We report Lyman-series emission cross sections of neutral hydrogen dissociation fragments after valence (15–34 eV) and inner-shell (533–542 eV) excitation of water vapor with monochromatic synchrotron radiation as functions of the exciting-photon energy. In the valence excitation energy region, the thermodynamical limits of the production of the differently excited hydrogen fragments are directly observed and absolute emission cross sections are determined. For resonant inner-shell excitations, the fluorescing excited hydrogen state is found to be strongly dependent on the molecular or Rydberg-like character of the excitation.

The inelastic scattering of fast electrons by metastable hydrogen atoms in the presence of a linearly polarized laser field is theoretically studied in the domain of field intensities below ${10}^{10}$ W/${\mathrm{cm}}^2$. The interaction of the hydrogen atom with the laser field is described by first-order time-dependent perturbation theory, while the projectile electrons interacting with the laser field are described by the Gordon-Volkov wave functions. An analytic expression is obtained for the differential scattering cross section in the first-order Born approximation for laser-assisted inelastic $e^{-}\text{−}\mathrm{H}(2s)$ scattering for the $2s\to nl$ excitation. Detailed analytical and numerical results are presented for inelastic scattering accompanied by one-photon absorption, and the angular dependence and resonance structure of the differential cross sections are discussed for the $2s\to 4l$ excitation of metastable hydrogen.

We study the superfluid flow in a quasi-one-dimensional Fermi gas with spatially modulated interactions induced by an optical Feshbach resonance. Due to the competition between the periodicity of the modulated interaction and the nonlinearity of the background interaction, an interesting swallowtail structure emerges in the energy spectrum under appropriate parameters. As the interaction strengths are tuned, the swallowtail structure may disappear, giving rise to various different states on a rich phase diagram. We investigate the spatial distribution of the order parameter and the particle density under various parameters, which are useful for the experimental detection of the interesting phases in these systems.

The ability to interface multiple optical quantum devices is a key milestone towards the development of future quantum information processors and networks. One of the requirements for any of their constituent elements will be cascadability, i.e., the ability to drive the input of a device using the output of another one. Here, we report the cascading of quantum light-matter interfaces by storing few-photon level pulses of light in warm vapor followed by the subsequent storage of the retrieved field onto a second ensemble. We demonstrate that by using built-in purification mechanisms in the sequential storage, the final signal-to-background ratio can remain greater than one for weak pulses containing eight input photons on average.

We provide a systematic study of the rogue-wave dynamics in phase-matched weakly dispersive nonlinear media, which arise either from the parametric mixing or from the stimulated backscattering process, both of which are modeled by the three-wave resonant interaction equations. The explicit rogue-wave solutions up to the second order are presented. These solutions reveal the markedly different vector rogue-wave behaviors of the parametric and the scattering processes. In the degenerate situation where two interacting optical fields share the same group velocity, the sum of the intensities of this pair of optical wave components is spatiotemporally invariant. The close link between the existence of rogue-wave solutions and the presence of baseband modulation instability is confirmed. Finally, numerical simulations confirm that the generation of vector rogue waves is robust in the presence of spontaneous modulation instability activated by quantum noise.

We present a theoretical study on the x-ray spectra from single-electron capture in 4.54 keV/amu ${\mathrm{Ne}}^{10+}$-He, -Ne, and -Ar collisions. Single-particle capture probabilities were calculated using the two-center basis generator method within the independent electron model. In this framework we investigated the effects of a time-dependent screening potential that models target response on capture cross sections and x-ray spectra. Excellent agreement is shown with the previously measured relative cross sections and x-ray spectra and calculations based on the classical trajectory Monte Carlo method using the no-response single-particle electron capture probabilities in a multinomial single-electron capture analysis. Our results demonstrate the importance of using this consistent statistical analysis of single-electron capture within the independent electron model; a requirement that a previous calculation for the same collision problem using the two-center atomic-orbital close-coupling method may not have considered.

We study the quantum many-body dynamics and the entropy production triggered by an interaction quench in a system of $N=10$ interacting identical bosons in an external one-dimensional harmonic trap. The multiconfigurational time-dependent Hartree method for bosons (MCTDHB) is used for solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation at a high level of accuracy. We consider many-body entropy measures such as the Shannon information entropy, number of principal components, and occupation entropy that are computed from the time-dependent many-body basis set used in MCTDHB. These measures quantify relevant physical features such as irregular or chaotic dynamics, statistical relaxation, and thermalization. We monitor the entropy measures as a function of time and assess how they depend on the interaction strength. For larger interaction strength, the many-body information and occupation entropies approach the value predicted for the Gaussian orthogonal ensemble of random matrices. This implies statistical relaxation. The basis states of MCTDHB are explicitly time-dependent and optimized by the variational principle in a way that minimizes the number of significantly contributing ones. It is therefore a nontrivial fact that statistical relaxation prevails in MCTDHB computations. Moreover, we demonstrate a fundamental connection between the production of entropy, the buildup of correlations and loss of coherence in the system. Our findings imply that mean-field approaches such as the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation cannot capture statistical relaxation and thermalization because they neglect correlations. Since the coherence and correlations are experimentally accessible, their present connection to many-body entropies can be scrutinized to detect statistical relaxation. In this work we use the recent recursive software implementation of the MCTDHB (R-MCTDHB).

We analyze the entanglement between two matter modes in a hybrid quantum system consisting of a microcavity, a quantum well, and a mechanical oscillator. Although the exciton mode in the quantum well and the mechanical oscillator are initially uncoupled, their interaction through the microcavity field results in an indirect exciton-mode–mechanical-mode coupling. We show that this coupling is a Fano-Agarwal-type coupling induced by the decay of the exciton and the mechanical modes caused by the leakage of photons through the microcavity to the environment. Using experimental parameters and for slowly varying microcavity field, we show that the generated coupling leads to an exciton-mode–mechanical-mode entanglement. The maximum entanglement is achieved at the avoided level crossing frequency, where the hybridization of the two modes is maximum. The entanglement is also robust against the phonon thermal bath temperature.

We present a unified formalism for describing various forms of electron holography in quantum mechanical phase space including their extensions to quantum-state reconstructions. The phase-space perspective allows for taking into account partial coherence as well as the quantum mechanical detection process typically hampering the unique reconstruction of a wave function. We elaborate on the limitations imposed by the electron optical elements of the transmission electron microscope as well as the scattering at the target. The results provide the basis for vastly extending the scope of electron holographic techniques towards analyzing partially coherent signals such as inelastically scattered electrons or electron pulses used in ultrafast transmission electron microscopy.

High harmonic generation in semiconductors is analyzed for high mid-infrared laser intensities for which the electron-hole pair is driven beyond the first Brillouin zone and exhibits Bloch oscillations. We find that even a two-band analysis exhibits second and higher plateaus. Whereas the first plateau is shown to be consistent with high harmonic generation through electron-hole recollision, the higher plateaus arise from dynamic Bloch oscillations; however, the driving process is interband in nature, in contrast to the generally accepted intraband Bloch oscillation mechanism. Energy conservation is fulfilled, as harmonics beyond the first plateau come from a cascaded nonlinearity.

We experimentally investigate the relative advantages of implementing weak-value-based metrology versus standard methods. While the techniques outlined herein apply more generally, we measure small optical beam deflections both using a Sagnac interferometer with a monitored dark port (the weak-value-based technique), and by focusing the entire beam to a split detector (the standard technique). By introducing controlled external transverse detector modulations and transverse beam deflection momentum modulations, we quantify the mitigation of these sources in the weak-value-based experiment versus the standard focusing experiment. The experiments are compared using a combination of deterministic and stochastic methods. In all cases, the weak-value technique performs the same or better than the standard technique by up to two orders of magnitude in precision for our parameters. We further measure the statistical efficiency of the weak-value-based technique. By postselecting on $1\%$ of the photons, we obtain $99\%$ of the available Fisher information of the beam deflection parameter.

We propose and analyze the design of a programmable photonic integrated circuit for high-fidelity quantum computation and simulation. We demonstrate that the reconfigurability of our design allows us to overcome two major impediments to quantum optics on a chip: it removes the need for a full fabrication cycle for each experiment and allows for compensation of fabrication errors using numerical optimization techniques. Under a pessimistic fabrication model for the silicon-on-insulator process, we demonstrate a dramatic fidelity improvement for the linear optics controlled-not and controlled-phase gates and, showing the scalability of this approach, the iterative phase estimation algorithm built from individually optimized gates. We also propose and simulate an experiment that the programmability of our system would enable: a statistically robust study of the evolution of entangled photons in disordered quantum walks. Overall, our results suggest that existing fabrication processes are sufficient to build a quantum photonic processor capable of high-fidelity operation.

We study a one-dimensional gas of repulsively interacting ultracold bosons trapped in a double-well potential as the atom-atom interactions are tuned from zero to infinity. We concentrate on the properties of the excited states which evolve from the so-called NOON states to the NOON Tonks-Girardeau states. The relation between the latter and the Bose-Fermi mapping limit is explored. We state under which conditions NOON Tonks-Girardeau states, which are not predicted by the Bose-Fermi mapping, will appear in the spectrum.

We present a detailed analysis of strongly driven spontaneous four-wave mixing in a lossy integrated microring resonator side coupled to a channel waveguide. A nonperturbative, analytic solution within the undepleted pump approximation is developed for a cw pump input of arbitrary intensity. In the strongly driven regime self- and cross-phase modulation, as well as multipair generation, lead to a rich variety of power-dependent effects; the results are markedly different than in the low-power limit. The photon-pair generation rate, single-photon spectrum, and joint spectral intensity (JSI) distribution are calculated. Splitting of the generated single-photon spectrum into a doublet structure associated with both pump detuning and cross-phase modulation is predicted, as well as substantial narrowing of the generated signal and idler bandwidths associated with the onset of optical parametric oscillation at intermediate powers. Both the correlated and the uncorrelated contributions to the JSI are calculated, and for sufficient powers the uncorrelated part of the JSI is found to form a quadruplet structure. The pump detuning is found to play a crucial role in all of these phenomena, and a critical detuning is identified which divides the system behavior into distinct regimes, as well as an optimal detuning strategy which preserves many of the low-power characteristics of the generated photons for arbitrary input power.

Cooling macroscopic objects is of importance for both fundamental and applied physics. Here we study the optomechanical cooling in a hybrid system which consists of a cloud of atoms coupled to a cavity optomechanical system. On one hand, the asymmetric Fano or electromagnetically induced transparency resonance is explored and the steady-state cooling limits of resonators with frequency ${\omega }_{\mathrm{m}}$ are analytically obtained, permitting ground-state cooling of massive low-frequency resonators beyond the resolved sideband limit. On the other hand, due to the excitation-saturation effect, the validity of cooling requires the number of atoms to be much larger than the number of steady-state excitations, which is proportional to ${\omega }_{\mathrm{m}}^{-2}$. Thus, this limitation plays a minor role in cooling higher-frequency resonators, but becomes important for macroscopic lower-frequency resonators. Under such limitation on the number of atoms, the optimal parameters are quantified. Our study can be a guideline for both theoretical and experimental study of cooling macroscopic objects in atom-optomechanical hybrid systems.

Knowledge of the transverse coherence of hard x rays is essential, not only for understanding the source properties, but also to study the impact of x-ray optics. However, the precise measurement of transverse coherence in the x-ray regime is more difficult than in the visible light regime since it often involves complex experimental setups or sophisticated x-ray optics. In this paper, we present a model-free method to measure transverse coherence properties of x-ray beams by using a simple phase membrane. Our method allows one to map the two-dimensional source distribution in the transverse plane by analyzing the power spectrum of x-ray near-field speckle patterns, which are collected at a single distance only. The method has been validated by performing measurements for a range of source sizes, which was achieved by varying the vertical coupling of the electron beam in the Diamond storage ring. We expect that this method will be widely used in transverse coherence measurements for both synchrotron sources and x-ray free-electron lasers.

Even though quantum systems in energy eigenstates do not evolve in time, they can exhibit correlations between internal degrees of freedom in such a way that one of the internal degrees of freedom behaves like a clock variable, and thereby defines an internal time, that parametrizes the evolution of the other degrees of freedom. This situation is of great interest in quantum cosmology where the invariance under reparametrization of time implies that the temporal coordinate dissapears and is replaced by the Wheeler-DeWitt constraint. Here we show that the emergent character of an internal time variable can be investigated experimentally using the exquisite control now available on moderate-size quantum systems. We describe in detail how to implement such an experimental demonstration using the spin and motional degrees of freedom of a single trapped ion.

We give an example of a wide class of problems for which quantum-information protocols based on multisystem entanglement can be mapped into much simpler ones involving one system. Secret sharing is a cryptographic primitive which plays a central role in various secure multiparty computation tasks and management of keys in cryptography. In secret sharing protocols, a classical message is divided into shares given to recipient parties in such a way that some number of parties need to collaborate in order to reconstruct the message. Quantum protocols for the task commonly rely on multipartite GHZ entanglement. We present a multiparty secret sharing protocol which requires only sequential communication of a single quantum $d$-level system (for any prime $d$). It has huge advantages in scalability and can be realized with state-of-the-art technology.

We propose an implementation of a universal quantum gate between pairs of spatially separated atoms in a microwave cavity at finite temperature. The gate results from reversible laser excitation of Rydberg states of atoms interacting with each other via exchange of virtual photons through a common cavity mode. Quantum interference of different transition paths between the two-atom ground and double-excited Rydberg states makes both the transition amplitude and resonance largely insensitive to the excitations in the microwave cavity quantum bus which can therefore be in any superposition or mixture of photon number states. Our scheme for attaining ultra-long-range interactions and entanglement also applies to mesoscopic atomic ensembles in the Rydberg blockade regime and is scalable to many ensembles trapped within a centimeter-sized microwave resonator.