We analyze the performance of quantum ratchets by considering the dynamics of an initially localized wave packet loaded into a flashing periodic potential. The directed center-of-mass motion can be initiated by the uniform modulation of the potential height, provided that the modulation protocol breaks all relevant time- and spatial-reflection symmetries. A poor performance of quantum ratchet transport is characterized by a slow net motion and a fast diffusive spreading of the wave packet, while the desirable optimal performance is the contrary. By invoking a quantum analog of the classical Péclet number, namely the quotient of the group velocity and the dispersion of the propagating wave packet, we calibrate the transport properties of flashing quantum ratchets and discuss the mechanisms that yield low-dispersive directed transport.

We analyze the outcoupling of a matter wave into a guide by a time-dependent spilling of the atoms from an initially trapped Bose-Einstein condensate. This process yields intrinsically a breakdown of the adiabatic condition that triggers the outcoupling of the wave function. Our analysis of the time-dependent engineering and manipulation of condensates in momentum space in this context enables us to work out the limits due to interactions in the mode quality of a guided-atom laser. This study is consistent with recent experimental observations of low transverse excitations of guided-atom lasers and suggests (i) an optimal strategy to realize such quasimonomode guided-atom lasers with, in addition, the lowest possible longitudinal velocity dispersion or alternatively (ii) a strategy for engineering the atomic flux of the atom laser.

The quantum phase transition between Mott insulator and superfluid is studied in the two-dimensional Jaynes-Cummings square lattice in which the counter-rotating coupling (CRC) is included. Both the ground state and the spectra of low-lying excitations are obtained with use of a sophisticated unitary transformation. This CRC is shown not only to induce a long-range interaction between cavities, favoring the long-range superfluid order, but also to break the conservation of local polariton number at each site, leading to the absence of the Mott lobes in the phase diagram, in sharp contrast with the case without the CRC as well as that of the Bose-Hubbard model.

The radiation burst from a single $\gamma$-photon field interacting with a dense resonant absorber is studied theoretically and experimentally. This effect was discovered for the fist time by P. Helisto et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 66, 2037 (1991)] and it was named the “gamma echo.” The echo is generated by a 180${}^{\circ }$ phase shift of the incident radiation field, attained by an abrupt change of the position of the absorber with respect to the radiation source during the coherence time of the photon wave packet. Three distinguishing cases of the gamma echo are considered; i.e., the photon is in exact resonance with the absorber, close to resonance (on the slope of the absorption line), and far from resonance (on the far wings of the resonance line). In resonance the amplitude of the radiation burst is two times larger than the amplitude of the input radiation field just before its phase shift. This burst was explained by Helisto et al. as a result of constructive interference of the coherently scattered field with the phase-shifted input field, both having almost the same amplitude. We found that out of resonance the scattered radiation field acquires an additional component with almost the same amplitude as the amplitude of the incident radiation field. The phase of the additional field depends on the optical thickness of the absorber and resonant detuning. Far from resonance this field interferes destructively with the phase-shifted incident radiation field and radiation quenching is observed. Close to resonance the three fields interfere constructively and the amplitude of the radiation burst is three times larger than the amplitude of the input radiation field.

We consider a two-component Fermi gas in the presence of spin imbalance, modeling the system in terms of a one-dimensional attractive Hubbard Hamiltonian initially in the presence of a confining trap potential. With the aid of the time-evolving block decimation method, we investigate the dynamics of the initial state when the trap is switched off. We show that the dynamics of a gas initially in the Fulde-Ferrel-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) state is decomposed into the independent expansion of two fluids, namely the paired and the unpaired particles. In particular, the expansion velocity of the unpaired cloud is shown to be directly related to the FFLO momentum. This provides an unambiguous signature of the FFLO state in a remarkably simple way.

We present a theoretical analysis of excitation modes in Bose-Einstein condensates of ultracold alkali-metal gases for large scattering lengths, showing clear deviations from the Bogoliubov prediction as seen by Papp et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 135301 (2008)]. We construct the atom-atom interaction by deriving the $T$ matrix of such systems from two coupled (open and closed) channels assuming that the Feshbach resonance dominates the latter. We calculate molecular bound-state energies as a function of the magnetic field and compare with available experiments. The $s$-wave phase shifts determine the local effective interaction with long-ranged repulsion and short-ranged attraction. We show that it becomes a universal function at large scattering lengths. Finally, we use this interaction to characterize the ground-state and elementary excitations of ${}^{85}$Rb, ${}^{87}$Rb, and ${}^{23}$Na gases. Good agreement with line shift experiments in ${}^{85}$Rb is achieved. We find that, at large scattering lengths, Bragg scattering experiments could directly measure the momentum dependence of the effective two-body potential.

In an elliptic In${}_x$Ga${}_{1-x}$AsP microcavity laser, various scarlike modes are experimentally observed. Below the lasing threshold, a bouncing-ball, a triangle, a double, and a triple bow-tie mode spontaneously emit. Above the threshold, a bow-tie scarlike mode lases alone. Our numerical analysis reveals that the bow-tie scarlike mode is not caused by regular islands in phase space due to the Goos-Hänchen shift, but by unstable periodic orbits and that the light emission is assisted by a quasiperiodic orbit.

We present a complete methodology for testing the performances of quantum tomography protocols. The theory is validated by several numerical examples and by the comparison with experimental results achieved with various protocols for whole families of polarization states of qubits and ququarts including pure, mixed, entangled, and separable.

Optimal control theory is a versatile tool that presents a route to significantly improving figures of merit for quantum information tasks. We combine it here with the geometric theory for local equivalence classes of two-qubit operations to derive an optimization algorithm that determines the best entangling two-qubit gate for a given physical setting. We demonstrate the power of this approach for trapped polar molecules and neutral atoms.

The symmetric Werner states for $n$ qubits, important in the study of quantum nonlocality and useful for applications in quantum information, have a surprisingly simple and elegant structure in terms of tensor products of Pauli matrices. Further, each of these states forms a unique local unitary equivalence class, that is, no two of these states are interconvertible by local unitary operations.

In this paper, we study the discrete-time quantum random walks on a line subject to decoherence. The convergence of the rescaled position probability distribution $p(x,t)$ depends mainly on the spectrum of the superoperator ${\mathcal{L}}_{kk}$. We show that if 1 is an eigenvalue of the superoperator with multiplicity one and there is no other eigenvalue whose modulus equals 1, then $\widehat{P}(\frac{\nu }{\sqrt{t}},t)$ converges to a convex combination of normal distributions. In terms of position space, the rescaled probability mass function $p_t(x,t)\equiv p(\sqrt{t}x,t)$, $x\in Z/\sqrt{t}$, converges in distribution to a continuous convex combination of normal distributions. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for a U(2) decoherent quantum walk that satisfies the eigenvalue conditions. We also give a complete description of the behavior of quantum walks whose eigenvalues do not satisfy these assumptions. Specific examples such as the Hadamard walk and walks under real and complex rotations are illustrated. For the O(2) quantum random walks, an explicit formula is provided for the scaling limit of $p(x,t)$ and their moments. We also obtain exact critical exponents for their moments at the critical point and show universality classes with respect to these critical exponents.

The strong capacity of a particular channel can be interpreted as a sharp limit on the amount of information which can be transmitted reliably over that channel. To evaluate the strong capacity of a particular channel one must prove both the direct part of the channel coding theorem and the strong converse for the channel. Here we consider the strong converse theorem for the periodic quantum channel and show some rather surprising results. We first show that the strong converse does not hold in general for this channel and therefore the channel does not have a strong capacity. Instead, we find that there is a scale of capacities corresponding to error probabilities between integer multiples of the inverse of the periodicity of the channel. A similar scale also exists for the random channel.

We reformulate the information causality in a more general framework by adopting the results of signal propagation and computation in a noisy circuit. In our framework, the information causality leads to a broad class of Tsirelson inequalities. This fact allows us to subject information causality to experimental scrutiny. A no-go theorem for reliable nonlocal computation is also derived. Information causality prevents any physical circuit from performing reliable computations.

We study families of fermionic field states in noninertial frames which show no entanglement survival in the infinite acceleration limit. We generalize some recent results where some particular examples of such states were found. We analyze the abundance and characteristics of the states showing this behavior and discuss its relation with the statistics of the field. We also consider the phenomenon beyond the single-mode approximation.

Pure multiple ionization cross sections of Ne by B${}^{2+}$ projectiles have been measured in the energy range of 0.75 to 4.0 MeV and calculated using the continuum distorted wave-eikonal initial state approximation. The experiment and calculations show that the ionization cross sections by B${}^{2+}$, principally for the production of highly charged recoils, is strongly enhanced when compared to the bare projectile with the same charge state, He${}^{2+}$, at the same velocities.

Wall-collision broadening of near-infrared absorption lines of molecular oxygen confined in nanoporous zirconia is studied by employing high-resolution diode-laser spectroscopy. The broadening is studied for pores of different sizes under a range of pressures, providing new insights on how wall collisions and intermolecular collisions influence the total spectroscopic line profile. The pressure series show that wall-collision broadening is relatively more prominent under reduced pressures, enabling sensitive means to probe pore sizes of porous materials. In addition, we show that the total wall-collision-broadened profile strongly deviates from a Voigt profile and that wall-collision broadening exhibits an additive-like behavior to the pressure and Doppler broadening.

We report on an experimental study of the ionization and fragmentation of clusters of $k$ polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) molecules using anthracene, C${}_{14}$H${}_{10}$, or coronene, C${}_{24}$H${}_{12}$. These PAH clusters are moderately charged and strongly heated in small impact parameter collisions with 22.5-keV He${}^{2+}$ ions, after which they mostly decay in long monomer evaporation sequences with singly charged and comparatively cold monomers as dominating end products. We describe a simple cluster evaporation model and estimate the number of PAH molecules in the clusters that have to be hit by He${}^{2+}$ projectiles for such complete cluster evaporations to occur. Highly charged and initially cold clusters are efficiently formed in collisions with 360-keV Xe${}^{20+}$ ions, leading to cluster Coulomb explosions and several hot charged fragments, which again predominantly yield singly charged, but much hotter, monomer ions than the He${}^{2+}$ collisions. We present a simple formula, based on density-functional-theory calculations, for the ionization energy sequences as functions of coronene cluster size, rationalized in terms of the classic electrostatic expression for the ionization of a charged conducting object. Our analysis indicates that multiple electron removal by highly charged ions from a cluster of PAH molecules rapidly may become more important than single ionization as the cluster size $k$ increases and that this is the main reason for the unexpectedly strong heating in these types of collisions.

We study the evolution of nuclear wave packets launched in molecular nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon monoxide by intense 8-fs infrared pulses. We use velocity map imaging to measure the momentum of the ion fragments when these wave packets are interrogated by a second such pulse after a variable time delay. Both quasibound and dissociative wave packets are observed. For the former, measurements of bound-state oscillations are used to identify the participating states and, in some cases, extract properties of the relevant potential-energy surfaces. Vibrational structure is resolved in both energy and oscillation frequencies for the cations of oxygen and carbon monoxide, displaying the same quantum wave-packet motion in both energy and time domains. In addition, vibrational structure is seen in the dication of carbon monoxide in a situation where the energy resolution by itself is inadequate to resolve the structure.

We report theoretical calculations of high-order harmonic generation (HHG) of Xe with the inclusion of multielectron effects and macroscopic propagation of the fundamental and harmonic fields in an ionizing medium. By using the time-frequency analysis we show that the reshaping of the fundamental laser field is responsible for the continuum structure in the HHG spectra. We further suggest a method for obtaining an isolated attosecond pulse (IAP) by using a filter centered on axis to select the harmonics in the far field with different divergence. We also discuss the carrier-envelope-phase dependence of an IAP and the possibility to optimize the yield of the IAP. With intense few-cycle mid-infrared lasers, this offers a possible method for generating isolated attosecond pulses.

We study the expansion of bosonic Mott insulators in the presence of an optical lattice after switching off a confining potential. We use the Gutzwiller mean-field approximation and consider two different setups. In the first one, the expansion is restricted to one direction. We show that this leads to the emergence of two condensates with well-defined momenta, and argue that such a construct can be used to create atom lasers in optical lattices. In the second setup, we study Mott insulators that are allowed to expand in all directions in the lattice. In this case, a simple condensate is seen to develop within the mean-field approximation. However, its constituent bosons are found to populate many nonzero momentum modes. An analytic understanding of both phenomena in terms of the exact dispersion relation in the hard-core limit is presented.