We theoretically investigate the influence of the phonon-mediated coupling on the properties of the laser generated by a single red-detuned quantum dot (QD), where the QD is coherently driven and coupled to a microscopic cavity which can be engineered in a photonic band-gap (PBG) material. In the low-temperature limit, the phonon-mediated coupling is deleterious to the emission of photon into cavity field and the threshold behavior of the laser persists after the inclusion of the phonon-mediated processes. Without being engineered in the PBG material, if the damping rate $\kappa$ of the cavity is close to but smaller than the phonon-mediated spontaneous emission rate $\gamma$ of the dot, the photon statistics of the cavity field change from super-Poissonian to sub-Poissonian. The nonclassical effect can be achieved due to the phonon-mediated processes induced by the electron-phonon interaction and the off-resonant dot-cavity coupling. The nonclassical effect can be enhanced by the PBG material. When the effect of the thermal phonon is taken into account, the cavity field exhibits the super-Poissonian property. If $\kappa$ is much smaller than $\gamma$, the phonon-mediated processes can lead to the increase (decrease) of the photons provided that the incoherent pumping rate is lower (higher) than the effective phonon-mediated threshold. But, if $\kappa$ is close to or larger than $\gamma$, the emission of the photon may dominate the absorption process, strengthening the intensity of the cavity field.

We show that frequent nondemolition measurements of a quantum system immersed in a thermal bath allow the extraction of work in a closed cycle from the system-bath interaction (correlation) energy, a hitherto unexploited work resource. It allows for work even if no information is gathered or the bath is at zero temperature, provided the cycle is within the bath memory time. The predicted work resource may be the basis of quantum engines embedded in a bath with long memory time, such as the electromagnetic bath of a high-$Q$ cavity coupled to two-level systems.

We analyze the conditions for entanglement amplification between distant and not directly interacting quantum objects by their common coupling to media with static modular structure and subject to a local (single-bond) quenched dynamics. We show that in the nonperturbative regime of the dynamics the initial end-to-end entanglement is strongly amplified and, moreover, can be distributed efficiently between distant objects. Due to its intrinsic local and nonperturbative nature the dynamics is fast and robust against thermal fluctuations, and its control is undemanding. We show that the origin of entanglement amplification lies in the interference of the ground state and at most one of the low-lying energy eigenstates. The scheme can be generalized to provide a fast and efficient router for generating entanglement between simultaneous multiple users.

Trio coherent states (TCSs) are non-Gaussian three-mode entangled states which can serve as a useful resource for continuous-variable quantum tasks, so their generation is of primary importance. Schemes exist to generate stable TCSs in terms of vibrational motion of a trapped ion inside a crystal. However, to perform quantum communication and distributed quantum computation the states should be shared beforehand among distant parties. That is, their modes should be able to be directed to different desired locations in space. In this work, we propose an experimental setup to generate such free-traveling TCSs in terms of optical fields. Our scheme uses standard physical resources, such as coherent states, balanced beam splitters, phase shifters, nonideal on-off photodetectors, and realistic weak cross-Kerr nonlinearities, without the need of single photons or homodyne or heterodyne measurements. We study the dependences of the fidelity of the state generated by our scheme with respect to the target TCS and the corresponding generation probability for the parameters involved. In theory, the fidelity could be nearly perfect for whatever weak nonlinearities $\tau$ and low photodetector efficiency $\eta$, provided that the amplitude $\left|\alpha \right|$ of an input coherent state is large enough, namely, $\left|\alpha \right|\ge 5/\left(\sqrt{\eta }\tau \right)$.

We present a combined theoretical and experimental study of magnetic resonance transitions induced by polarization-modulated light in cesium vapor exposed to a transverse magnetic field. Signals are obtained by phase-sensitive analysis of the light power traversing the vapor cell at six harmonics of the polarization modulation frequency. Resonances appear whenever the Larmor frequency matches an integer multiple of the modulation frequency. We have further investigated the modifications of the spectra when varying the modulation duty cycle. The resonance amplitudes of both in-phase and quadrature components are well described in terms of the Fourier coefficients of the modulation function. The background-free signals generated by the polarization modulation scheme have a high application potential in atomic magnetometry.

Electron-ion radiative recombination assisted by a few-cycle laser pulse is analyzed in the frame of the $S$-matrix theory. The result obtained in the first Born approximation corresponds to the direct recombination of electrons with ionic targets, while the result in the second Born approximation corresponds to the recombination preceded by electron-ion scattering. Driven by the laser pulse, the once scattered electron may return to the same ion and recombine with it. The x-ray photon emitted in such a process may have high energies. The dependence of the energy spectrum on various parameters, such as the carrier-envelope phase, peak intensity, and duration of the laser pulse, and the incident electron energy and angle, is investigated. The abrupt cutoffs of the plateau structures in the energy spectra of the process are explained by classical analysis.

We investigate high-order-harmonic generation from a Bohmian-mechanical perspective and find that the innermost part of the core, represented by a single Bohmian trajectory, leads to the main contributions to the high-harmonic spectra. Using time-frequency analysis, we associate this central Bohmian trajectory to an ensemble of unbound classical trajectories leaving and returning to the core, in agreement with the three-step model. In the Bohmian scenario, this physical picture builds up nonlocally near the core via the quantum mechanical phase of the wave function. This implies that the flow of the wave function far from the core alters the central Bohmian trajectory. We also show how this phase degrades in time for the peripheral Bohmian trajectories as they leave the core region.

Atom cooling and trapping by partially spatially coherent lasers is investigated both experimentally and theoretically. The degree of spatial coherence of the laser beams is controlled by the electro-optic crystal. The characteristics of the trapped atomic cloud are studied. The experimental results indicate that the atom number and atomic Gaussian density distribution stay unchanged due to the fact that the average photon scattering rate is independent of the spatial coherence of the laser beams. However, the measured temperature of the atomic cloud increases as the degree of spatial coherence of the laser beams decreases. The reason is that the scattering force of the partially spatially coherent lasers acting on the atoms fluctuates temporally and spatially, which broadens the velocity distribution of the atoms.

The effect of an additional high frequency alternating field on the Bloch-Zener oscillation of a quantum particle is investigated theoretically. The effective magnitude of the band gap is reduced by the ac field, and even collapsed to zero by appropriately tuning the amplitude and the frequency of the oscillation. This results in the enhancement of the Zener tunneling with dramatic changes of the Bloch-Zener oscillation. The temporal behavior of the wave packet is clarified as due to the interplay of the Landau-Zener interference in the repeated level crossings with two different time scales, namely, the period of the Bloch oscillation, and the period of the high frequency ac field.

In this Brief Report, we study the distinguishability of three-qubit quantum states by local operations and classical communication. We first determine $\alpha \left(S_5\right)=4$ [Duan, Xin, and Ying, Phys. Rev. A 81, 032329 (2010)] and also show a necessary condition for local distinguishability of three-qubit quantum states. Applying the characterization of orthogonal product states, we obtain two methods to discriminate mixed states with some constraints.

By Bernoulli's law, an increase in the relative speed of a fluid around a body is accompanied by a decrease in the pressure. Therefore, a rotating body in a fluid stream experiences a force perpendicular to the motion of the fluid because of the unequal relative speed of the fluid across its surface. It is well known that light has a constant speed irrespective of the relative motion. Does a rotating body immersed in a stream of photons experience a Bernoulli-like force? We show that, indeed, a rotating dielectric cylinder experiences such a lateral force from an electromagnetic wave. In fact, the sign of the lateral force is the same as that of the fluid-mechanical analog as long as the electric susceptibility is positive ($\epsilon >{\epsilon }_0$), but for negative-susceptibility materials (e.g., metals) we show that the lateral force is in the opposite direction. Because these results are derived from a classical electromagnetic scattering problem, Mie-resonance enhancements that occur in other scattering phenomena also enhance the lateral force.

In its original formulation, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle dealt with the relationship between the error of a quantum measurement and the thereby induced disturbance on the measured object. Meanwhile, Heisenberg's heuristic arguments have turned out to be correct only for special cases. An alternative universally valid relation was derived by Ozawa in 2003. Here, we demonstrate that Ozawa's predictions hold for projective neutron-spin measurements. The experimental inaccessibility of error and disturbance claimed elsewhere has been overcome using a tomographic method. By a systematic variation of experimental parameters in the entire configuration space, the physical behavior of error and disturbance for projective spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ measurements is illustrated comprehensively. The violation of Heisenberg's original relation, as well as the validity of Ozawa's relation become manifest. In addition, our results conclude that the widespread assumption of a reciprocal relation between error and disturbance is not valid in general.

We introduce a numerical coarse-graining scheme to reliably estimate the quantum state of a source given a set of noisy measurement outcomes that are not well calibrated. This scheme requires no additional knowledge or assumptions about the structures of the noisy outcomes and is, thus, applicable for very general tomography experiments with arbitrary noise perturbations. Further, this scheme involves an optimization procedure that is straightforward to implement and can readily be extended to any number of ill-calibrated noisy outcomes in a measurement setup. Compared with the standard estimation strategy where noise is neglected, coarse graining performed on simulated and experimental data for two-qubit quantum states and on simulated data from continuous-variable tomography shows that this scheme can significantly improve the accuracies of state estimators for noise levels ranging from low to moderately high values.

The problem of the complete transfer of quantum states and entanglement in a four-qubit system composed of two single-mode cavities and two two-level atoms is investigated. The transfer of single and double excitation states is discussed for two different coupling configurations between the qubits. In the first, the coupling is mediated by the atoms that simultaneously couple to the cavity modes. In the second configuration, each atom resides inside one of the cavities and the coupling between the cavities is mediated by the overlapping field modes. A proper choice of basis states makes it possible to identify states that could be completely transferred between themselves. Simple expressions are derived for the conditions for the complete transfer of quantum states and entanglement. These conditions impose severe constraints on the evolution of the system in the form of constants of motion. The constrains on the evolution of the system imply that not all states can evolve in time, and we find that the evolution of the entire system can be confined into that occurring among two states only. Detailed analysis show that in the case where the interaction is mediated by the atoms, only symmetric superposition states can be completely and reversibly transferred between the atoms and the cavity modes. In the case where the interaction is mediated by the overlapping field modes, both symmetric and antisymmetric superposition states can be completely transferred. We also show that the system is capable of generating purely photonic NOON states, but only if the coupling is mediated by the atoms, and demonstrate that the ability to generate the NOON states relies on perfect transfer of an entanglement from the atoms to the cavity modes.

We show that quantum theory allows for transformations of black boxes that cannot be realized by inserting the input black boxes within a circuit in a predefined causal order. The simplest example of such a transformation is the classical switch of black boxes, where two input black boxes are arranged in two different orders conditionally on the value of a classical bit. The quantum version of this transformation—the quantum switch—produces an output circuit where the order of the connections is controlled by a quantum bit, which becomes entangled with the circuit structure. Simulating these transformations in a circuit with fixed causal structure requires either postselection or an extra query to the input black boxes.

We present cross sections for elastic scattering of low-energy electrons with the N-heterocyclic molecule pyridine. We employed the Schwinger multichannel method implemented with pseudopotentials in the static-exchange and static-exchange-polarization approximations, for energies ranging from 0.1 to 12 eV. The calculated integral cross section presents two low-lying shape resonances of ${\pi }^{*}$ nature belonging to the $B_1$ and $A_2$ symmetries and a higher lying resonance, belonging to the $B_1$ symmetry, which is a mixture of shape and core-excited resonances. The computed resonance positions are in reasonable agreement with the vertical attachment energy data of Nenner and Schulz [J. Chem. Phys. 62, 1747 (1975)] and Modelli and Burrow [J. Electron Spectrosc. Relat. Phenom. 32, 263 (1983)]. We compare the present calculated differential cross sections with the experimental data for benzene, pyrimidine, and pyridazine.

We provide complete phase diagrams describing the ground state of a trapped spinor Bose-Einstein condensate under the combined effects of rotation and a Rashba spin-orbit coupling. The interplay between the different parameters (magnitude of rotation, strength of the spin-orbit coupling, and interaction) leads to a rich ground-state physics that we classify. We explain some features analytically in the Thomas-Fermi approximation, writing the problem in terms of the total density, total phase, and spin. In particular, we analyze the giant skyrmion and find that it is of degree 1 in the strong-segregation case. In some regions of the phase diagrams, we relate the patterns to a ferromagnetic energy.

We show that asymmetric transmission for linear polarizations can be easily achieved by a monolayer of anisotropic chiral metamolecules through the constructive and destructive interferences between the contributions from anisotropy and chirality. Our analysis is based on the interaction of electromagnetic waves with the constituent electric and magnetic dipoles of the metamaterials, and an effective medium formulation. In addition, asymmetric transmission in amplitude can be effectively controlled by the interference between spectrally detuned resonances. Our findings shed light on the design of metamaterials for achieving strong asymmetric transmission.

We point out the possibility of probing the nuclear vibration by using the high-order harmonic generation (HHG) with ultrashort laser pulses. By analyzing the HHG spectra obtained from the numerical solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation, we find that the intensity of the emitted harmonics is strongly determined not only by the molecular configuration but also by the initial velocity of nuclei. The calculations show that the intensity of HHG is enhanced nearly the time when the internuclear separation takes the equilibrium value and the nuclei are moving closer together. In contrast, with the same initial internuclear separation but with the opposite direction of nuclear velocity, the intensity of emitted light is reduced noticeably. We use that evidence as a tool to probe the nuclear vibration.

We investigate the quantum electrodynamics of a single two-level atom located at the focus of a parabolic cavity. We first work out the modifications of the spontaneous emission induced by the presence of this boundary in the optical regime, where the dipole and the rotating-wave approximations apply. Furthermore, the single-photon state that leaves the cavity asymptotically is determined. The corresponding time-reversed single-photon quantum state is capable of exciting the atom in this extreme multimode scenario with near-unit probability. Using semiclassical methods, we derive a photon-path representation for the relevant transition amplitudes and show that it constitutes a satisfactory approximation for a wide range of wavelengths.