Strong hybridization, resulting in symmetric and antisymmetric mixing of the Zn 3$d$ state and the ${\mathrm{C}}_{60}$ 4$d$ state of $\pi$ symmetry, is found in the jellium-based local density approximation (LDA) structure of the Zn@${\mathrm{C}}_{60}$ ground state. Using the time-dependent LDA method to include electron correlations, the photoionization of these $d$-$d$ hybrid states are computed. Ionization cross sections of these states exhibit effects of plasmon resonances coupled with the diffraction-type oscillations induced by localized emissions of ${\mathrm{C}}_{60}$ electrons. We detect significant interference effects in the hybrid ionization from the atom-fullerene coherent mixing.

We use a quantum trajectory-based semiclassical method to account for Coulomb interaction between the photoelectron and the parent ion in the classically forbidden sub-barrier region during strong-field tunneling-ionization processes. We show that—besides the well-known modification of the tunneling-ionization probability—there is also an influence on the interference pattern in the photoelectron spectra. In the long-wavelength limit, the shift of the intracycle interference fringes caused by sub-barrier Coulomb effects in the laser polarization direction can be derived analytically. We compare our results with ab initio solutions of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation and find good agreement in the long-wavelength regime, whereas the standard strong-field approximation fails. We show that the nodal structure along low-order above-threshold ionization rings is also affected by sub-barrier Coulomb effects.

Single-photon ionization of a hydrogen atom irradiated by two time-delayed isolated attosecond pulses is theoretically investigated by numerically solving the fully three-dimensional time-dependent Schrödinger equation. It is demonstrated that the analysis of the angular-resolved electron energy spectrum, showing a complex interference pattern, allows one to completely retrieve the difference between the energy-dependent phases of the electron wave packets generated by the two delayed attosecond pulses. Moreover, it is shown that in the case of a pair of excitation pulses with the same chirp rate, the proposed interferometric technique can be used to measure the difference between the carrier envelope phase values of two attosecond pulses.

We perform theoretical investigations of laser-induced nonsequential double ionization with few-cycle pulses, with particular emphasis on the dependence of the electron-momentum distributions on the carrier-envelope phase. We focus on the recollision-excitation with subsequent tunneling ionization (RESI) pathway, in which a released electron, upon return to its parent ion, gives part of its kinetic energy to promote a second electron to an excited state. At a subsequent time, the second electron is freed through tunneling ionization. We show that the RESI electron-momentum distributions vary dramatically with regard to the carrier-envelope phase. By performing a detailed analysis of the dynamics of the two active electrons in terms of quantum orbits, we relate the shapes and the momentum regions populated by such distributions to the dominant set of orbits along which rescattering of the first electron and ionization of the second electron occurs. These orbits can be manipulated by varying the carrier-envelope phase. This opens a wide range of possibilities for controlling correlated attosecond electron emission by an adequate pulse choice.

The extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) and strong-field valence ionization of cytosine and uracil is considered. We examine some simple estimates of the relative yields of the cation states populated following ionization and compare these to the results of a recently developed ab initio–type numerical model designed to compute strong-field ionization of molecules, the so-called time-dependent resolution in ionic states (TD-RIS) method. In analogy with one-photon XUV ionization, where the photoionization matrix elements can be related to the Dyson orbitals, we construct estimates for the yield of strong-field ionization (SFI) to different cation states based on the Dyson orbital norms and the Keldysh tunneling ionization rate. In the case of XUV ionization, the Dyson norms are shown to be good predictors of the relative cation yields when compared with the TD-RIS yields. The Dyson- and Keldysh-based models underestimate the yield to excited cation states in the case of SFI. The increased yield to the excited cation states in the TD-RIS results is attributed to the inclusion of multielectron effects and continuum structure not present in the simple models. The molecular Ammosov-Delone-Krainov (MO-ADK) method of calculating SFI is also considered. This later method is seen to agree more closely with the Dyson- and Keldysh-based estimates as it also fails to capture the multielectron effects and continuum structure included in the TD-RIS approach.

The use of techniques for analyzing the fluorescence photon statistics of a single molecule for modeling single-emitter dynamics is demonstrated. The photon distribution function measured in the fluorescence of a single tetra-tert-butylterrylene molecule embedded in polyisobutylene is used to devise a theoretical model for single emitters with complicated fluorescence photon statistics. Our analysis was carried out with the theoretical approach developed by Osad'ko and co-workers [J. Chem. Phys. 130, 064904 (2009); J. Phys. Chem. C 114, 10349 (2010)] for photon distribution functions. Although the experimental data were obtained at cryogenic temperature where narrow zero-phonon lines are present, the method is based on a purely statistical approach and does not require spectrally resolved data. It can also be applied to the analysis of broad fluorescence bands as measured at room temperature. Therefore, the method has prospects for revealing the quantum dynamics of single biological objects and other single quantum emitters in ambient conditions.

In this work, the Schmidt number of the two-photon state generated by parametric down-conversion (PDC) is evaluated in the framework of a fully spatiotemporal model for PDC. A comparison with the results obtained in either purely spatial or purely temporal models shows that the degree of entanglement of the PDC state cannot be trivially reduced to the product of the Schmidt numbers obtained in models with lower dimensionality, unless the detected bandwidth is very narrow. This result is a consequence of the nonfactorability of the state in the spatial and temporal degrees of freedoms of twin photons. In the limit of a broad pump beam, we provide a geometrical interpretation of the Schmidt number as the ratio between the volume of the phase-matching region and of a correlation volume.

We theoretically investigate a photonic Kagomé lattice which can be realized in microwave cavity arrays using current technology. The Kagomé lattice exhibits an exotic band structure with three bands, one of which can be made completely flat. The presence of artificial gauge fields makes it possible to emulate topological phases and induce chiral edge modes which can coexist inside the energy gap with the flat band that is topologically trivial. By tuning the artificial fluxes or in the presence of disorder, the flat band can also acquire a bandwidth in energy allowing the coexistence between chiral edge modes and bulk extended states; in this case the chiral modes become fragile towards scattering into the bulk. The photonic system then exhibits equivalents of both a quantum Hall effect without Landau levels and an anomalous Hall effect characterized by a nonquantized Chern number. We discuss experimental observables such as local density of states and edge currents. We show how synthetic uniform magnetic fields can be engineered, which allows an experimental probe of Landau levels in the photonic Kagomé lattice. We then draw on semiclassical Boltzmann equations for transport to devise a method to measure Berry's phases around loops in the Brillouin zone. The method is based solely on wave-packet interference and can be used to determine band Chern numbers or the photonic equivalent of the anomalous Hall response. We demonstrate the robustness of these measurements towards on-site and gauge-field disorder. We also show the stability of the anomalous quantum Hall phase for nonlinear cavities and for (artificial) atom-photon interactions.

The joint weak value is a counterfactual quantity related to quantum correlations and quantum dynamics, which can be retrieved via weak measurements, as initiated by Aharonov and colleagues. In this paper, we provide a full analytical extension of the method described by Puentes et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 040401 (2012)], to extract the joint weak values of single-particle operators from two-dimensional spatial displacements of Laguerre-Gauss probe states, for the case of the azimuthal index $\left|l\right|>1$. This method has a statistical advantage over previous ones since information about the conjugate observable, i.e., the momentum displacement of the probe, is not required. Moreover, we demonstrate that, under certain conditions, the joint weak value can be extracted directly from spatial displacements without any additional data processing.

We propose a potentially practical scheme to precisely measure the charge number of small charged objects by using optomechanically induced transparency (OMIT) in optomechanical systems. In contrast to conventional measurements based on noise backaction on optomechanical systems, our scheme presents an alternative way to detect the charge number exactly, by monitoring small deformation of the mechanical resonator sensitive to the charge number of nearby charged object. The relationship between the charge number and the OMIT window width is investigated and the feasibility of the scheme is justified by numerical simulation with currently available experimental values.

The photoexcitation of Na Bose-Einstein condensates is studied by direct solution of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation in both cylindrical and Cartesian coordinates. As the frequency of a Bragg scattering potential is varied the first dipole mode of the ground state is brought into resonance. The dipole mode frequency is verified by diagonalization of the Bogoliubov–de Gennes matrix in cylindrical coordinates. Dipole mode frequencies are found for Na condensates bound in both isotropic and nonisotropic magnetic traps.

We propose a phase-sensitive detection scheme to identify the unconventional $p_x\pm i{p}_y$ symmetry of the condensate wave functions of bosons, which have already been proposed and realized in high bands in optical lattices. Using the impulsive Raman operation combined with time-of-flight imaging, the off-diagonal correlation functions in momentum space give rise to the relative phase information between different components of condensate wave functions. This scheme is robust against the interaction and interband effects, and provides evidence of unconventional Bose-Einstein condensations with nontrivial condensation symmetries.

Characterizing a quantum process is the critical first step towards applying such a process in a quantum information protocol. Full process characterization is known to be extremely resource-intensive, motivating the search for more efficient ways to extract salient information about the process. An example is the identification of “decoherence-free subspaces,” in which computation or communications may be carried out, immune to the principal sources of decoherence in the system. Here we propose and demonstrate a protocol which enables one to directly identify a decoherence-free subspace (DFS) without carrying out a full reconstruction. Our protocol offers an up-to-quadratic speedup over standard process tomography. In this paper, we experimentally identify the DFS of a two-qubit process with 32 measurements rather than the usual 256, characterize the robustness and efficiency of the protocol, and discuss its extension to higher-dimensional systems.

We show that the two-dimensional (2D) Ising model is complete, in the sense that the partition function of any lattice model on any graph is equal to the partition function of the 2D Ising model with complex coupling. The latter model has all its spin-spin coupling equal to $i\frac{\pi }{4}$ and all parameters of the original model are contained in the local magnetic fields of the Ising model. This result has already been derived by using techniques from quantum information theory and by exploiting the universality of cluster states. Here we do not use the quantum formalism and hence make the completeness result accessible to a wide audience. Furthermore, our method has the advantage of being algorithmic in nature so that, by following a set of simple graphical transformations, one is able to transform any discrete lattice model to an Ising model defined on a (polynomially) larger 2D lattice.

A fluid model for the expansion of a molecular ultracold plasma composed of NO${}^{+}$ ions and electrons shows that fast dissociative recombination (DR) flattens the charged-particle density distribution, effectively freezing the expansion of the plasma core. However, a much greater fraction of the plasma mass exists at lower density in the wings of the plasma, where dissociative recombination has little effect, and ion motion is driven by a Gaussian charge-density gradient. Here, expansion proceeds as the collisionless acceleration of the ions under the radial pressure of the expanding electron gas. Even though DR flattening dramatically suppresses the radial velocity of ions in the densest part of the plasma, the measured evolution of the overall plasma width remains dominated by the expansion of the outer shells. Thus, despite its frozen core, a dissociating plasma with an initial electron temperature $T_e\left(0\right)$ exhibits a time-evolving width that differs only slightly from a Vlasov expansion with the same $T_e\left(0\right)$.

We theoretically analyze the cooling dynamics of an atom which is tightly trapped inside a high-finesse optical resonator. Cooling is achieved by suitably tailored scattering processes, in which the atomic dipole transition either scatters a cavity photon into the electromagnetic field external to the resonator, or performs a stimulated emission into the cavity mode, which then dissipates via the cavity mirrors. We identify the parameter regimes in which the atom center-of-mass motion can be cooled into the ground state of the external trap. We predict that, in particular, for high cooperativities, interference effects mediated by the atomic transition may lead to higher efficiencies. The dynamics is compared with the cooling dynamics of a trapped atom inside a resonator studied by Zippilli and Morigi [Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 143001 (2005)] where the atom, instead of the cavity, is driven by a laser field.

The emergence of vortex-bright soliton dipoles in two-component Bose-Einstein condensates through bifurcations from suitable eigenstates of the underlying linear system is examined. These dipoles can have their bright solitary structures be in phase (symmetric) or out of phase (anti-symmetric). The dynamical robustness of each of these two possibilities is considered and the out-of-phase case is found to exhibit an intriguing symmetry-breaking instability that can in turn lead to tunneling of the bright wave function between the two vortex “wells.” We interpret this phenomenon by virtue of a vortex-induced double-well system, whose spontaneous symmetry breaking leads to asymmetric vortex-bright dipoles, in addition to the symmetric and antisymmetric ones. The theoretical prediction of these states is corroborated by detailed numerical computations.

We consider a trapped quasi-two-dimensional dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate with a polarization tilted into the plane of motion. We show that by tilting the polarization axis, the coherence properties are anisotropic. Such a system will have density fluctuations, the amplitude of which depends on their trap location. Additionally, interference contrast will also be anisotropic despite an isotropic density profile. The anisotropy is related to a rotonlike mode that becomes unstable and supports local collapse along the polarization axis.

We present an encoded hybrid quantum repeater scheme using qubit-repetition and Calderbank-Shor-Steane codes. For the case of repetition codes, we propose an explicit implementation of the quantum error-correction protocol. Moreover, we analyze the entangled-pair distribution rate for the hybrid quantum repeater with encoding and we clearly identify trade-offs between the efficiency of the codes, the memory-decoherence time, and the local gate errors. Finally, we show that in the presence of reasonable imperfections our system can achieve rates of roughly 24 Hz per memory for 20 km repeater spacing, a final distance of 1280 km, and final fidelity of about 0.95.