Recently a device enabling the ultrafast all-optical control of the wave-particle duality of light was proposed [Ridolfo et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 013601 (2011)]. It is constituted by a three-level quantum emitter strongly coupled to a microcavity and can be realized by exploiting a great variety of systems ranging from atomic physics and semiconductor quantum dots to intersubband polaritons and Cooper pair boxes. Control pulses with specific arrival times, performing which-path and quantum-eraser operations, are able to destroy and recover interference almost instantaneously. Here we show that the coherence sudden death implies the sudden birth of a higher order correlation function storing coherence. Such storing enables coherence rebirth after the arrival of an additional suitable control pulse. We derive analytical calculations describing the all-optical control of the wave-particle duality and the entanglement-induced switch-off of the strong coupling regime. We also present analytical calculations describing a homodynelike method exploiting pairs of phase locked pulses with precise arrival times to probe the optical control of wave-particle duality of this system. Within such a method the optical control of wave-particle duality can be directly probed by just detecting the photons escaping the microcavity.

We present a two-dimensional collinear, adiabatic model to describe the motion of a proton in between two hydrogen molecules which adjust their elongation to trace a minimum-energy path. Together with bound states, the predissociative, vibrationally excited states involved in the electric dipole transitions are characterized. The main qualitative features of the infrared spectra of H${}_5{}^{+}$ and its deuterated variant are discussed, and the effect of the temperature of the clusters is analyzed.

Hyperpolarization of ${}^{133}$Cs nuclei in CsCl salt is achieved through spin transfer from an optically pumped Cs vapor, with maximum polarizations of 0.1$\%$ demonstrated. Motional narrowing of the enhanced NMR line indicates that ion movement facilitates this process by transporting spin-polarized ions from the interface into the salt. The resulting NMR enhancement allows measurement of the polarization and its dynamics in real time. Based upon the NMR frequency and the longitudinal spin relaxation time, we find no evidence that the salt is contaminated by Cs metal or paramagnetic impurities. The Cs nuclear polarization reported here could be improved several orders of magnitude by intense laser heating of the entire sample.

We measure the momentum distribution of a two-dimensional trapped Bose gas and observe the increase of the range of coherence around the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition. We quantitatively compare our observed profiles to both a Hartree-Fock mean-field theory and quantum Monte Carlo simulations. In the normal phase, the momentum distribution is observed to sharpen well before the phase transition. This behavior is partially captured in a mean-field approach, in contrast to the physics of the BKT transition.

Recently, much interest has been directed toward designing setups that achieve realistic loss thresholds for decisive tests of local realism—in particular in the optical regime. We analyze the feasibility of such Bell tests based on a $W$ state shared between multiple parties, which can be realized, for example, by a single photon shared between spatial modes. We develop a general error model to obtain thresholds for the efficiencies required to violate local realism and also consider two concrete optical-measurement schemes.

We analyze the operational meaning of the residual entanglement in noninertial fermionic systems in terms of the achievable violation of the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) inequality. We demonstrate that the quantum correlations of fermions, which were previously found to survive in the infinite acceleration limit, cannot be considered to be nonlocal. The entanglement shared by an inertial and an accelerated observer cannot be utilized for the violation of the CHSH inequality in case of high accelerations. Our results are shown to extend beyond the single-mode approximation commonly used in the literature.

We study the dynamics of two initially correlated qubits coupled to their own separate spin baths modeled by an $XY$ spin chain and find the explicit expression of the quantum discord for the system. A sudden transition is found to exist between classical and quantum decoherence by choosing certain initial states. We show that the sudden transition happens near the critical point, which provides an alternative way to characterize the quantum phase transition. Furthermore, we propose a scheme to prolong the transition time of the quantum discord by applying the bang-bang pulses.

We study the stochastic resonance of quantum discord (“discord resonance”) in coupled quantum systems and make a comparison with the stochastic resonance of entanglement (“entanglement resonance”). It is found that the discord resonance is much more robust against dephasing noise and thermal effects than the entanglement resonance. We also show that, unlike the entanglement resonance, the level of dissipation at which the discord resonance occurs is not sensitive to dephasing noise. These results suggest that it is easier to detect the discord resonance in actual experiments, where the dephasing noise and temperature are difficult to control.

In this work, we reveal a type of impossibility discovered in our recent research which forbids comparing the closeness of multiple unknown quantum states with any nontrivial threshold in a perfect or unambiguous way. This impossibility is distinct from the existing impossibilities in that it is a “collective” impossibility on multiple quantum states; most other “no-go” theorems are concerned with only one single state each time, i.e., it is an impossibility on a nonlocal quantum operation. This impossibility may provide new insight into the nature of quantum mechanics, and it implies more limitations on quantum information tasks than the existing no-go theorems.

Open quantum system dynamics of random unitary type may in principle be fully undone. Closely following the scheme of environment-assisted error correction proposed by Gregoratti and Werner [J. Mod. Opt. 50, 915 (2003)], we explicitly carry out all steps needed to invert a phase-damping error on a single qubit. Furthermore, we extend the scheme to a mixed-state environment. Surprisingly, we find cases for which the uncorrected state is closer to the desired state than any of the corrected ones.

We study the maximum-confidence (MC) measurement strategy for discriminating among nonorthogonal symmetric qudit states. Restricting to linearly dependent and equally likely pure states, we find the optimal positive operator valued measure (POVM) that maximizes our confidence in identifying each state in the set and minimizes the probability of obtaining inconclusive results. The physical realization of this POVM is completely determined and it is shown that after an inconclusive outcome, the input states may be mapped into a new set of equiprobable symmetric states, restricted, however, to a subspace of the original qudit Hilbert space. By applying the MC measurement again onto this new set, we can still gain some information about the input states, although with less confidence than before. This leads us to introduce the concept of sequential maximum-confidence (SMC) measurements, where the optimized MC strategy is iterated in as many stages as allowed by the input set, until no further information can be extracted from an inconclusive result. Within each stage of this measurement our confidence in identifying the input states is the highest possible, although it decreases from one stage to the next. In addition, the more stages we accomplish within the maximum allowed, the higher will be the probability of correct identification. We will discuss an explicit example of the optimal SMC measurement applied in the discrimination among four symmetric qutrit states and propose an optical network to implement it.

We present an experimental study of the dynamics of a two-level system driven by strong nonresonant electromagnetic pulses as a function of pulse intensity and detuning. We have explored the qualitative and quantitative behavior of the transition probability as a function of pulse area for five different temporal profiles: Lorentzian, Lorentzian squared, hyperbolic secant, hyperbolic secant squared, and Gaussian. The two-level system consists of a fine-structure doublet in sodium Rydberg states coupled by Raman transitions driven through far-off-resonance intermediate states. The pulses are in the microwave regime and have high fidelity and uniform intensity. Experiments show that, despite the similarity in the pulse shapes, the behavior of the population transfer versus intensity depends dramatically on the temporal shape and that the spectral properties and area of the pulse do not adequately describe the response.

We discuss techniques for probing the effects of a constant force acting on cold atoms using two configurations of a grating echo-type atom interferometer. Laser-cooled samples of ${}^{85}$Rb with temperatures as low as 2.4 $\mu$K have been achieved in a new experimental apparatus with a well-controlled magnetic environment. We demonstrate interferometer signal lifetimes approaching the transit time limit in this system ($\sim 270$ ms), which is comparable to the time scale achieved by Raman interferometers. Using these long time scales, we experimentally investigate the influence of a homogeneous magnetic field gradient using two- and three-pulse interferometers, which enable us to sense changes in externally applied magnetic field gradients as small as $\sim 4\times {10}^{-5}$ G/cm. We also provide an improved theoretical description of signals generated by both interferometer configurations that accurately models experimental results. With this theory, absolute measurements of $B$ gradients at the level of $3\times {10}^{-4}$ G/cm are achieved. Finally, we contrast the suitability of the two- and three-pulse interferometers for precision measurements of the gravitational acceleration, $g$.

We consider the quasi-two-dimensional two-component Bose-Einstein condensates with Rashba spin-orbit (SO) coupling in a rotating trap. The rotation angular velocity couples to the mechanical angular momentum, which contains a noncanonical part arising from SO coupling. The effects of an external Zeeman term favoring spin polarization along the radial direction is also considered, which has the same form as the noncanonical part of the mechanical angular momentum. The rotating condensate exhibits a variety of rich structures by varying the strengths of the trapping potential and interaction. With a strong trapping potential, the condensate exhibits a half-quantum vortex-lattice configuration. Such a configuration is driven to the normal one by introducing the external radial Zeeman field. In the case of a weak trap potential, the condensate exhibits a multidomain pattern of plane-wave states under the external radial Zeeman field.

We investigate the long-term dynamics of spin textures prepared by cooling unmagnetized spinor gases of $F=1$ ${}^{87}$Rb to quantum degeneracy, observing domain coarsening and a strong dependence of the equilibration dynamics on the quadratic Zeeman shift $q$. For small values of $\left|q\right|$, the textures arrive at a configuration independent of the initial spin-state composition, characterized by large length-scale spin domains and the establishment of easy-axis (negative $q$) or easy-plane (positive $q$) magnetic anisotropy. For larger $\left|q\right|$, equilibration is delayed as the spin-state composition of the degenerate spinor gas remains close to its initial value. These observations support the mean-field equilibrium phase diagram predicted for a ferromagnetic spinor Bose-Einstein condensate and also illustrate that equilibration is achieved under a narrow range of experimental settings, making the $F=1$ ${}^{87}$Rb gas more suitable for studies of nonequilibrium quantum dynamics.

We develop a perturbative theory to describe optical propagation in subwavelength rod waveguides. In this approach, we account for loss and nonlinearity in the boundary conditions. A comparison to the traditional perturbative approach used in optical fibers reveals that the surface contribution provides a significant nonlinearity enhancement in the subwavelength regime. We further compare the nonlinearity enhancement of metallic, dielectric, and semiconductor waveguides, in addition to determining the attenuation coefficient of metallic nanowires.

We demonstrate the realization of a new hybrid state of light that is simultaneously spectrally broadband, i.e., in-coherent in first order, and exhibits a laserlike normalized intensity correlation coefficient of 1.33, reflecting high coherence in second order. This is achieved by temperature-tuned light emission from an optoelectronic quantum dot superluminescent diode where the condensation of injected charge carriers into the globally lowest energy state of the strongly inhomogeneously broadened semiconductor quantum dot ensemble gives rise to a particular balance between spontaneous and stimulated emission.

Quantum vacuum mode structure can be changed due to length scale fluctuation of the cross section of a metallic waveguide. Such a structure change in vacuum modes (particularly in cutoff vacuum modes) would lead to dramatic enhancement or inhibition of spontaneous emission decay of atoms and, if the waveguide is filled with a dilute atomic vapor consisting of quantum-coherent atoms of a four-level tripod-configuration system, an optical wave propagating inside the waveguide can be coherently manipulated by tunable constructive and destructive quantum interference between two control transitions (driven by two control fields) in a quite unusual way (e.g., the optical response, in which a three-level dark state is involved, is sensitive to the waveguide dimension variations at certain positions of resonance of the atomic spontaneous emission decay rate). Therefore, an intriguing effect that can be employed to designs of new photonic and quantum optical devices could be achieved based on the present mechanisms of quantum-vacuum manipulation and quantum coherence control.

We propose a scheme to clarify the coupling nature between superconducting Josephson qubits and microscopic two-level systems. Although dominant interest in studying two-level systems was in phase qubits previously, we find that the sensitivity of the generally used spectral method in phase qubits is not sufficient to evaluate the exact form of the coupling. On the contrary, our numerical calculation shows that the coupling strength changes remarkably with the flux bias for a flux qubit, providing a useful tool to investigate the coupling mechanism between the two-level systems and qubits.

A Bose gas subject to a light-induced Rashba spin-orbit coupling possesses a dispersion minimum on a circle in momentum space; we show that kinematic constraints due to this dispersion cause interactions to renormalize to universal, angle-dependent values that govern the phase structure in the dilute-gas limit. We find that, regardless of microscopic interactions, (a) the ground state involves condensation at two opposite momenta and is, in finite systems, a fragmented condensate and and (b) there is a nonzero-temperature instability toward the condensation of pairs of bosons. We discuss how our results can be reconciled with the qualitatively different mean-field phase diagram, which is appropriate for dense gases.