The $\mathit{KMM}$ radiative Auger (RA) x-ray spectra of solid Ca were induced by monochromatic synchrotron radiation and measured with a high-resolution von Hamos bent crystal spectrometer. Two excitation energies were employed, one in the near $K$ threshold region and the second well above the $K$ absorption edge. The $\mathit{KMM}$ RA spectral structure and relative intensity with respect to the diagram $K{\beta }_{1,3}$ ($K-M_{3,2}$) line are found to be independent of the excitation energy. The overall RA structure resembles the density of unoccupied $s$, $p$, and $d$ states. Due to solid-state effects, however, spectral features resulting from the major discrete shake-up transitions could not be resolved. For the total $\mathit{KMM}$ RA to $K{\beta }_{1,3}$ yield ratio, a value of 0.053(3) is obtained. The latter is compared to theoretical predictions and available experimental data obtained by various types of target excitation.

We discuss the application of a strong-coupling expansion (perturbation theory in the hopping) for studying light-Fermi–heavy-Bose (like ${}^{40}\mathrm{K}$-${}^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$) mixtures in optical lattices. We use the strong-coupling method to evaluate the efficiency for preforming molecules, the entropy per particle, and the thermal fluctuations. We show that within the strong interaction regime (and at high temperature), the strong-coupling expansion is an economical way to study this problem. In some cases, it remains valid even down to low temperatures. Because the computational effort is minimal, the strong-coupling approach allows us to work with much larger system sizes, where boundary effects can be eliminated, which is particularly important at higher temperatures. Since the strong-coupling approach is so efficient and accurate, it allows one to rapidly scan through parameter space in order to optimize the preforming of molecules on a lattice (by choosing the lattice depth and interspecies attraction). Based on the strong-coupling calculations, we test the thermometry scheme based on the fluctuation-dissipation theorem and find the scheme gives accurate temperature estimation even at very low temperature. We believe this approach and the calculation results will be useful in the design of the next generation of experiments and will hopefully lead to the ability to form dipolar matter in the quantum degenerate regime.

A recent experiment has provided tentative evidence for itinerant ferromagnetism in an ultracold atomic gas. However, the interpretation of the results is complicated by significant atom losses. We argue that during the loss process the system gradually heats up but remains in local equilibrium.To quantify the consequences of atom loss on the putative ferromagnetic transition we adopt an extended Hertz-Millis theory. The losses damp quantum fluctuations, thus increasing the critical interaction strength needed to induce ferromagnetism and revert the transition from being first order to second order. This effect may resolve a discrepancy between the experiment and previous theoretical predictions. We further illuminate the impact of loss by studying the collective spin excitations in the ferromagnet. Even in the fully polarized state, where loss is completely suppressed, spin waves acquire a decay rate proportional to the three-body loss coefficient.

The spontaneous emission (SE) of the excited atoms in a two-dimensional (2D) arbitrary inhomogeneous environment has been systematically studied. The local density of states, which determines the radiation dynamics of a point source (for 3D) or a line source (for 2D), in particular, the SE rate, is represented by the electric dyadic Green’s function. The numerical solution of the electric Green’s tensor has been accurately obtained with the finite-difference frequency-domain method with the proper approximations of the monopole and dipole sources. The SE of atoms in photonic crystal and plasmonic metal plates has been comprehensively and comparatively investigated. For both the photonic crystal and plasmonic plates systems, the SEs depend on their respective dispersion relations and could be modified by the finite-structure or finite-size effects. This work is important for SE engineering and the optimized design of optoelectronic devices.

A nondegenerate phase-conjugate wave was generated via stored atomic coherence in a ${\mathrm{Pr}}^{3+}:{\mathrm{Y}}_2{\mathrm{SiO}}_5$ crystal based on the electromagnetically induced transparency effect, and its capability for wave-front reconstruction of phase distortion was demonstrated experimentally. The phase-matching condition during the storage-retrieval process of the phase-conjugate wave was characterized both experimentally and theoretically in detail. Theoretical simulations fit the experimental data very well. Such a scheme of storage and retrieval of the phase-conjugate wave may have potential applications in optical signal processing and information security.

We report electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) using quantized fields in optomechanical systems. The weak probe field is a narrowband squeezed field. We present a homodyne detection of EIT in the output quantum field. We find that the EIT dip exists even though the photon number in the squeezed vacuum is at the single-photon level. The EIT with quantized fields can be seen even at temperatures on the order of 100 mK, thus paving the way for using optomechanical systems as memory elements.

We present experimentally testable quantum limitations on the phase-insensitive linear amplification and phase conjugation with respect to the transformation of a Gaussian-distributed set of coherent states following the footing to assess the success of continuous-variable quantum teleportation and quantum memory devices. The results enable us to compare the real device with the quantum-limited device via the feasible input of coherent states.

We consider a multilevel system coupled to a bosonic measurement apparatus. We derive exact expressions for the time-dependent expectation values of a large class of physically relevant observables that depend on degrees of freedom of both systems. We find that, for this class, though the two systems become entangled as a result of their interaction, they appear classically correlated for long enough times. The unique corresponding time-dependent separable state is determined explicitly. To better understand the physical parameters that control the time scale of this effective disentanglement process, we study a one-dimensional measurement apparatus.

We analyze the dynamics of a qubit-resonator system coupled with a thermal bath and external electromagnetic fields. Using the evolution equations for the set of Heisenberg operators that describe the whole system, we derive an expression for the resonator field, accounting for the resonator-drive, -bath, and -qubit interaction. The renormalization of the resonator frequency caused by the qubit-resonator interaction is accounted for. Using solutions for the resonator field, we derive the equation describing qubit dynamics. The influence of the qubit evolution during measurement time on the fidelity of a single-shot measurement is studied. The relation between fidelity and measurement time is shown explicitly. Also, an expression describing relaxation of the superposition qubit state toward its stationary value is derived. The possibility of controlling this state by varying the amplitude and frequency of drive is shown.

We present the derivation of the formulas for the proton structure-dependent terms in the hyperfine splitting of muonic hydrogen. We use compatible conventions throughout the calculations to derive a consistent set of formulas that reconcile differences between our results and some specific terms in earlier work. Convention conversion corrections are explicitly presented, which reduce the calculated hyperfine splitting by about $46$ ppm. We also note that using only modern fits to the proton elastic form factors gives a smaller than historical spread of Zemach radii and leads to a reduced uncertainty in the hyperfine splitting. Additionally, hyperfine splittings have an impact on the muonic hydrogen Lamb shift and proton radius measurement, however the correction we advocate has a small effect there.

In homonuclear molecules, such as ${\mathrm{H}}_2$, the rovibrational levels close to the dissociation threshold do not have definite symmetry with respect to the inversion of electronic variables. This effect—the gerade-ungerade mixing—results from interactions between magnetic moments of electrons and protons. We calculate this mixing on the level of adiabatic approximation and numerically solve the system of nuclear differential equations. It turns out that the corrections to the dissociation energy of rovibrational levels resulting from the mixing are negligible in comparison with the present accuracy of experiments. As a coproduct, an accurate clamped nuclei potential for the $b$ ${}^3{\Sigma }_u^{+}$ state has been obtained.

We propose a scheme to achieve the field-free molecular orientation around the half rotational periods with the combination of single- and dual-color laser pulses. We show that the molecular orientation can be obtained and controlled by precisely controlling the time delay between the two laser pulses. Furthermore, we discuss the effect of the laser intensity and pulse duration of the single-color laser pulse on the molecular orientation created by the dual-color laser pulse, and show that the molecular orientation depends on the change in the alignment degree between the odd and even rotational wave-packet contributions created by the single-color laser pulse.

We study a mixture of two light spin-1/2 fermionic atoms and two heavy atoms in a double-well potential. Inelastic scattering processes between both atomic species excite the heavy atoms and renormalize the tunneling rate and the interaction of the light atoms (polaron effect). The effective interaction of the light atoms changes its sign and becomes attractive for strong inelastic scattering. This is accompanied by a crossing of the energy levels from singly occupied sites at weak inelastic scattering to a doubly occupied and an empty site for stronger inelastic scattering. We are able to identify the polaron effect and the level crossing in the quantum dynamics.

Bose-Einstein condensation in the presence of a synthetic spin-orbit interaction is considered, focusing on the case where a Dirac or Rashba potential is generated via a tripod scheme. We found that the ground states can be either plane-wave states or superpositions of them, each characterized by their unique density distributions.

We address correlated few-photon transport in one-dimensional waveguides coupled to a two-level system (TLS), such as an atom or a quantum dot. We derive exactly the single-photon and two-photon current (transmission) for linear and nonlinear (tight-binding sinusoidal) energy-momentum dispersion relations of photons in the waveguides and compare the results for the different dispersions. A large enhancement of the two-photon current for the sinusoidal dispersion has been seen at a certain transition energy of the TLS away from the single-photon resonances.

An improvement of the scheme by Brunner and Simon [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 010405 (2010)] is proposed in order to show that quantum weak measurements can provide a method to detect ultrasmall longitudinal phase shifts, even with white light. By performing an analysis in the frequency domain, we find that the amplification effect will work as long as the spectrum is large enough, irrespective of the behavior in the time domain. As such, the previous scheme can be notably simplified for experimental implementations.

In this Brief Report, we use the exponential explicitly correlated variational basis set of the type $\exp (-{\alpha }_{n}R-{\beta }_n{r}_1-{\gamma }_n{r}_2)$ to calculate systematically the nonrelativistic bound-state energies for the hydrogen molecular ion ${\text{HT}}^{+}$. We perform calculations for the states of the total orbital angular momentum $L=0$ and 1 with the complete set of vibrational quantum numbers $v=$ 0–23, as well as for the states of $L=$ 2–5 and $v=$ 0–5. The $E1$ dipole transition moments, which are of importance for the planning of spectroscopic laser experiments, have been obtained as well.

We consider superposition of two states of light polarized along mutually orthogonal directions. We show that partial polarization of the superposed light may be interpreted as a manifestation of the wave-particle duality.

We construct a set of criteria detecting genuine multipartite entanglement in arbitrary dimensional multipartite systems. These criteria are optimally suited for detecting multipartite entanglement in $n$-qubit Dicke states with $m$ excitations, as shown in exemplary cases. Furthermore, they can be employed to detect multipartite entanglement in different states related to quantum cloning, decoherence-free communication, and quantum secret sharing. In a detailed analysis, we show that the criteria are also more robust to noise than any other criterion known so far, especially with increasing system size. Furthermore, it is shown that the number of required local observables scales only polynomially with size, thus making the criteria experimentally feasible.