The quest for quantum degenerate Fermi gases interacting through the anisotropic and long-range dipole-dipole interaction is an exciting and fast developing branch within the cold-atom research program. Recent experimental progress in trapping, cooling, and controlling polar molecules with large electric dipole moments has, therefore, motivated much theoretical effort. In a recent letter, we have briefly discussed the application of a variational time-dependent Hartree-Fock approach to study theoretically both the static and the dynamic properties of such a system in a cylinder-symmetric harmonic trap. We focused on the hydrodynamic regime, where collisions ensure the equilibrium locally. Here we present a detailed theory extended to encompass the general case of a harmonic trap geometry without any symmetry. After deriving the equations of motion for the gas, we explore their static solutions to investigate key properties like the aspect ratios in both real and momentum space as well as the stability diagram. We find that, despite the lack of symmetry of the trap, the momentum distribution remains cylinder symmetric. The equations of motion are then used to study the low-lying hydrodynamic excitations, where, apart from the quadrupole and monopole modes, the radial quadrupole mode is also investigated. Furthermore, we study the time-of-flight dynamics as it represents an important diagnostic tool for quantum gases. We find that the real-space aspect ratios are inverted during the expansion, while that in momentum space becomes asymptotically unity. In addition, anisotropic features of the dipole-dipole interaction are discussed in detail. These results could be particularly useful for future investigations of strongly dipolar heteronuclear polar molecules deep in the quantum degenerate regime.

Cavity cooling of an atom works best on a cyclic optical transition in the strong coupling regime near resonance, where small-cavity photon numbers suffice for trapping and cooling. A straightforward application to the cooling of the translational motion of other polarizable particles without sharply defined two-level transitions (such as molecules) fails as optical pumping transfers the particle into uncoupled states. An alternative operation in the far-off-resonant regime generates only very slow cooling due to the reduced field-particle coupling. We suggest one can overcome this by using a strongly driven ring cavity operated in the sideband cooling regime. The dynamics can be mapped onto the optomechanics setup with a movable mirror and allows one to take advantage of a collectively enhanced field-particle coupling by large photon numbers. A linearized analytical treatment confirmed by full numerical quantum simulations predicts fast cooling despite the off-resonant small single-particle–single-photon coupling. Even ground-state translational cooling (in the external potential) can be obtained by tuning the cavity field close to the Anti-stokes sideband for sufficiently high trapping frequency. Numerical simulations show quantum jumps of the particle between the lowest two trapping levels, which can be directly and continuously monitored via scattered light intensity detection.

The spontaneous emission of photons from optical cavities and from trapped atoms has been studied extensively in the framework of quantum optics. Theoretical predictions based on the rotating wave approximation (RWA) are, in general, in very good agreement with experimental findings. However, current experiments aim at combining better and better cavities with large numbers of tightly confined atoms. Here we predict an energy concentrating mechanism in the behavior of such a composite quantum system which cannot be described by the RWA. Its result is the continuous leakage of photons through the cavity mirrors, even in the absence of external driving. We conclude with a discussion of the predicted phenomenon in the context of thermodynamics.

It has been long known that the global cooperative Lamb shift (CLS) in a large superradiantly emitting sphere has equal magnitude but opposite sign to that of a slab. This result was obtained from QED in 1973 for samples of uniform density. This change of sign holds as well for a Gaussian density distribution. The same result is also obtained for either density in the scalar simplification of QED now in frequent use. Since the CLS must be a continuous function of shape, and the slab resembles a limiting case of oblate ellipsoid, there must be some shape of ellipsoid for which the CLS is zero. We report a calculation of CLS for a Gaussian distribution of general azimuthally symmetric ellipsoidal shape. The CLS is found to vanish when the mean square radius is twice as great transversely as longitudinally.

Electromagnetically induced transparency and absorption (EIT and EIA) are usually demonstrated using three-level atomic systems. In contrast to the usual case, we theoretically study the EIT and EIA in an equivalent three-level system: a superconducting two-level system (qubit) dressed by a single-mode cavity field. In this equivalent system, we find that both the EIT and the EIA can be tuned by controlling the level-spacing of the superconducting qubit and hence controlling the dressed system. This tunability is due to the dressed relaxation and dephasing rates which vary parametrically with the level-spacing of the original qubit and thus affect the transition properties of the dressed qubit and the susceptibility. These dressed relaxation and dephasing rates characterize the reaction of the dressed qubit to an incident probe field. Using recent experimental data on superconducting qubits (charge, phase, and flux qubits) to demonstrate our approach, we show the possibility of experimentally realizing this proposal.

We have experimentally demonstrated an ultra-dispersive optical prism made from a coherently driven Rb atomic vapor. The prism possesses spectral angular dispersion that is 6 orders of magnitude higher than that of a prism made of optical glass; such angular dispersion allows one to spatially resolve light beams with different frequencies separated by a few kilohertz. The prism operates near the resonant frequency of atomic vapor and its dispersion is optically controlled by a coherent driving field.

We study the quantum correlation and classical correlation dynamics in a spin-boson model. For two different forms of spectral density, we obtain analytical results and show that the evolutions of both correlations depend closely on the form of the initial state. At the end of evolution, all correlations initially stored in the spin system transfer to reservoirs. It is found that, for a large family of initial states, quantum correlation remains equal to the classical correlation during the course of evolution. In addition, there is no increase in the correlations during the course of evolution.

We analyze a technique for the preparation of low-entropy many-body states of atoms in optical lattices based on adiabatic passage. In particular, we show that this method allows preparation of strongly correlated states as stable highest energy states of Hamiltonians that have trivial ground states. As an example, we analyze the generation of antiferromagnetically ordered states by adiabatic change of a staggered field acting on the spins of bosonic atoms with ferromagnetic interactions.

The problem of interaction of two quasimolecular electrons located at an arbitrary distance from each other and near different atoms (nuclei) is solved. The interaction is considered as a second-order effect of quantum electrodynamics in the coordinate representation. It is shown that consistent account of the natural condition of the interaction symmetry with respect to both electrons leads to the additional contribution to the relativistic interaction of the two quasimolecular electrons compared with both the standard Breit operator and the generalized Breit operator obtained previously [O. N. Gadomskii, Usp. Fiz. Nauk 170, 1145 (2000) [Phys. Usp. 43, 1071 (2000)]]. The generalized Breit-Pauli operator for interaction of two quasimolecular electrons located at an arbitrary distance from each other is obtained.

A local approximation for dynamic polarizability leads to a nonlocal functional for the long-range dispersion interaction energy via an imaginary-frequency integral. We analyze several local polarizability approximations and argue that the form underlying the construction of our recent van der Waals functional [O. A. Vydrov and T. Van Voorhis, Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 063004 (2009)] is particularly well physically justified. Using this improved formula, we compute dynamic dipole polarizabilities and van der Waals $C_6$ coefficients for a set of atoms and molecules. Good agreement with the benchmark values is obtained in most cases.

An exact analytical solution to the time-dependent Schrödinger equation for an attractive $\delta$ potential using cutoff plane-wave initial conditions is derived to investigate the effect of a bound state on the transmission transients. We find that at short distances from the potential the probability density behaves harmonically at all times. This unexpected behavior, which corresponds to the trapping of a fraction of the transmitted wave, decreases exponentially with distance, so that at large distances the solution goes into the stationary solution. We find also that this behavior has no effect on the phase time.

The March-Suhai (MS) partial differential equation for the Dirac density matrix ${\gamma }_s(\stackrel{\rightharpoonup }{r},{\stackrel{\rightharpoonup }{r}}^{\prime })$, proved for one- and two-level occupancies, involves both the ground-state density $n(\stackrel{\rightharpoonup }{r})$, with its low-order derivatives, and the positive definite kinetic energy density $t_s(\stackrel{\rightharpoonup }{r})$. Here, we examine the relation between the equation of motion for ${\gamma }_s(\stackrel{\rightharpoonup }{r},{\stackrel{\rightharpoonup }{r}}^{\prime })$, with input now being the one-body potential of density-functional theory, and the MS equation. The important link is the differential virial theorem, which can be used to remove $t_s(\stackrel{\rightharpoonup }{r})$ from the MS differential equation. For multiple occupancy, the Pauli potential enters in an important manner. In one dimension, however, the appearance of the Pauli potential can be avoided, obtaining a necessary condition for ${\gamma }_s(x,x^{\prime })$ to satisfy for arbitrary level occupancy, in the form of a MS-type differential equation.

We study rf spectroscopy of a lithium gas with the goal to explore the possibilities for photoemission spectroscopy of a strongly interacting $p$-wave Fermi gas. Radio-frequency spectra of quasibound $p$-wave molecules and of free atoms in the vicinity of the $p$-wave Feshbach resonance located at $159.15$ G are presented. The spectra are free of detrimental final-state effects. The observed relative magnetic-field shifts of the molecular and atomic resonances confirm earlier measurements realized with direct rf association. Furthermore, evidence of molecule production by adiabatically ramping the magnetic field is observed. Finally, we propose the use of a one-dimensional optical lattice to study anisotropic superfluid gaps as most direct proof of $p$-wave superfluidity.

Recent theoretical and experimental results demonstrate a close connection between the super-Tonks-Girardeau (STG) gas and a one-dimensional (1D) hard-sphere Bose (HSB) gas with hard-sphere diameter nearly equal to the 1D scattering length $a_{1\mathrm{D}}$ of the STG gas, a highly excited gaslike state with nodes only at interparticle separations $\left|x_{j\ell }\right|=x_{\mathrm{node}}\approx a_{1\mathrm{D}}$. It is shown herein that when the coupling constant $g_B$ in the Lieb-Liniger interaction $g_B\delta (x_{j\ell })$ is negative and $\left|x_{12}\right|⩾x_{\mathrm{node}}$, the STG and HSB wave functions for $N=2$ particles are not merely similar, but identical; the only difference between the STG and HSB wave functions is that the STG wave function allows a small penetration into the region $\left|x_{12}\right|<x_{\mathrm{node}}$, whereas for a HSB gas with hard-sphere diameter $a_{\mathrm{hs}}=x_{\mathrm{node}}$, the HSB wave function vanishes when $\left|x_{12}\right|<a_{\mathrm{hs}}$. Arguments are given suggesting that the same theorem holds also for $N>2$. The STG and HSB wave functions for $N=2$ are given exactly in terms of a parabolic cylinder function, and for $N⩾2$, $x_{\mathrm{node}}$ is given accurately by a simple parabola. The metastability of the STG phase generated by a sudden change of the coupling constant from large positive to large negative values is explained in terms of the very small overlap between the ground state of the Tonks-Girardeau gas and collapsed cluster states.

We consider a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate in a ring trap in a rotating frame and show how to determine the response of such a configuration to being in a rotating frame via accumulation of a Sagnac phase. This may be accomplished through either population oscillations or the motion of spatial-density fringes. We explicitly include the effect of interactions via a mean-field description and study the fidelity of the dynamics relative to an ideal configuration.

Using the Shabani-Lidar post-Markovian master equation, we derive non-Markovian generalizations of important quantum decohering operations on single qubits. When environmental memory effects are being taken into account, both single-qubit coherence and two-qubit entanglement may be preserved over a longer period of time, in contrast to the corresponding situations where these are totally neglected. We argue that recognizing the fact that every environment is inherently non-Markovian could be the key to the resolution of the issue of entanglement sudden death.

We define a local Riemannian metric tensor in the manifold of Gaussian channels and the distance that it induces. We adopt an information-geometric approach and define a metric derived from the Bures-Fisher metric for quantum states. The resulting metric inherits several desirable properties from the Bures-Fisher metric and is operationally motivated by distinguishability considerations: It serves as an upper bound to the attainable quantum Fisher information for the channel parameters using Gaussian states, under generic constraints on the physically available resources. Our approach naturally includes the use of entangled Gaussian probe states. We prove that the metric enjoys some desirable properties like stability and covariance. As a by-product, we also obtain some general results in Gaussian channel estimation that are the continuous-variable analogs of previously known results in finite dimensions. We prove that optimal probe states are always pure and bounded in the number of ancillary modes, even in the presence of constraints on the reduced state input in the channel. This has experimental and computational implications. It limits the complexity of optimal experimental setups for channel estimation and reduces the computational requirements for the evaluation of the metric: Indeed, we construct a converging algorithm for its computation. We provide explicit formulas for computing the multiparametric quantum Fisher information for dissipative channels probed with arbitrary Gaussian states and provide the optimal observables for the estimation of the channel parameters (e.g., bath couplings, squeezing, and temperature).

We investigate a discrimination scheme between unitary processes. By introducing a margin for the probability of an erroneous guess, this scheme interpolates the two standard discrimination schemes: minimum-error and unambiguous discrimination. We present solutions for two cases. One is the case of two unitary processes with general prior probabilities. The other is the case with a group symmetry: The processes comprise a projective representation of a finite group. In the latter case, we found that unambiguous discrimination is a kind of “all or nothing”: The maximum success probability is either 0 or 1. We also thoroughly analyze how entanglement with an auxiliary system improves discrimination performance.

We show that the restricted shareability and distribution of multiqubit entanglement can be characterized by Tsallis-$q$ entropy. We first provide a class of bipartite entanglement measures named Tsallis-$q$ entanglement, and provide its analytic formula in two-qubit systems for $1⩽q⩽4$. For $2⩽q⩽3$, we show a monogamy inequality of multiqubit entanglement in terms of Tsallis-$q$ entanglement, and we also provide a polygamy inequality using Tsallis-$q$ entropy for $1⩽q⩽2$ and $3⩽q⩽4$.

We report here on the results of numerical searches for PPT states in a series of bipartite quantum systems of low dimensions. PPT states are represented by density matrices that remain positive semidefinite under partial transposition with respect to one of the subsystems, and our searches are for such states with specified ranks for the density matrix and its partial transpose. For a series of different ranks extremal PPT states and nonextremal entangled PPT states have been found. The results are listed in tables and charted in diagrams. Comparison of the results for systems of different dimensions reveals several regularities. We discuss lower and upper bounds on the ranks of extremal PPT states.