The subpicosecond dynamics of angular momentum transfer in the excited rubidium 5$p$ state is studied in real time by observing photoelectron angular distributions with velocity map imaging. Retrieving the populations of the degenerate Zeeman levels and reconstructing the angular momentum, we show that in the case of resonant excitation the angular momentum does not follow the momentary helicity of the electric field of the pulse. This is in contrast with off-resonant excitation where the angular momentum and pulse helicity are fully correlated. Our study shows how to generate and shape ultrashort pulses of orbital and spin angular momentum in a controllable way.

Continuous center-of-mass position measurements performed on an interacting harmonically trapped Bose-gas are considered. Using both a semianalytical mean-field approach and a completely quantum numerical technique based on the positive $P$ representation, it is demonstrated that the atomic delocalization due to the measurement backaction is smaller for a strongly interacting gas. The numerically calculated second-order correlation functions demonstrate the appearance of atomic bunching as a result of the center-of-mass measurement. Although rather small, the bunching is also present for a strongly interacting gas, which is in contrast with the case of an unperturbed gas. The performed analysis allows us to speculate that, for relatively strong interactions, the size of the atomic cloud determined with a single snapshot measurement can become smaller than the ground-state cloud size.

We apply the operator-product expansion to determine the asymptotic form of the current response of a Fermi gas in two and three dimensions. The leading-order term away from the one-particle peak is proportional to a quantity known as the contact, the coefficient of which is determined exactly. We also calculate the dynamic structure factor and the high-frequency tails of the spectral viscosities as a function of the scattering length. Our results are used to derive certain sum rules for the viscosities.

There are different families of inequalities that can be used to characterize the entanglement of multiqubit entangled states by the violation of quantum mechanics prediction versus local realism prediction. In a noisy environment, the violation of different inequalities distinguishes a direct from a noise-free environment. That is, each inequality has a different robustness against noise. We investigate theoretically and experimentally this proposition with the Mermin inequality, Bell inequality, and Svetlichny inequality using three-qubit GHZ states for different levels of noise. Our purpose is to determine which one of the inequalities is more robust against noise and thus more suitable to characterize entanglement of states. Our results show that the Mermin inequality is the most robust against stronger noise and is, thus, more suitable for characterizing the entanglement of three-qubit GHZ states in a noisy environment.

We analyze the Zeeman shift in the $(v,N)=(0,0)\to (1,0)$ transition frequency of $X$ Li molecules ($X$: even isotopes of group II atoms), which is of interest in metrology. The Zeeman shift in the transition frequency between stretching states is found to be less than 1 mHz with a magnetic field of 1 G. $X$ ${}^6$Li molecules are more advantageous than $X$ ${}^7$Li molecules for measuring the transition frequency without the Zeeman shift because of the smaller $g$ factor of the Li nuclear spin.

We describe an optical setup for performing spatial Fourier filtering in ghost imaging with classical incoherent light. This is achieved by a modification of the conventional geometry for lensless ghost imaging. It is shown on the basis of classical coherence theory that with this technique one can realize what we call phase-contrast ghost imaging to visualize pure phase objects.

In Dirac's canonical quantization theory on systems with second-class constraints, the commutators between the position, momentum, and Hamiltonian form a set of algebraic relations that are fundamental in construction of both the quantum momentum and the Hamiltonian. For a free particle on a two-dimensional sphere or a spherical top, results show that the well-known canonical momentum $p_{\theta }$ breaks one of the relations, while three components of the momentum expressed in the three-dimensional Cartesian system of axes as $p_i$ $(i=1,2,3)$ are satisfactory all around. This momentum is not only geometrically invariant but also self-adjoint, and we call it geometric momentum. The nontrivial commutators between $p_i$ generate three components of the orbital angular momentum; thus the geometric momentum is fundamental to the angular one. We note that there are five different forms of the geometric momentum proposed in the current literature, but only one of them turns out to be meaningful.

We study the radiative heat transfer and the Casimir-Lifshitz force occurring between two bodies in a system out of thermal equilibrium. We consider bodies of arbitrary shape and dielectric properties, held at two different temperatures and immersed in environmental radiation at a third different temperature. We derive explicit closed-form analytic expressions for the correlations of the electromagnetic field and for the heat transfer and Casimir-Lifshitz force in terms of the bodies’ scattering matrices. We then consider some particular cases which we investigate in detail: the atom-surface and the slab-slab configurations.

We calculate, in the framework of open quantum systems, the ground state energy-level shift for a static two-level atom outside a spherically symmetric black hole in interaction with fluctuating massless scalar fields in the Boulware and Unruh vacuums. We find that the energy-level shift is position dependent and thus gives rise to a force on the atom besides the classical gravitational force. For the case of the Boulware vacuum that represents a star which has not collapsed through its event horizon, this force is attractive near the horizon and is repulsive far away from the black hole with a behavior of $r^{-3}$. For the case of the Unruh vacuum which represents a radiating black hole, we find that the contribution to the Casimir-Polder-like force due to the presence of Hawking radiation is always attractive and, remarkably, this attractive force diverges at the event horizon.

We examine cluster states transformed by stochastic local operations and classical communication, as a resource for deterministic universal computation driven strictly by projective measurements. We identify circumstances under which such states in one dimension constitute resources for random-length single-qubit rotations, in one case quasideterministically ($N-U-N$ states) and in another probabilistically ($B-U-B$ states). In contrast to the cluster states, the $N-U-N$ states exhibit spin correlation functions that decay exponentially with distance, while the $B-U-B$ states can be arbitrarily locally pure. A two-dimensional square $N-U-N$ lattice is a universal resource for quasideterministic measurement-based quantum computation. Measurements on cubic $B-U-B$ states yield two-dimensional cluster states with bond defects, whose connectivity exceeds the percolation threshold for a critical value of the local purity.

We study the quantum entanglement and quantum phase transition (QPT) of the anisotropic spin-$1/2$ $XY$ model with staggered Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction by means of the quantum renormalization group method. The scaling of coupling constants and the critical points of the system are obtained. It is found that when the number of renormalization group iterations tends to infinity, the system exhibit a QPT between the spin-fluid and Néel phases which correspond with two saturated values of the concurrence for a given value of the strength of DM interaction. The DM interaction can enhance the entanglement and influence the QPT of the system. To gain further insight, the first derivative of the entanglement exhibit a nonanalytic behavior at the critical point and it directly associates with the divergence of the correlation length. This shows that the correlation length exponent is closely related to the critical exponent, i.e., the scaling behaviors of the system.

The dissociative ionization of a CO${}_2$ molecule is studied at an electron energy of 12 keV using the multiple ion coincidence imaging technique. The absolute partial ionization cross sections and the precursor-specific absolute partial ionization cross sections of resulting fragment ions are obtained and reported. It is found that ∼75% of single ionization, 22% of double ionization, and ∼2% of triple ionization of the parent molecule contribute to the total fragment ion yield; quadruple ionization of CO${}_2$ is found to make a negligibly small contribution. Furthermore, the absolute partial ionization cross sections for ion-pair and ion-triple formation are measured for nine dissociative ionization channels of up to a quadruply ionized CO${}_2$ molecule. In addition, the branching ratios for single-ion, ion-pair, and ion-triple formation are also determined.

We investigate one-dimensional SU$\left(N\right)$ Hubbard chains at zero temperature, which can be emulated with ultracold alkaline-earth-metal atoms, by using the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG), Bethe ansatz (BA), and bosonization. We compute experimental observables and use the DMRG to benchmark the accuracy of the Bethe ansatz for $N>2$ where the BA is only approximate. In the worst case, we find a relative error $\varepsilon \lesssim 4\%$ in the BA ground-state energy for $N⩽4$ at filling $1/N$, which is due to the fact that BA improperly treats the triply and higher occupied states. Using the DMRG for $N⩽4$ and the BA for large $N$, we determine the regimes of validity of strong- and weak-coupling perturbation theory for all values of $N$ and, in particular, the parameter range in which the system is well described by a SU$\left(N\right)$ Heisenberg model at filling $1/N$. We find this depends only weakly on $N$. We investigate the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless phase transition from a Luttinger liquid to a Mott insulator by computing the fidelity susceptibility and the Luttinger parameter $K_{\rho }$ at $1/N$ filling. The numerical findings give strong evidence that the fidelity susceptibility develops a minimum at a critical interaction strength which is found to occur at a finite positive value for $N>2$.

We report approximate analytical solutions to the (3+1)-dimensional spatiotemporal nonlinear Schrödinger equation, with the uniform self-focusing nonlinearity and a variable negative radial diffraction coefficient, in the form of three-dimensional solitons. The model may be realized in artificial optical media, such as left-handed materials and photonic crystals, with the anomalous sign of the group-velocity dispersion (GVD). The same setting may be realized through the interplay of the self-defocusing nonlinearity, normal GVD, and positive variable diffraction. The Hartree approximation is utilized to achieve a suitable separation of variables in the model. Then, an inverse procedure is introduced, with the aim to select a suitable profile of the modulated diffraction coefficient supporting desirable soliton solutions (such as dromions, single- and multilayer rings, and multisoliton clusters). The validity of the analytical approximation and stability of the solutions is tested by means of direct simulations.

We consider the interaction of electromagnetic radiation of arbitrary polarization with multilevel atoms in a self-consistent manner, taking into account both spatial and temporal dependencies of local fields. This is done by numerically solving the corresponding system of coupled Maxwell-Liouville equations for various geometries. In particular, we scrutinize linear optical properties of nanoscale atomic clusters, demonstrating the significant role played by collective effects and dephasing. It is shown that subwavelength atomic clusters exhibit two resonant modes, one of which is localized slightly below the atomic transition frequency of an individual atom, while the other is positioned considerably above it. As an initial exploration of future applications of this approach, the optical response of core-shell nanostructures, with a core consisting of silver and a shell composed of resonant atoms, is examined.

Precursors can serve as a bound on the speed of information with dispersive medium. We propose a method to identify the speed of optical wave fronts using polarization-based interference in a solid-state device, which can bound the accuracy of the speed of wave fronts to less than ${10}^{-4}$ with conventional experimental conditions. Our proposal may have important implications for optical communications and fast information processing.

We propose and characterize solid-state photonic structures where light experiences an artificial gauge field. A nontrivial phase for photons tunneling between adjacent sites of a coupled cavity array can be obtained by inserting optically active materials in the structure or by inducing a suitable coupling of the propagation and polarization degrees of freedom. We also discuss the feasibility of observing strong gauge field effects in the optical spectra of realistic systems, including the Hofstadter butterfly spectrum.

We have developed semianalytical methods that allow us to perform a comprehensive analysis of the surface modes of photonic woodpiles. The surface modes of both finite and semi-infinite woodpiles are characterized using transfer matrix and plane-wave matrix formulations, and, in the case of finite structures, we give a general analytical description of the “double-interface” modes, which propagate simultaneously along the top and bottom surfaces. We show that if the number of layers is even, then such modes will only exist for specific directions of the Brillouin zone. However, if the number of layers is odd, then every surface mode is a double-interface mode, and, in this case, the direction of propagation plays an important role in determining the coupling strength between the two surfaces: for certain directions, the coupling is negligible even when the number of layers is small. The dispersion curves of two different double-interface modes can anticross or be interwoven, depending on the symmetry of the modes. We also describe the conditions under which coupled surface modes will exist when two woodpiles are used to create a Fabry-Pérot cavity.

Recent works [Shen et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 213001 (2005); Zhou et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 100501 (2008)] showed that the incident photons cannot transmit along an optical waveguide containing a resonant two-level atom (TLA). Here we propose an approach to overcome such a difficulty by using asymmetric couplings between the photons and a TLA. Our numerical results show that the transmission spectrum of the photon depends on both the frequency of the incident photons and the photon-TLA couplings. Consequently, this system can serve as a controllable photon attenuator, by which the transmission probability of the resonantly incident photons can be changed from 0% to 100$\%$. A possible application to explain the recent experimental observations [Astafiev et al., Science 327, 840 (2010)] is also discussed.

We study the time evolution of entangled states of a pair of identical atoms, considered in the harmonic approximation, coupled to an environment represented by an infinite set of free oscillators, with the whole system confined within a spherical cavity of radius $R$. Taking the center-of-mass and the relative-position coordinates, and using the dressed-state approach, we present the time evolution of some quantities measuring the entanglement for both limits of a very large and a small cavity; the chosen examples are simple and illustrate these very distinct behaviors.