statistical mechanics studies of the conservative many-body dynamics of a gas of interacting photons. To illustrate the general features of this point of view, we investigate the response of the fluid of light to the quantum quenches in the photon-photon interaction constant experienced at the front and the back faces of a finite slab of weakly nonlinear material. Extending the standard Bogoliubov theory of dilute Bose-Einstein condensates, peculiar features are predicted for the statistical properties of the light emerging from the nonlinear medium.

We describe a theoretical model, based on a density matrix and the Liouville equation, for the investigation of magneto-optical resonances in alkali-metal atomic vapor, in particular in the case of the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in the presence of antirelaxation coatings. The influence of the coating is parametrized with an empirical coefficient describing its efficiency; the calculations are extended to a broad range of coating quality, contrary to previous works, and to uncoated cells. The model takes into account also different configurations for the EIT formation and different efficiency of optical pumping, as determined by the coating characteristics and the atomic energy structure. The model is validated by investigating the EIT with degenerate Zeeman levels in ${}^{39}\text{K} D_1$ and Cs $D_2$ lines, which exhibit respectively an almost negligible and a relevant impact of hyperfine optical pumping. The results are compared to experimental data, exhibiting good agreement; in particular, for the ${}^{39}\text{K} D_1$ line, recent findings are shown here in the case of degenerate and nondegenerate EIT with amplitude-modulated light. Our results demonstrate an effective approach for the investigation of antirelaxation coatings and their contribution in the formation of magneto-optical resonances in alkali-metal atoms, in different regimes and with largely different efficiencies. This sheds new light on well-known but not yet entirely clarified phenomena and their behavior as a function of experimental parameters.

We study the optical forces acting on toroidal nanostructures. A great enhancement of optical force is unambiguously identified as originating from the toroidal dipole resonance based on the source representation, where the distribution of the induced charges and currents is characterized by the three families of electric, magnetic, and toroidal multipoles. On the other hand, the resonant optical force can also be completely attributed to an electric dipole resonance in the alternative field representation, where the electromagnetic fields in the source-free region are expressed by two sets of electric and magnetic multipole fields based on symmetry. The confusion is resolved by conceptually introducing the irreducible electric dipole, toroidal dipole, and renormalized electric dipole. We demonstrate that the optical force is a powerful tool to identify toroidal response even when its scattering intensity is dwarfed by the conventional electric and magnetic multipoles.

The propagation of electromagnetic waves in isotropic dielectric media with local dispersion is studied under the assumption of small but nonvanishing $\lambda /\ell$, where $\lambda$ is the wavelength and $\ell$ is the characteristic inhomogeneity scale. It is commonly known that, due to nonzero $\lambda /\ell$, such waves can experience polarization-driven bending of ray trajectories and polarization dynamics that can be interpreted as the precession of the wave “spin”. The present work reports how Lagrangians describing these effects can be deduced, rather than guessed, within a strictly classical theory. In addition to the commonly known ray Lagrangian that features the Berry connection, a simple alternative Lagrangian is proposed that naturally has a canonical form. The presented theory captures not only the eigenray dynamics but also the dynamics of continuous-wave fields and rays with mixed polarization, or “entangled” waves. The calculation assumes stationary lossless media with isotropic local dispersion, but generalizations to other media are straightforward.

Classical satisfiability (SAT) and quantum satisfiability (QSAT) are complete problems for the complexity classes NP and QMA, respectively, and they are believed to be intractable for both classical and quantum computers. Statistical ensembles of instances of these problems have been studied previously in an attempt to elucidate their typical, as opposed to worst-case, behavior. In this paper, we introduce a statistical ensemble that interpolates between classical and quantum. For the simplest 2-SAT–2-QSAT ensemble, we find the exact boundary that separates SAT and UNSAT instances. We do so by establishing coincident lower and upper bounds, in the limit of large instances, on the extent of the UNSAT and SAT regions, respectively.

Removing a single logical gate from a classical information processor renders this processor useless. This is not so for a quantum information processor. A large number of quantum gates may be removed without significantly affecting the processor's performance. In this paper, focusing on the quantum Fourier transform (QFT) and quantum adder, we show even more: Even if most of its gates are eliminated and the remaining gates are selected from a randomly generated set, the QFT, one of the most useful quantum processors, and the quantum adder, one of the most basic building blocks of a universal quantum computer, still operate with satisfactory success probability, comparable to that of a quantum computer constructed with perfect gates. We support these conclusions by first laying out a general analytical framework and then deriving analytical scaling relations, which are in excellent agreement with our numerical simulations. The demonstrated robustness of the QFT and quantum adder, to the point where randomly generated quantum gates take the place of the exact gates, is an important boon for the construction of quantum computers, since it shows that stringent gate error tolerances do not have to be met to obtain satisfactory performance of the corresponding quantum processors. Our analytical techniques are powerful enough to generate asymptotic scaling laws for any gate defect model of quantum information processors and we illustrate this point by explicitly computing asymptotic analytical scaling formulas for several other defect models as well.

We present a device-independent quantum scheme for the Byzantine generals problem. The protocol is for three parties. Party $C$ is to send two identical one-bit messages to parties $A$ and $B$. The receivers $A$ and $B$ may exchange two one-bit messages informing the other party on the message received from $C$. A bit-flipping error in one of the transmissions does not allow the receiving parties to establish what was the message of $C$. Our quantum protocol is based on Hardy's argument, which uses a set of conditions impossible for classical systems, but satisfied by predictions for a unique two-qubit state. The scheme has the feature that if the messages of the Byzantine protocol are readable (that is give an unambiguous bit value for any of the receivers), then any error by $C$ (cheating by one of the commanding generals) is impossible. $A$ and $B$ do not have to exchange protocol messages to be sure of this.

We resolve the strong-field single ionization of acetylene into different channels by differentially normalizing the lateral momenta of the directly escaped electrons from the aligned and antialigned molecules. Distinct electron momentum distributions for different channels are observed using both near-infrared and ultraviolet femtosecond laser pulses with Keldysh parameters close to 1. The results are interpreted as a signature of multiple ionization orbitals.

In the present work, we investigate how single- and multi-vortex-ring states can emerge from a planar dark soliton in three-dimensional (3D) Bose-Einstein condensates (confined in isotropic or anisotropic traps) through bifurcations. We characterize such bifurcations quantitatively using a Galerkin-type approach and find good qualitative and quantitative agreement with our Bogoliubov–de Gennes (BdG) analysis. We also systematically characterize the BdG spectrum of the dark solitons, using perturbation theory, and obtain a quantitative match with our 3D BdG numerical calculations. We then turn our attention to the emergence of single- and multi-vortex-ring states. We systematically capture these as stationary states of the system and quantify their BdG spectra numerically. We find that although the vortex ring may be unstable when bifurcating, its instabilities weaken and may even eventually disappear for sufficiently large chemical potentials and suitable trap settings. For instance, we demonstrate the stability of the vortex ring for an isotropic trap in the large-chemical-potential regime.

We consider the time evolution of a dilute atomic Fermi gas after release from a trapping potential. A common difficulty with using fluid dynamics to study the expansion of the gas is that the theory is not applicable in the dilute corona, and that a naive treatment of the entire cloud using fluid dynamics leads to unphysical results. We propose to remedy this problem by including certain nonhydrodynamic degrees of freedom, in particular anisotropic components of the pressure tensor, in the theoretical description. We show that, using this method, it is possible to describe the crossover from fluid dynamics to ballistic expansion locally. We illustrate the use of anisotropic fluid dynamics by studying the expansion of the dilute Fermi gas at unitarity using different functional forms of the shear viscosity, including a shear viscosity that is solely a function of temperature, $\eta \sim {\left(mT\right)}^{3/2}$, as predicted by kinetic theory in the dilute limit.

We report on the dependence of the carrier frequency of a nondiffracting optical pulse on the amount of orbital angular momentum it carries. We provide a unified universal form of such a dependence for the cases of both scalar and vector pulses with arbitrary frequency spectra. For the case of paraxial optical pulses we consider two different examples, namely, pulses with exponentially decaying spectra and Gaussian spectra.

In this work, the effects from one-pion exchange in $ep$ and $\mu p$ bound states by two-photon coupling are discussed. We at first calculate the effective couplings of a pion with a lepton (electron or muon) by two-photon coupling and the corresponding effective nonrelativistic potential. Then we calculate its corrections to the hyperfine structure of $2S$ and $2P$ states. We find that the corrections to the hyperfine structures of electronic hydrogen's $2S$ and $2P$ states and muonic hydrogen's $2P$ state are small and can be neglected, while the correction to the hyperfine structure of muonic hydrogen's $2S$ state $\mathrm{\Delta }{E}_{\text{HFS}}^{2S}(F=1,\mu p)$ is about $0.0028$ meV. And after some further discussion we suggest that the similar exchange of a scalar meson such as $\sigma$ between $\mu p$ by two-photon coupling may give a much larger contribution to the Lamb shift of muonic hydrogen.

We show that the photoionization dynamics from the innermost shell of atoms changes significantly when instead of single atoms an ordered group of atoms or a crystal is considered. We find that the electronic current away from a given atom induced by pulsed photoionization is strongly suppressed in ordered groups of atoms although the overlap of the ground-state orbitals of neighboring atoms is negligible. The effect occurs even when the electron-electron interaction is disregarded in our model and thus impact ionization as well as the trapping due to the charging of the environment cannot be the cause of the suppression. Even when a reflectionless potential is used for the modeling of the atomic potential, the suppression is still profound. We interpret this localization of photoionized electrons as appearing due to quantum interference between the partial electron wave packets emitted from different atoms.

We present reduced-dimensional stochastic projected Gross-Pitaevskii equations describing regimes of confinement and temperature where a one-dimensional (1D) or 2D superfluid is immersed in a 3D thermal cloud. The projection formalism provides both a formally rigorous and physically natural way to effect the dimensional reduction. The 3D form of the number-damping (growth) terms is unchanged by the dimensional reduction. Projection of the energy-damping (scattering) terms leads to modified stochastic equations of motion describing energy exchange with the thermal reservoir. The regime of validity of the dimensional reduction is investigated via variational analysis. For the 1D case, we validate our variational treatment by comparing numerical simulations of a trapped prolate system in three dimensions with the 1D theory and establish a consistent choice of cutoff for the 1D theory. We briefly discuss the scenario involving two components with different degeneracy, suggesting that a wider regime of validity exists for systems in contact with a buffer-gas reservoir.

A regime of extreme self-compression of optical solitons to single-cycle duration with further shortening along with superbroad spectrum up-shifting is revealed when the Kerr nonlinearity and ionization process are independently controlled. This results in efficient optical-pulse compression as a whole towards extremely short single-cycle pulses at essentially shorter wavelengths, which may open a new way to generate optical pulses with durations of hundreds of attoseconds in the ultraviolet domain.