When a superfluid flows past an obstacle, quantized vortices can be created in the wake above a certain critical velocity. In the experiment by Kwon et al. [Phys. Rev. A 91, 053615 (2015)], the critical velocity $v_c$ was measured for atomic Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) using a moving repulsive Gaussian potential, and $v_c$ was minimized when the potential height $V_0$ of the obstacle was close to the condensate chemical potential $\mu$. Here we numerically investigate the evolution of the critical vortex shedding in a two-dimensional BEC with increasing $V_0$ and show that the minimum $v_c$ at the critical strength $V_{0c}\approx \mu$ results from the local density reduction and vortex-pinning effect of the repulsive obstacle. The spatial distribution of the superflow around the moving obstacle just below $v_c$ is examined. The particle density at the tip of the obstacle decreases as $V_0$ increases to $V_{c0}$, and at the critical strength, a vortex dipole is suddenly formed and dragged by the moving obstacle, indicating the onset of vortex pinning. The minimum $v_c$ exhibits power-law scaling with the obstacle size $\sigma$ as $v_c\sim {\sigma }^{-\gamma }$ with $\gamma \approx 1/2$.

Owing to their long lifetimes at cryogenic temperatures, mechanical oscillators have been recognized as an attractive resource for quantum information science and as a test bed to explore fundamental physics. Key to many of these applications is the ability to prepare, manipulate, and measure quantum states of mechanical motion. By capturing the exact nonlinear quantum dynamics, we show how tripartite optomechanical interactions, involving the mutual coupling between two distinct optical modes and an acoustic resonance, enable quantum states of mechanical oscillators to be synthesized and interrogated using classical state preparation.

We experimentally demonstrate an optical bistability between two hyperfine ground states of trapped, cold atoms, using a single mode of an optical resonator in the collective strong coupling regime. Whereas in the familiar case, the bistable region is created through atomic saturation, we report an effect between states of high quantum purity, which is essential for future information storage. The source of nonlinearity is a cavity-assisted pumping between ground states of the atoms and the stability depends on the intensity of two driving lasers. We interpret the phenomenon in terms of the recent paradigm of first-order, driven-dissipative phase transitions, where the transmitted and driving fields are understood as the order and control parameters, respectively. A semiclassical mean-field theory is invoked to describe the nontrivial two-dimensional phase diagram arising from the competition of the two drive. The saturation-induced bistability is recovered for infinite drive in one of the controls. The order of the transition is confirmed experimentally by hysteresis in the order parameter when either of the two control parameters is swept repeatedly across the bistability region.

We employ a cascaded system approach to numerically simulate the interaction of photon pulses with a two-level scatterer in a chiral waveguide QED setup and show that the scattering of a two-photon pulse may lead to the predominant population of only two output wave packet modes in an entangled state, $|2,0\rangle –|0,2\rangle$. In a complementary wave-packet basis, this is a product state of two orthogonal single-photon wave packets. Operating this process in reverse allows a perfect merging of distinguishable single-photon wave packets into a single-mode pulse carrying two identical photons.

Quantum speed limits (QSLs) provide an upper bound for the speed of evolution of quantum states in any physical process. Based on the Stratonovich-Weyl correspondence, we derive a universal QSL bound in arbitrary phase spaces that is applicable for both continuous variable systems and finite-dimensional discrete quantum systems. This QSL bound allows the determination of speed limit bounds in specific phase spaces that are tighter than those in Wigner phase space or Hilbert space under the same metric, as illustrated by several typical examples, e.g., a single-mode free field and $N$-level quantum systems in phase spaces. This QSL bound also provides an experimentally realizable way to examine the speed limit in phase spaces relevant to applications in quantum information and quantum optics.

The motion of quantum particles homogeneously constrained to a curved surface is affected by a curvature-induced geometric potential. Here, by extending the thin-layer procedure, we consider the case of inhomogeneous confinement and derive the effective Hamiltonian where an extra effective potential appears. This effective potential is relevant to the ground-state energy perpendicular to the surface and the morphology of the confining potential. Tiny fluctuations in the thickness are envisioned to induce considerable magnitude of the effective potential. To demonstrate the impact of the inhomogeneity, we apply our method to investigate the coherent transport on a cylindrical surface where two helical ditches is imposed on the thickness. Numerical analysis reveals that the inhomogeneity of the confinement significantly affects the transport properties through changing the geometric symmetry of the system. This study develops the method for low-dimensional constrained systems and exhibits the possibility of a new degree of control for waveguiding in nanostructures.

Quantum computing is a promising paradigm that can provide viable solutions to high-complexity problems. The $k$-medoids algorithm is a powerful clustering method ubiquitously used in data mining, image processing, pattern recognition, etc. The core of $k$-medoids algorithm is to perform cluster assignment and center update, which are time-consuming for large data sets. Aïmeur et al. proposed a quantum $k$-medoids algorithm [Aïmeur, Brassard, and Gambs, Mach. Learn. 90, 261 (2013)] by quantizing the center update. Nevertheless, it has a query complexity $O\left(N^{3/2}\right)$ for one iteration, which is computationally expensive for a large $N$ where $N$ is the number of points. In this paper, we propose a complete quantum algorithm for $k$-medoids algorithm. Specifically, in cluster assignment, we devise a quantum subroutine to calculate the Manhattan distance between any two points and then assign all points to the closest center in parallel, which is faster than what is achievable classically. In center update, for a cluster, we use parallel amplitude estimation to calculate the average distance of each point to all the others. It makes our algorithm polynomially faster than the algorithm of Aïmeur et al., whose sum of distances of each point to all the others is computed by adding the distances one by one. Our quantum $k$-medoids algorithm, with time complexity $\tilde{O}\left(N^{1/2}\right)$, achieves a polynomial speedup in $N$ compared to the existing one.

In our paper, we compare three teleportation protocols: The original protocol, the photon subtraction protocol, and the protocol with a cubic phase gate. We evaluate the fidelity of each protocol using the example of teleportation of the squeezed state and the Schrödinger cat state. We show that, under equal conditions, the teleportation scheme with a cubic phase gate achieves significantly higher fidelity than the other protocols considered.

Homodyne measurement is a crucial tool widely used to address continuous variables for bosonic quantum systems. While an ideal homodyne detection provides a powerful analysis, e.g., to effectively measure quadrature amplitudes of light in quantum optics, it relies on the use of a strong reference field, the so-called local oscillator, typically in a coherent state. Such a strong coherent local oscillator may not be readily available, particularly for a massive quantum system like a Bose-Einstein condensate, posing a substantial challenge in dealing with continuous variables appropriately. It is necessary to establish a practical framework that includes the effects of nonideal local oscillators for a rigorous assessment of various quantum tests and applications. We here develop entanglement criteria beyond a Gaussian regime applicable for this realistic homodyne measurement that do not require assumptions on the state of local oscillators. We discuss the working conditions of homodyne detection to effectively detect non-Gaussian quantum entanglement under various states of local oscillators.

The notion of measurements is central to many debates in quantum mechanics. One critical point is whether a measurement can be regarded as an absolute event, giving the same result for any observer in an irreversible manner. Using ideas from the gedanken experiment of Wigner's friend, it has been argued that, when combined with the assumptions of locality and no superdeterminism, regarding a measurement as an absolute event is incompatible with the universal validity of quantum mechanics. We consider a weaker assumption: Is the measurement event realized relatively to the observer when he only partially observed the outcome? We proposed a protocol to show that this assumption in conjunction with the natural assumptions of no superdeterminism and locality is also not compatible with the universal validity of quantum mechanics.

The analytical R-matrix (ARM) theory has been known for an efficient description of the Coulomb effects of the atomic core in strong-field ionization in the nonrelativistic regime. We generalize the ARM theory into the relativistic domain aiming at the application to strong-field ionization of highly charged ions in ultrastrong laser fields. Comparison with the relativistic Coulomb-corrected strong-field approximations (SFA) is provided, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages. The weakly relativistic asymptotics and its accordance with the nondipole Coulomb-corrected SFA are examined. As an example of a physical application of the relativistic ARM, the Coulomb enhancement of tunneling ionization probability for highly charged ions at the cutoff of the direct channel is discussed.

We study binary atomic boson-fermion mixtures confined in one dimensional box potentials by few-body theory with contact interactions and mean-field many-body theory with density-density interactions. A variety of correlations and structures arise as the inter- and intraspecies interactions are tuned. Both few-body and many-body results show that miscible phase and three-chunk phase separation are directly observable in the density profiles. Meanwhile, two-chunk phase separation can be inferred from the few-body correlations and many-body density profiles. We present phase diagrams of selected types of atomic mixtures to show where different structures survive. The few-body analysis demonstrates that two-body correlation functions can reveal information relevant to the results from many-body calculations or experiments. From the many-body density profiles in the phase-separation regime, we extract the healing lengths of both species and explain the scaling behavior by an energy-competition argument.

We derive analytic solutions for Heisenberg evolution under the trilinear parametric Hamiltonian which are correct to the second order in the interaction strength but are valid for all pump amplitudes. The solutions allow pump depletion effects to be incorporated in the description of optical parametric amplification in experimentally relevant scenarios and the resulting phenomena to be rigorously described.

A small system in contact with a macroscopic environment usually approaches an asymptotic state, determined only by some macroscopic properties of the environment, such as the temperature or the chemical potential. In the long-time limit, the state of the small system is thus expected to be independent of its initial state. In some situations, however, the asymptotic state of the system is influenced by its initial state, and some information about the initial state is kept for all times. Motivated by this finding, we propose a measure to quantify the influence of the initial state of an open system on its dynamics. Using this measure we derive conditions under which the asymptotic state exists and is unique and discuss how this can be used to characterize the asymptotic behavior of an open system. We demonstrate our concepts for the dynamics of the spin-boson model, identify three qualitatively different long-time behaviors, and discuss how they can be distinguished based on the proposed measure.

In the present paper, the first in a series of two, we propose a model of universal quantum computation using a fermionic or bosonic multiparticle continuous-time quantum walk with two internal states (e.g., the spin-up and -down states of an electron). A dual-rail encoding is adopted to convert information: A single qubit is represented by the presence of a single quantum walker in either of the two parallel paths. We develop a roundabout gate that moves a walker from one path to the next, either clockwise or counterclockwise, depending on its internal state. It can be realized by a single-particle scattering on a directed weighted graph with the edge weights 1 and $\pm i$. The roundabout gate also allows the spatial information of the quantum walker to be temporarily encoded in its internal states. The universal gates are constructed by appropriately combining several roundabout gates, some unitary gates that act on the internal states, and two-particle scatterings on straight paths. No ancilla qubits are required in our model. The computation is done by just passing quantum walkers through properly designed paths. Namely, there is no need for any time-dependent control. A physical implementation of quantum random access memory compatible with the present model will be considered in the second paper [R. Asaka et al., following paper, Phys. Rev. A 107, 022416 (2023)].

This is the second paper in a series of two. Using a multiparticle continuous-time quantum walk with two internal states, which was formulated in the first paper [R. Asaka et al., preceding paper, Phys. Rev. A 107, 022415 (2023)], we physically implement a quantum random access memory (QRAM). Data with address information are dual-rail encoded into quantum walkers. The walkers pass through perfect binary trees to access the designated memory cells and copy the data stored in the cells. A roundabout gate allocated at each node serves as a router to move the walker from the parent node to one of two child nodes, depending on the internal state of the walker. In this process, the address information is sequentially encoded into the internal states so that the walkers are adequately delivered to the target cells. The present QRAM, which processes $2^{n}m$-qubit data, is implemented in a quantum circuit of depth $O(nlog(n+m))$ and requires $O(n+m)$ qubit resources. This is more efficient than the conventional bucket-brigade QRAM that requires $O(n^2+nm)$ steps and $O(2^n+m)$ qubit resources for processing. Moreover, since the walkers are not entangled with any device on the binary trees, the cost of maintaining coherence can be reduced. Notably, by simply passing quantum walkers through binary trees, data can be automatically extracted in a quantum superposition state. In other words, any time-dependent control is not required.

Maximally entangled NOON states are proposed to be generated with $N$ independent photons and a fixed double-slit in the Young's interference experiment. A strict condition is required that these photons have to be arranged in a straight line and separated from each other by certain equal distances. The initial product state turns into a NOON state of the photons at the double-slit, after $N$-photon postselected measurements. With a spatially random laser beam, we experimentally investigate the high-order correlation functions to imitate the behavior of the single-photon and $N$-photon wave packets of the NOON states. Since the $N$-photon wave packet is the product of $N$ single-photon wave packets, two methods are adopted to observe the superresolved fringes. The first method is to use the product of the second-order correlation functions. The second one is to measure the $2N\mathrm{th}$-order correlation functions. In the both cases, the superresolved fringes of up to fourth order are successfully observed.

We observe that the many-body eigenstates of any quadratic, fermionic Hamiltonian with sublattice symmetry have quantized entanglement entropies between the sublattices: the entanglement comes in multiple singlets. Moreover, such systems always have a ground state that is maximally entangled between the two sublattices. In fact, we also show that under the same assumptions there always exists a (potentially distinct) basis of energy eigenstates that do not conserve the particle number in which each energy eigenstate is maximally entangled between the sublattices. No additional properties, such as translation invariance, are required. We also show that the quantization of ground-state entanglement may persist when interactions are introduced.

We present a noise deconvolution technique for obtaining noiseless expectation values of noisy observables at the output of multiqubit quantum channels. For any number of qubits or in the presence of correlations, our protocol applies to any mathematically invertible noise model, even when its inverse map is not physically implementable, i.e., when it is neither completely positive nor trace preserving. For a generic observable affected by Pauli noise it provides a quadratic speedup, always producing a rescaling of its Pauli basis components. We show that it is still possible to achieve the deconvolution while experimentally estimating the noise parameters, whenever these are unknown (bypassing resource-heavy techniques such as quantum process tomography). We provide a simulation, with examples for both Pauli and non-Pauli channels.