We provide an analytical description of the dynamics of an atom in an optical lattice using the method of perturbative adiabatic expansion. A precise understanding of the lattice-atom interaction is essential to taking full advantage of the promising applications that optical lattices offer in the field of atom interferometry. One such application is the implementation of large momentum transfer (LMT) beam splitters that can potentially provide multiple order of magnitude increases in momentum space separations over current technology. We also propose interferometer geometries where optical lattices are used as waveguides for the atoms throughout the duration of the interferometer sequence. Such a technique could simultaneously provide a multiple order of magnitude increase in sensitivity and a multiple order of magnitude decrease in interferometer size for many applications as compared to current state-of-the-art atom interferometers.

In this article, a theoretical scheme is proposed to investigate the formation and propagation of three-wave coupled vector optical solitons with ultraslow group velocities in a lifetime-broadened seven-state triple-$\Lambda$ atomic system under Raman excitation. We show that in the presence of a weak applied magnetic field that removes the degeneracy of the corresponding sublevels of the atomic medium, three continuous-wave control fields with circularly left or right polarized fields induce a quantum interference effect which can largely suppress the absorption of the three low-intensity pulsed fields, that is, the circularly ${\sigma }^{-}$ (right), the linearly $\pi$, and the circularly ${\sigma }^{+}$ (left) polarized fields converted from one weak linear-polarized probe field. By means of the standard method of multiple scales, we solve the equations of motion of atomic response and probe-control electromagnetic fields and derive three-coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equations that govern the nonlinear evolution of the envelopes of the probe fields in this scheme. We then demonstrate that because of the nonlinear coupling to one another, the three probe fields can evolve into three-wave temporal, group velocity, and amplitude-matched optical solitons under appropriate conditions, which are produced from the delicate balance of the dispersion effects and the self- and cross-phase modulation effects. This scheme may thus pave the way to generate ultraslow vector optical solitons composed of three field components in a highly resonant atomic medium and result in a substantial impact on this field of nonlinear optics.

We propose an alternative way of implementing several elementary quantum gates for qubits in the coherent-state basis. The operations are probabilistic and employ single-photon subtractions as the driving force. Our schemes for single-qubit phase gate and two-qubit controlled phase gate are capable of achieving arbitrarily large phase shifts with currently available resources, which makes them suitable for the near-future tests of quantum-information processing with superposed coherent states.

The zero-error capacity of a classical channel is expressed in terms of the independence number of some graph and its tensor powers. This quantity is hard to compute even for small graphs such as the cycle of length seven, so upper bounds such as the Lovász theta function play an important role in zero-error communication. In this paper, we show that the Lovász theta function is an upper bound on the zero-error capacity even in the presence of entanglement between the sender and receiver.

Absolute partial cross sections for the formation of ${\mathrm{CN}}^{-}$ in dissociative electron attachment to HCN and DCN have been measured using a time-of-flight ion spectrometer combined with a trochoidal electron monochromator to be $940{\mathrm{pm}}^2$ for ${\mathrm{CN}}^{-}$/HCN and $340{\mathrm{pm}}^2$ for ${\mathrm{CN}}^{-}$/DCN at peaks of the bands due to the ${}^2\Pi$-shape resonance. The dissociative electron attachment bands were then recorded under higher resolution, 60 meV, with a trochoidal monochromator plus quadrupole mass filter combination and found to have a nearly vertical onset at the threshold energy and to peak at $1.85$ eV. Broad structure was observed on the bands, assigned to formation of vibrationally excited ${\mathrm{CN}}^{-}$, from which the branching ratios could be determined to be $1,0.49$, and $0.22$ for the formation of ${\mathrm{CN}}^{-}$ in the $v=0,1$, and $2$ states, respectively. The results are compared to the recent multidimensional ab initio calculations of Chourou and Orel [Phys. Rev. A 80, 032709 (2009)].

Scattering of light at a distribution of scatterers is an intrinsically cooperative process, which means that the scattering rate and the angular distribution of the scattered light are essentially governed by bulk properties of the distribution, such as its size, shape, and density, although local disorder and density fluctuations may have an important impact on the cooperativity. Via measurements of the radiation pressure force exerted by a far-detuned laser beam on a very small and dense cloud of ultracold atoms, we are able to identify the respective roles of superradiant acceleration of the scattering rate and of Mie scattering in the cooperative process. They lead, respectively, to a suppression or an enhancement of the radiation pressure force. We observe a maximum in the radiation pressure force as a function of the phase shift induced in the incident laser beam by the cloud’s refractive index. The maximum marks the borderline of the validity of the Rayleigh-Debye-Gans approximation from a regime, where Mie scattering is more complex. Our observations thus help to clarify the intricate relationship between Rayleigh scattering of light at a coarse-grained ensemble of individual scatterers and Mie scattering at the bulk density distribution.

By using continuous-wave (CW)–stimulated Raman scattering inside a high-finesse cavity, we generate three CW spectral components covering about one octave of optical bandwidth. We investigate the mutual coherence of these three beams by studying phase-dependent second harmonic generation. From the high contrast of the observed interference fringes, we infer very good phase coherence across the spectrum and thereby infer the synthesis of a near single-cycle optical wave form.

Solutions to the Schrödinger and Klein-Gordon equations for retroreflection of a nonzero-rest-mass particle from an accelerating mirror are determined using a retarded-phase method. The output of a Michelson interferometer, in which one mirror moves, reveals differences between the predictions of these two equations in the nonrelativistic limit when the energy and momentum of the reflected particle both vary with time.

We evaluate the non-Markovian finite-temperature two-time correlation functions (CF’s) of system operators of a pure-dephasing spin-boson model in two different ways, one by the direct exact operator technique and the other by the recently derived evolution equations, valid to second order in the system-environment interaction Hamiltonian. This pure-dephasing spin-boson model that is exactly solvable has been extensively studied as a simple decoherence model. However, its exact non-Markovian finite-temperature two-time system operator CF’s, to our knowledge, have not been presented in the literature. This may be mainly due to the fact, illustrated in this article, that in contrast to the Markovian case, the time evolution of the reduced density matrix of the system (or the reduced quantum master equation) alone is not sufficient to calculate the two-time system operator CF’s of non-Markovian open systems. The two-time CF’s obtained using the recently derived evolution equations in the weak system-environment coupling case for this non-Markovian pure-dephasing model happen to be the same as those obtained from the exact evaluation. However, these results significantly differ from the non-Markovian two-time CF’s obtained by wrongly directly applying the quantum regression theorem (QRT), a useful procedure to calculate the two-time CF’s for weak-coupling Markovian open systems. This demonstrates clearly that the recently derived evolution equations generalize correctly the QRT to non-Markovian finite-temperature cases. It is believed that these evolution equations will have applications in many different branches of physics.

We study the multipartite correlations of the multiatom dark states, which are characterized by the atomic squeezing beyond the pairwise entanglement. It is shown that, in the photon storage process with atomic ensemble via the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) mechanism, the atomic squeezing and the pairwise entanglement can be created by adiabatically manipulating the Rabi frequency of the classical light field on the atomic ensemble. We also consider the sudden death for the atomic squeezing and the pairwise entanglement under various decoherence channels. An optimal time for generating the greatest atomic squeezing and pairwise entanglement is obtained by studying in detail the competition between the adiabatic creation of quantum correlation in the atomic ensemble and the decoherence that we describe with three typical decoherence channels.

Measurement-based quantum computing, a powerful alternative to the standard circuit model, proceeds using only local adaptive measurements on a highly entangled resource state of many spins on a graph or lattice. Along with the canonical cluster state, the valence-bond solid ground state on a chain of spin-1 particles, studied by Affleck, Kennedy, Lieb, and Tasaki (AKLT), is such a resource state. We propose a simulation of this AKLT state using linear optics, wherein we can make use of the high-fidelity projective measurements that are commonplace in quantum-optical experiments, and describe how quantum logic gates can be performed on this chain. In our proposed implementation, the spin-1 particles comprising the AKLT state are encoded on polarization biphotons: three-level systems consisting of pairs of polarized photons in the same spatio-temporal mode. A logical qubit encoded on the photonic AKLT state can be initialized, read out, and have an arbitrary single-qubit unitary applied to it by performing projective measurements on the constituent biphotons. For MBQC, biphoton measurements are required which cannot be deterministically performed using only linear optics and photodetection.

We analyze a two-qubit parity measurement based on dispersive readout in circuit quantum electrodynamics. The back action on the qubits has two qualitatively different contributions. One is an unavoidable dephasing in one of the parity subspaces, arising during the transient time of switching on the measurement. The other part is a stochastic rotation of the phase in the same subspace, which persists during the whole measurement. The latter can be determined from the full measurement record using the method of state estimation. Our main result is that the outcome of this phase determination process is independent of the initial state in the state estimation procedure. The procedure can thus be used in a measurement situation where the initial state is unknown. We discuss how this feedback method can be used to achieve a high-fidelity parity measurement for moderate values of the cavity-qubit coupling strength. Finally, we discuss the robustness of the feedback procedure toward errors in the measurement record.

We discuss how to prepare an Ising chain in a GHZ state using a single global control field only. This model does not require the spins to be individually addressable and is applicable to quantum systems such as cold atoms in optical lattices, some liquid- or solid-state NMR experiments, and many nanoscale quantum structures. We show that GHZ states can always be reached asymptotically from certain easy-to-prepare initial states using adiabatic passage, and under certain conditions finite-time reachability can be ensured. To provide a reference useful for future experimental implementations, three different control strategies to achieve the objective—adiabatic passage, Lyapunov control, and optimal control—are compared, and their advantages and disadvantages discussed, in particular in the presence of realistic imperfections such as imperfect initial state preparation, system inhomogeneity, and dephasing.

We present an improved formula for the lower bound of the fraction of single-photon counts in a decoy-state protocol with an unstable source. Based on the formula, we study two-intensity protocol and three-intensity protocol. The major formula in the passive two-intensity protocol proposed by Adachi, Yamamoto, Koashi, and Imoto (AYKI) [Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 180503 (2007)] actually always holds with whatever intensity fluctuation of pump light. Therefore, the protocol can always work securely without monitoring the source state or switching the source intensity. We also show that our result can greatly improve the key rate of the three-intensity protocol with a fluctuating coherent-state source.

We investigate the problem of finding the optimal convex decomposition of a bipartite quantum state into a separable part and a positive remainder, in which the weight of the separable part is maximal. This weight is naturally identified with the degree of separability of the state. In a recent work, the problem was solved for two-qubit states using semidefinite programming. In this paper, we describe a procedure to obtain the optimal decomposition of a bipartite state of any finite dimension via a sequence of semidefinite relaxations. The sequence of decompositions thus obtained is shown to converge to the optimal one. This provides a systematic method to determine the so-called optimal Lewenstein-Sanpera decomposition of any bipartite state. Numerical results are provided to illustrate this procedure, and the special case of rank-2 states is also discussed.

The charge-transfer in low-energy ($0.25$ to $150$ eV/amu) $\mathrm{H}(\mathit{nl})+{\mathrm{He}}^{+}(1s)$ collisions is investigated using a quasimolecular approach for the $n=2,3$ as well as the first two $n=4$ singlet states. The diabatic potential energy curves of the HeH${}^{+}$ molecular ion are obtained from the adiabatic potential energy curves and the nonadiabatic radial coupling matrix elements using a two-by-two diabatization method, and a time-dependent wave-packet approach is used to calculate the state-to-state cross sections. We find a strong dependence of the charge-transfer cross section on the principal and orbital quantum numbers $n$ and $l$ of the initial or final state. We estimate the effect of the nonadiabatic rotational couplings, which is found to be important even at energies below $1$ eV/amu. However, the effect is small on the total cross sections at energies below $10$ eV/amu. We observe that to calculate charge-transfer cross sections in an $n$ manifold, it is only necessary to include states with $n^{\prime }⩽n$, and we discuss the limitations of our approach as the number of states increases.

By numerical and variational solutions of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, we studied the localization of a noninteracting and weakly interacting Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a disordered cold atom lattice and a speckle potential. In the case of a single BEC fragment, the variational analysis produced good results. For a weakly disordered potential, the localized BEC’s are found to have an exponential tail as in the weak Anderson localization. We also investigated the expansion of a noninteracting BEC in these potentials. We find that the BEC will be locked in an appropriate localized state after an initial expansion and will execute breathing oscillation around a mean shape when a BEC at equilibrium in a harmonic trap is suddenly released into a disorder potential.

We propose an atomic fountain clock with a truncated cold atomic beam to achieve both a low collisional frequency shift and high frequency stability. In this clock, the launching velocity of a cold atomic beam can be swept to reduce the atomic density in the interrogation region for the Ramsey resonance and to increase the atomic density in the detection region. Before the top of the beam arrives at the interrogation region, the cold atomic beam is truncated by turning off the cooling laser beams to remove the unnecessary light shift. The atomic density in the interrogation region is theoretically evaluated to be 0.04 times that in an ordinary atomic fountain with optical molasses for the same number of detected atoms. The frequency stability limit due to quantum projection noise is calculated to reach $6.4\times {10}^{-14}$ in 1 s from the number of detected atoms while the fractional collisional shift is estimated to be $~-2\times {10}^{-16}$.

A comprehensive study of the tunneling dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a tilted periodic potential is presented. We report numerical and experimental results on time-resolved measurements of the Landau-Zener tunneling of ultracold atoms introduced by the tilt, which experimentally is realized by accelerating the lattice. The use of different protocols enables us to access the tunneling probability, numerically as well as experimentally, in two different bases, namely, the adiabatic basis and the diabatic basis. The adiabatic basis corresponds to the eigenstates of the lattice, and the diabatic one to the free-particle momentum eigenstates. Our numerical and experimental results are compared with existing two-state Landau-Zener models.

We investigate the quantum phases of a dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in an optical lattice based on the extended Bose-Hubbard model taking into account the three-body scattering. Accordingly, the phase diagrams from the superfluid state to the Mott-insulator state for such BEC systems are obtained and analyzed, employing both the mean-field approach and the functional-integral method. In particular, we explore the combined effects of three-body interaction and dipole-dipole interaction on the insulating lobes in detail. The experimental scenario is also discussed.