We study maximal coin-position entanglement generation via a discrete-time quantum walk, in which the coin operation is randomly selected from one of two coin operators set at each step. We solve maximal entanglement generation as an optimization problem with quantum process fidelity as the cost function. Then we determine the maximal entanglement that can be rigorously generated for any step beyond the second regardless of initial conditions with appropriate coin sequences. The simplest coin sequence comprising Hadamard and identity operations is equivalent to the generalized elephant quantum walk, which exhibits an increasingly faster spreading in terms of probability distribution. Experimentally, we demonstrate a ten-step quantum walk driven by such coin sequences with linear optics and thereby show the desired high-dimensional bipartite entanglement as well as the transport behavior of faster spreading.

Quantum computing and simulation based on superconducting qubits have achieved significant progress and entered the noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) era recently. Using a third qubit or object as a tunable coupler between qubits is an important step in this process. In this article, we propose a hybrid system made of superconducting qubit and a yttrium iron garnet (YIG) system as an alternative way to realize this. YIG thin films have spin wave (magnon) modes with low dissipation and reliable control for quantum information processing. Here, we propose a scheme to achieve strong coherent coupling between superconducting (SC) flux qubits and magnon modes in YIG thin film. Unlike the direct $\sqrt{N}$ enhancement factor in coupling to the Kittel mode and other spin ensembles, with $N$ the total number of spins, an additional spatial-dependent phase factor needs to be considered when the qubits are magnetically coupled with the magnon modes of finite wavelength. To avoid undesirable cancellation of coupling caused by the symmetrical boundary condition, a CoFeB thin layer is added to one side of the YIG thin film to break the symmetry. Our numerical simulation demonstrates avoided crossing and coherent transfer of quantum information between the flux qubit and the standing spin waves in YIG thin films. We show that the YIG thin film can be used as a tunable coupler between two flux qubits, which have a modified shape with small direct inductive coupling between them. Our results manifest that by cancellation of direct inductive coupling and indirect spin-wave couple of flux qubits we can turn on and off the net coupling between qubits. This bring magnonic YIG thin film into the field of quantum information processing.

We model a quantum sensor network using techniques from quantum state discrimination. The interaction between a qubit detector and the environment is described by a unitary operator, and we will assume that at most one detector does interact. The task is to determine which one does or if none do. This involves choosing an initial state of the detectors and a measurement. We consider global measurements in which all detectors are measured simultaneously. We find that an entangled initial state can improve the detection probability, but this advantage decreases as the number of detectors increases.

Based on the quantum violation of the bipartite Bell inequality, it has been established that the sharing of nonlocality can be demonstrated for at most two sequential observers at one end and at most one pair of observers at both ends. In this work we study the sharing of nonlocality and preparation contextuality based on a bipartite Bell inequality, involving arbitrary $n$ measurements by one party and $2^{n-1}$ measurements by another party. Such a Bell inequality has two bounds, the local bound and the preparation noncontextual bound, which is smaller than the local bound. We show that while nonlocality can be shared only by the first pair of the sequential observers, the preparation contextuality can be shared by an arbitrary pair of independent sequential observers at both ends.

Gain-switched lasers are in demand in numerous quantum applications, particularly in systems of quantum key distribution and in various optical quantum random number generators. The reason for this popularity is natural phase randomization between gain-switched laser pulses. The idea of such randomization has become so familiar that most authors use it without regard to the features of the laser operation mode they use. However, at high repetition rates of laser pulses or when pulses are generated at a bias current close to the threshold, the phase randomization condition may be violated. This paper describes theoretical and experimental methods for estimating the degree of phase randomization in a gain-switched laser. We consider in detail different situations of laser pulse interference and show that the interference signal remains quantum in nature even in the presence of classical phase drift in the interferometer provided that the phase diffusion in a laser is efficient enough. Moreover, we formulate the relationship between the previously introduced quantum reduction factor and the leftover hash lemma. Using this relationship, we develop a method to estimate the quantum noise contribution to the interference signal in the presence of phase correlations. Finally, we introduce a simple experimental method based on the analysis of statistical interference fringes, providing more detailed information about the probabilistic properties of laser pulse interference.

Atom-based mixers have been shown to be very useful in performing the absolute measurement of the magnitude of a radio-frequency (rf) field by using Autler-Townes (AT) splitting. However, there has been less success in measuring the phase of a rf field with the AT splitting in a magnetic-resonance system. The phase of the rf magnetic field plays a very important role in imaging applications. Here, we design an atomic mixer for measuring the phase of the rf field by detecting the transmission spectra of a laser-detected magnetic-resonance system based on the interference between Raman and cascade two-photon processes for $F_g=4$ of the $D_1$ line of cesium atoms. A scheme of measuring the rf phase can be realized with the elimination of the ac Zeeman shift of the system by adjusting the amplitude ratio of a transverse fundamental-wave field and its third-harmonic field. Theoretical and experimental results show that the scheme with cancellation of the ac Zeeman shift is superior in linear measurement of the longitudinal rf component. Our results provide schemes for a magnetic sensor based on quantum interference of nonlinear processes for the absolute measurement of the relative phase of rf fields.

The static properties, i.e., existence and stability, as well as the quench-induced dynamics of vortex-bright type excitations in two-dimensional harmonically confined spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates are investigated. Linearly stable vortex-bright-vortex and bright-vortex-bright solutions arise in both antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic spinor gases upon quadratic Zeeman energy shift variations. Their deformations across the relevant transitions are exposed and discussed in detail, evincing also that emergent instabilities can lead to pattern formation. Spatial elongations, precessional motion, and spiraling of the nonlinear excitations when exposed to finite temperatures and upon crossing the distinct phase boundaries, via quenching of the quadratic Zeeman coefficient, are unveiled. Spin-mixing processes triggered by the quench lead, among others, to changes in the waveform of the ensuing configurations. Our findings reveal an interplay between pattern formation and spin-mixing processes accessible in contemporary cold atom experiments.

We propose a method for robust mode conversion between the two outer waveguides in a three-waveguide coupler based on analogies with quantum population transfer. Depending on the presence or absence of detuning between the propagation constants of the intermediate waveguide, the mode conversion can be analogous to the adiabatic-elimination or stimulated Raman adiabatic passage techniques. Both configurations give broadband and robust mode converters.

We study the synchronization of a superconducting qubit to an external optical field via a mechanical resonator in a hybrid electrooptomechanical system. The quantum trajectory method is employed to investigate synchronization. The bistability in one of the qubit polarization vectors, where the qubit rotates about the polarization vector, is observed for a single quantum trajectory run. The rotation in one of the stable states is synced with the external optical drive. When the number of trajectories is significantly increased, the qubit no longer displays bistability. However, synchronization with less quantum fluctuations is still observed. The scheme could be used to prepare and monitor the state of the microwave qubit to a long-lived optical photon through synchronization, which may find applications in long-distance quantum communication. Also, this hybrid system can be used to study quantum synchronization.

We present an alternative approach to force sensing with optomechanical systems. The operation is based on a nonlinear dynamical mechanism, which locks the mechanical oscillation and the associated cavity field pattern of a system when two external drive tones satisfy a frequency match condition. Under a weak force that adds a slight detuning to the external driving fields, the cavity field will undergo a transition between two locked patterns while the locked mechanical oscillation is well preserved, thus having the small modifications to its sidebands. The force sensing is realized by detecting the intensity changes of the cavity field sidebands in such process. With the currently available optomechanical systems, the sensitivity of force detection can reach the level of attonewton and can be further improved with improved system parameters and longer detection time. One important feature of the applied dynamical scenario is that thermal noise insignificantly affects the cavity field sidebands of the locked states, so that the scheme can work well even at room temperature. This method is hopeful to reduce the difficulty in the practical applications of force sensing.

Quantum processes cannot be reduced, in a nontrivial way, to classical processes without specifying the context in the description of a measurement procedure. This requirement is implied by the Kochen–Specker theorem in the outcome-deterministic case and, more generally, by the Gleason theorem. The latter establishes that there is only one noncontextual classical model compatible with quantum theory, the one that trivially identifies the quantum state with the classical state. However, this model requires a breaking of the unitary evolution to account for macroscopic realism. Thus, a causal classical model compatible with the unitary evolution of the quantum state is necessarily contextual to some extent. Inspired by well-known results in quantum communication complexity, we consider a particular class of hidden variable theories by assuming that the amount of information about the measurement context is finite. Aiming at establishing some general features of these theories, we first present a generalized version of the Gleason theorem and provide a simple proof of it. Assuming that Gleason's hypotheses hold only locally for small changes of the measurement procedure, we obtain almost the same conclusion of the original theorem about the functional form of the probability measure. An additional constant and a relaxed property of the density operator are the only two differences from the original result. By this generalization of the Gleason theorem and the assumption of finite information for the context, we prove that the probabilities over three or more outcomes of a projective measurement must be linear functions of the projectors associated with the outcomes, given the information on the context.

In contexts where relevant problems can easily attain configuration spaces of enormous sizes, solving linear differential equations (LDEs) can become a hard achievement for classical computers; on the other hand, the rise of quantum hardware can conceptually enable such high-dimensional problems to be solved with a foreseeable number of qubits, while also yielding quantum advantage in terms of time complexity. Nevertheless, to bridge towards experimental realizations with several qubits and harvest such potential in a short-term basis, one must dispose of efficient quantum algorithms that are compatible with near-term projections of state-of-the-art hardware, in terms of both techniques and limitations. As the conception of such algorithms is no trivial task, insights on new heuristics are welcomed. This work proposes an approach by using the quantum amplitude damping operation as a resource to construct an efficient quantum algorithm for solving homogeneous LDEs. As the intended implementation involves performing amplitude damping exclusively via a simple equivalent quantum circuit, our algorithm shall be given by a gate-level quantum circuit (predominantly composed of elementary two-qubit gates) and is particularly nonrestrictive in terms of connectivity within and between some of its main quantum registers. We show that such an open quantum-system-inspired circuitry allows for constructing the real exponential terms in the solution in a noninterferometric way; we also provide a guideline for guaranteeing a lower bound on the probability of success for each realization, by exploring the decay properties of the underlying quantum operation.

Magnetic monopoles have been realized as emergent quasiparticles in both condensed matter and ultracold atomic platforms, with growing interest in the coupling effects between the monopole and different magnetic quasiparticles. In this work, interaction effects between monopoles and magnons are investigated for an atomic pseudospin chain. We reveal that the monopole can excite a virtual magnon cloud in the paramagnetic chain, thereby giving rise to an unconventional type of polaron, the monopole-cored polaron (MCP). The MCP is composed of the monopole as the impurity core and the virtual magnon excitation as the dressing cloud. The magnon dressing facilitates the Dirac string excitation and impacts the monopole hopping. This induces an antitrapping effect of the MCP, which refers to the fact that the dressing enhances the mobility of the MCP, in contrast to the self-trapping of the common polarons. Moreover, heterogeneous bipolarons are shown to exist under the simultaneous doping of a north and a south monopole. The heterogeneous bipolaron possesses an inner degree of freedom composed of two identical impurities. Our investigation sheds light on the understanding of how the coupling between the impurity core and the dressing cloud can engineer the property of the polaron.

Free carrier generation is commonly viewed as detrimental to the optical-to-terahertz conversion efficiency in electro-optic crystals due to free carrier absorption of terahertz radiation. Contrary to this view, we show by numerical simulation that free carrier generation can have a positive effect on the Cherenkov-type terahertz emission from ultrashort laser pulses by strongly broadening the radiation bandwidth. The broadening is produced by terahertz emission from a surge current of the optically generated carriers, which are accelerated by the rectified electric field. Specific results are obtained for GaP pumped at a $1.7\text{−}\mu \mathrm{m}$ wavelength.

We study quantum dynamics of many-qubit systems strongly coupled to a quantized electromagnetic cavity field in the presence of decoherence and dissipation for both quantum emitters and cavity photons, taking into account the varying coupling strength of different qubits to the cavity field and the spread of their transition frequencies. Compact analytic solutions for time-dependent quantum state amplitudes and observables are derived for a broad class of open quantum systems in Lindblad approximation with the use of the stochastic Schrödinger equation approach. We show that depending on the initial quantum state preparation, an ensemble of qubits can evolve into a rich variety of many-qubit entangled states with destructive or constructive interference between the qubits. In particular, when only a small fraction of qubits are initially excited, the dissipation in a cavity will inevitably drive the system into robust dark states that are completely decoupled from the cavity and live much longer than the decay time of the cavity field. We also determine the conditions under which coherent coupling to the quantized cavity field overcomes the dephasing caused by a spread of transition frequencies in multiqubit systems and leads to the formation of a decoupled dark state.

The loss of gauge invariance in models of light-matter interaction which arises from material and photonic space truncation can pose significant challenges to conventional quantum optical models when matter and light strongly hybridize. In structured photonic environments, necessary in practice to achieve strong light-matter coupling, a rigorous model of field quantization within the medium is also needed. Here we use the framework of macroscopic QED by quantizing the fields in an arbitrary material system, with a spatially dependent dispersive and absorptive dielectric, starting from a fundamental light-matter action. We truncate the material and mode degrees of freedom while respecting the gauge principle by imposing a partial gauge-fixing constraint during canonical quantization, which admits a large number of gauges including the Coulomb and multipolar gauges commonly used in quantum optics. We also consider gauge conditions with explicit time dependence, enabling us to unambiguously introduce additional phenomenologically time-dependent light-matter interactions in any gauge. Our results allow one to derive rigorous nonrelativistic models of ultrastrong light-matter interactions in structured photonic environments with no gauge ambiguity. Results for two-level systems and the dipole approximation are discussed, as well as how to go beyond the dipole approximation for effective single-particle models. By comparing with the limiting case of an inhomogeneous dielectric, where dispersion and absorption can be neglected and the fields can be expanded in terms of the generalized transverse eigenfunctions of the dielectric, we show how lossy systems can introduce an additional gauge ambiguity, which we resolve and predict to have fundamental implications for open quantum system models. Finally, we show how observables in mode-truncated systems can be calculated without ambiguity by using a simple gauge-invariant model of photodetection.

We investigate the outbreak of anomalous quantum wave-function amplitudes in a one-dimensional tight-binding lattice featuring correlated diagonal disorder. Such rogue-wave-like behavior is fostered by a competition between localization and mobility. The effective correlation length of the disorder is ultimately responsible for bringing the local disorder strength to a minimum, fueling the occurrence of extreme events of much higher amplitudes, especially when compared to the case of uncorrelated disorder. Our findings are valid for a class of discrete one-dimensional systems and reveal profound aspects of the role of randomness in rogue-wave generation.

Measurements in the quantum domain can exceed classical notions. This concerns fundamental questions about the nature of the measurement process itself, as well as applications, such as their function as building blocks of quantum information processing protocols. In this paper we explore the notion of entanglement for detection devices in theory and experiment. A method is devised that allows one to determine nonlocal quantum coherence of positive-operator-valued measures via negative contributions in a joint distribution that fully describes the measurement apparatus under study. This approach is then applied to experimental data for detectors that ideally project onto Bell states. In particular, we describe the reconstruction of the aforementioned entanglement quasidistributions from raw data and compare the resulting negativities with those expected from theory. Therefore, our method provides a versatile toolbox for analyzing measurements regarding their quantum-correlation features for quantum science and quantum technology.

We consider the problem of efficiently computing the Uhlmann fidelity in the case when explicit density matrix descriptions are available. We derive an alternative formula which is simpler to evaluate numerically, saving a factor of 10 in time for large matrices.

The ideal realization of quantum teleportation relies on having access to a maximally entangled state; however, in practice, such an ideal state is typically not available and one can instead only realize an approximate teleportation. With this in mind, we present a method to quantify the performance of approximate teleportation when using an arbitrary resource state. More specifically, after framing the task of approximate teleportation as an optimization of a simulation error over one-way local operations and classical communication (LOCC) channels, we establish a semidefinite relaxation of this optimization task by instead optimizing over the larger set of 2-PPT-extendible channels (where PPT denotes positive partial transpose). The main analytical calculations in our paper consist of exploiting the unitary covariance symmetry of the identity channel to establish a significant reduction of the computational cost of this latter optimization. Next, by exploiting known connections between approximate teleportation and quantum error correction, we also apply these concepts to establish bounds on the performance of approximate quantum error correction over a given quantum channel. Finally, we evaluate our bounds for various examples of resource states and channels.