We characterize the impact that the application of two maps in a quantum-controlled order has on the process of work extraction via unitary cycles and its optimization. The control is based on the quantum switch model that applies maps in an order not necessarily compatible with the underlying causal structure and, in principle, can be implemented experimentally. First, we show that the activation of quantum maps through the quantum switch model always entails a non-negative gain in ergotropy compared to their consecutive application. We also establish a condition that the maps should fulfill in order to achieve a nonzero ergotropic gain. We then perform a thorough analysis of maps applied to a two-level system and provide general conditions for achieving a positive gain on the incoherent part of ergotropy. Our results are illustrated with several examples and applied to qubit and $d$-dimensional quantum systems. In particular, we demonstrate that a nonzero work can be extracted from a system thermalized by two coherently controlled reservoirs.

Self-testing is a method to verify that one has a particular quantum state from purely classical statistics. For practical applications, such as device-independent delegated verifiable quantum computation, it is crucial that one self-tests multiple Bell states in parallel while keeping the quantum capabilities required of one side to a minimum. In this work, we use the $3\times n$ magic rectangle games (generalizations of the magic square game) to obtain a self-test for $n$ Bell states where the one side needs only to measure single-qubit Pauli observables. The protocol requires small input sizes [constant for Alice and $O\left({log}_{2}n\right)$ bits for Bob] and is robust with robustness $O\left(n^{5/2}\sqrt{\varepsilon }\right)$, where $\varepsilon$ is the closeness of the ideal (perfect) correlations to those observed. To achieve the desired self-test, we introduce a one-side-local quantum strategy for the magic square game that wins with certainty, we generalize this strategy to the family of $3\times n$ magic rectangle games, and we supplement these nonlocal games with extra check rounds (of single and pairs of observables).

A Hardy-like version of the quantum pigeonhole paradox is proposed, which can also be considered as a special kind of Hardy's paradox. Besides an example induced from the minimal system, a general construction of this paradox from an $n$-qubit quantum state is also discussed. Moreover, by introducing the projected-coloring graph and the projected-coloring graph state, a pictorial representation of the Hardy-like quantum pigeonhole paradox can be presented. This Hardy-like version of the quantum pigeonhole paradox can be implemented more directly in experiment than the original one, since it does not require some sophisticated techniques such as weak measurements. In addition, from the angle of Hardy's paradox, some Hardy-like quantum pigeonhole paradoxes may be able to set a new record for the success probability of demonstrating Bell nonlocality.

The study of state transformations under local operations and classical communication (LOCC) plays a crucial role in entanglement theory. While this has been long ago characterized for pure bipartite states, the situation is drastically different for systems of more parties: generic pure qudit states cannot be obtained from nor transformed to any state (i.e., they are isolated), which contains a different amount of entanglement. We consider here the question of LOCC convertibility for permutation-symmetric pure states of an arbitrary number of parties and local dimension, a class of clear interest both for physical and mathematical reasons and for which the aforementioned result does not apply given that it is a zero-measure subset in the state space. While it turns out that generic $n$-qubit symmetric states are also isolated, we consider particular families for which we can determine to be, on the contrary, endowed with a rich local stabilizer, a necessary requirement for LOCC convertibility to be possible. This allows us to identify classes in which LOCC transformations among permutation-symmetric states are possible. Notwithstanding, we provide several results that indicate severe obstructions to LOCC convertibility in general even within these highly symmetrical classes. In the course of the study of LOCC transformations, we also characterize the local symmetries of symmetric states.

The problem of finding efficient decompositions of multiqubit gates is of importance for quantum computing, especially, in application to existing noisy intermediate-scale quantum devices, whose resources are substantially limited. Here we propose a decomposition scheme for a generalized $N$-qubit Toffoli gate with the use of $2N-3$ two-qutrit gates for arbitrary connectivity. The fixed number of the required additional levels (the choice of qutrits is optimal) and the use of the iSWAP gate as a native operation make our approach directly applicable for ongoing experiments with superconducting quantum processors. Specifically, we present a blueprint of the realization of the proposed scheme for the Aspen-9 processor supporting quantum operations with qutrits.

This paper reports a high-resolution experimental study of the $3{}^3\mathrm{\Pi }_g$ and $4{}^3\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^{+}$ electronic states of the ${}^{85}\mathrm{Rb}_2$ dimer. In the experiment, rovibrational levels of the two electronic states were probed using the perturbation facilitated optical-optical double resonance technique by exciting ${}^{85}\mathrm{Rb}_2$ molecules from thermally populated levels of the ground $X{}^1\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^{+}$ state through intermediate levels of the mixed $A{}^1\mathrm{\Sigma }_u^{+}\sim b{}^3\mathrm{\Pi }_u$ electronic states. The resonances of the probe laser were observed by detecting the laser induced fluorescence from the target states to the $a{}^3\mathrm{\Sigma }_u^{+}$ triplet ground state. In addition, to confirm the triplet character as well as the vibrational quantum number assignment of the states, for selected resonances the fluorescence to the $a{}^3\mathrm{\Sigma }_u^{+}$ state was resolved and bound-free spectra were recorded. From the observed term values for each state potential-energy curves were constructed using the Rydberg-Klein-Rees method.

Experimental cross section measurements for charge transfer and for electron loss from lithium via charge transfer and direct ionization are reported for collisions between light ions and lithium atoms. Beams of protons, deuterium ions, and helium ions intersect a lithium atom beam, and collision cross sections are inferred by measuring the number of lithium ions produced in the collisions. The collision energy ranges studied are 0.13–3.5 keV for proton impact, 0.13–0.83 keV for deuterium ion impact, and 0.28–3 keV for helium ion impact. At proton collision energies below 0.7 keV our charge transfer cross sections are in excellent agreement with the theoretical predictions, resolving a long-standing discrepancy between theory and experiment in this energy range. Cross sections for proton and for deuterium ion impact on lithium are measured to be identical when scaled to the same collision velocity, indicating that quantum effects are not significant in the energy range studied. Comparison between our cross section measurements for lithium electron loss due to helium ion impact and previously measured charge transfer cross sections show that ionization is a negligible process in ${\mathrm{He}}^{+}+\mathrm{Li}$ collisions at energies below 3 keV. Undulations in the measured collision cross sections at low energy are observed for both proton and helium ion impact and are compared to molecular orbital close-coupling calculations.

We demonstrate single-site and single-atom-resolved fluorescence imaging of a bosonic Mott insulator of ${}^7\mathrm{Li}$ atoms in an optical lattice. The fluorescence images are obtained by implementing Raman sideband cooling on a deep two-dimensional square lattice, where we collect scattered photons with a high numerical aperture objective lens. The square lattice is created by a folded retroreflected beam configuration that can reach a 2.5 mK lattice depth from a single laser source. The lattice beam is elliptically focused to have a large area with deep potential. On average, 4000 photons are collected per atom during 1 s of Raman sideband cooling and the imaging fidelity is over $95\%$ in the central $80\times 80$ lattice sites. As a first step to study correlated quantum phases, we present the site-resolved imaging of a Mott insulator. By tuning the magnetic field near the Feshbach resonance, the scattering length can be increased to $680a_B$ and we are able to produce a large-sized unity filling Mott insulator with 2000 atoms at low temperature. Our work provides a stepping stone to further in-depth investigations of intriguing quantum many-body phases in optical lattices.

We present a theory of a two-component atomic Fermi gas with tunable attractive contact interactions on a spherical shell going through the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS)–Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) crossover, inspired by the realizations of spherical bubble traps for ultracold atoms in microgravity. The derivation follows the BCS-Leggett theory to obtain the gap and number equations. The BCS-BEC crossover can be induced by tuning the interaction, and the properly normalized gap and chemical potential exhibit universal behavior regardless of the planar or spherical geometry. Nevertheless, the spherical-shell geometry introduces another way of inducing the crossover by the curvature. The curvature-induced BCS-BEC crossover is made possible by fixing the particle number and interaction strength while shrinking the sphere, causing a reduction to the ratio of the pairing and kinetic energies and pushing the system toward the BCS limit. The saturation of the superfluid density further confirms that the ground state is a Fermi superfluid.

We provide a thermodynamic approach to channel light into a single mode, i.e., the fundamental mode or the highest-order mode in the nonlinear multimode optical systems, via Rayleigh-Jeans condensation on both sides of the optical spectrum. Essentially, such $K$-space light funneling is driven by the effective thermodynamics force, i.e., the gradient of effective temperature or effective chemical potential, which can be manipulated through heat exchange via an external optical thermodynamic system. In a sandwich structure of optical nonlinear waveguide lattices, the temperature gradient between two subsystems with orthogonal polarization of light gives rise to the heat diffusion through an intermediate layer with cross-phase modulation, which cools down or warms up one of subsystems approaching zero temperature. Even though 100% funneling rate is unattainable as bounded by the third law of thermodynamics, we show that more than 90% occupation rate of fundamental mode or highest-order mode can be achieved via supercooling or superheating in this sandwich structure.

We derive a stochastic hierarchy of matrix product states (HOMPS) for non-Markovian dynamics in an open quantum system at finite temperature, which is numerically exact and efficient. HOMPS is obtained from the recently developed stochastic hierarchy of pure states (HOPS) by expressing HOPS in terms of formal creation and annihilation operators. The resulting stochastic first-order differential equation is then formulated in terms of matrix product states and matrix product operators. In this way the exponential complexity of HOPS can be reduced to scale polynomial with the number of particles. The validity and efficiency of HOMPS is demonstrated for the spin-boson model and long chains where each site is coupled to a structured, strongly non-Markovian environment.

In most cases, excited-state quantum phase transitions can be associated with the existence of critical points (local extrema or saddle points) in a system's classical limit energy functional. However, an excited-state quantum phase transition might also stem from the lowering of the asymptotic energy of the corresponding energy functional. One such example occurs in the two-dimensional (2D) limit of the vibron model, once an anharmonic term in the form of a quadratic bosonic number operator is added to the Hamiltonian. This case has been studied in the broken-symmetry phase [Pérez-Bernal and Álvarez-Bajo, Phys. Rev. A 81, 050101 (2010)]. In the present work we delve further into the nature of this excited-state quantum phase transition and we characterize it in the symmetric phase of the model, making use of quantities such as the effective frequency, the expected value of the quantum number operator, the participation ratio, the density of states, and the quantum fidelity susceptibility. In addition to this, we extend the usage of the quasilinearity parameter, introduced in molecular physics, to characterize the phases in the spectrum of the anharmonic 2D limit of the vibron model and a practical analysis is included with the characterization of the critical energies for the linear isomers HCN and HNC.

The multipartite quantum networks feature multiple independent sources, in contrast to the conventional multipartite Bell experiment involving a single source. Despite the initial independence of resources, the multiple observers in the network can suitably choose measurements on their local subsystems and generate a form of quantum nonlocality across the network. So far, network nonlocality has been explored when each source produces a two-qubit entangled state. In this work we demonstrate the network nonlocality when each party performs a black-box measurement, and the dimension of the system remains unspecified. In an interesting work, by considering each source produces two-qubit entangled states in the conventional bilocal scenario, Gisin et al. [Phys. Rev. A 96, 020304 (2017)] demonstrated a correspondence between the violations of bipartite Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Halt inequality and the bilocality inequality. We introduce a variant of the sum-of-squares approach to reproduce their results without assuming the dimension of the system. We then generalize the argument for network nonlocality in star-network topology. Furthermore, we propose a set of $n$-locality inequalities in a star-network configuration where each of the $n$ parties performs an arbitrary number of dichotomic measurements and demonstrates the above correspondence between the quantum violations of the $n$-locality inequalities and the chained Bell inequalities. A similar correspondence is demonstrated based on a recently formulated family of $n$-locality inequalities whose optimal quantum violation cannot be obtained when each source emits a two-qubit entangled state and requires multiple copies of two-qubit entangled states. Throughout this paper, each party in the network performs black-box measurements, and the dimension of the system remains unspecified.

The decoherence phenomenon has been widely studied in different types of quantum walks. In this work we show how to model decoherence inspired by percolation on staggered quantum walks. Two models of unitary noise are described: breaking polygons and breaking vertices. The evolution operators subject to these noises are obtained, and the equivalence to the coined quantum walk model is presented. Further, we numerically analyze the effect of these decoherence models on the two-dimensional grid of 4-cliques. We examine how these perturbations affect the quantum walk based search algorithm in this graph and how expanding the tessellation intersection can make it more robust against decoherence.

We present a protocol that allows the estimation of any density matrix element for continuous-variable quantum states, without resorting to the complete reconstruction of the full density matrix. The algorithm adaptatively discretizes the state and then, by resorting to controlled squeezing and translation operations, which are the main requirements for this algorithm, measures the density matrix element value. Furthermore, we show how this method can be used to achieve full quantum state tomography for continuous-variable quantum systems, alongside numerical simulations.

A central problem in quantum computing is the finding of an unknown target state that encodes the solution of a certain computational task. To accomplish this goal, the evolution from a given initial state is performed with an associated total Hamiltonian, which is a time-dependent combination of two time-independent Hamiltonians: the problem-Hamiltonian, whose ground state is the unknown target, and a driving-Hamiltonian, whose ground state is the initial state. Here, we analyze this computational problem in the light of optimal control theory, considering each Hamiltonian modulated by an independent control function. For bounded controls, there is a minimum total evolution time beyond which the target state can be exactly prepared. We show that below this minimum time a possible optimal solution consists of both controls constantly tuned at their upper bound, provided the gradients of the associated control Hamiltonian with respect to the controls (the switching functions) are positive. We refer to this type of solution as the double-bang solution. We show that the double-bang solution is optimal for a teleportation protocol up to the minimum time. Additionally, we combine the double-bang solution and the adiabatic gate teleportation protocol to implement universal quantum computing. This approach to quantum computing is very appealing because of its simplicity and experimental feasibility. To corroborate our analytical results, we propose the use of a numerical quantum optimal control technique adapted to limit the amplitude of the controls, which converges to the double-bang solution when the final evolution time is shorter than the minimum time. We compare the fidelity of the teleported state obtained for the numerically optimized two-control functions with the usual one-control function scheme and with the quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA). We find that the two-control approach has a better performance than the other approaches. Moreover, we investigate the energetic cost and the robustness against systematic errors in the teleportation protocol, considering different schemes.

We study the distinguishability of generalized Bell states under local operations and classical communication. We introduce the concept of a maximally commutative set (MCS), a subset of generalized Pauli matrices whose elements are mutually commutative, and there is no other generalized Pauli matrix that commutes with all the elements of this set. We find that MCS can be considered a detector for the local distinguishability of a set $\mathcal{S}$ of generalized Bell states. In fact, we get an efficient criterion. That is, if the difference set $\mathrm{\Delta }\mathcal{S}$ of $\mathcal{S}$ is disjoint with or completely contained in some MCS, then the set $\mathcal{S}$ is locally distinguishable. Furthermore, we give a useful characterization of MCS for arbitrary dimensions, which provides great convenience for detecting the local discrimination of generalized Bell states. Our method can be generalized to more general settings which contain the lattice qudit basis. The results of Fan [Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 177905 (2004)], Tian et al. [Phys. Rev. A 92, 042320 (2015)], and a recent work Yuan et al. [arXiv:2109.07390] can be deduced as special cases of our result.

The measurement of parameters that describe kinetic processes is important in the study of molecular interactions. It enables a deeper understanding of the physical mechanisms underlying how different biological entities interact with each other, such as viruses with cells, vaccines with antibodies, or new drugs with specific diseases. In this work, we study theoretically the use of quantum sensing techniques for measuring the kinetic parameters of molecular interactions. The sensor we consider is a plasmonic resonance sensor—a label-free photonic sensor that is one of the most widely used in research and industry. The first type of interaction we study is the antigen BSA interacting with antibody IgG1, which provides a large sensor response. The second type is the enzyme carbonic anhydrase interacting with the tumor growth inhibitor benzenesulfonamide, which produces a small sensor response. For both types of interaction we consider the use of two-mode Fock states, squeezed vacuum states, and squeezed displaced states. We find that these quantum states offer an enhancement in the measurement precision of kinetic parameters when compared to that obtained with classical light. The results may help in the design of more precise quantum-based sensors for studying kinetics in the life sciences.

Measurements on current quantum processors are subject to hardware imperfections that lead to readout errors. These errors manifest themselves as a bias in quantum expectation values. Here, we consider a very simple method that forces the bias in the expectation value to appear as a multiplicative factor that can be measured directly and removed at the cost of an increase in the sampling complexity for the observable. This method was previously discussed by Karalekas et al. [Quantum Sci. Technol. 5, 024003 (2020)] for the product of single-qubit readout-error models. Here, we formally analyze the method and show that it can be applied to general noise models. In particular, we show the method does not need to assume any specific form of the noise model and requires only that the noise is “weak” to avoid excessive sampling overhead. We prove bounds relating the error in the expectation value to the sample complexity.

Casimir-Polder interactions cause energy and momentum exchange between microscopic and macroscopic bodies, a process mediated by quantum fluctuations in the coupled matter-electromagnetic field system. The dynamics of such effects are yet to be experimentally investigated due to the dominance of static effects at currently attainable atomic velocities. However, Y. Guo and Z. Jacob [Opt. Express 22, 26193 (2014)] have proposed a nonstatic two-plate setup where quantum-fluctuation-mediated effects have a strong velocity-dependent resonance, leading to a giant friction force on the plates. Here a more easily realizable setup, a moving atom between two stationary plates, is analyzed within a QED framework to establish the spectroscopic Casimir-Polder effects on the atom and their velocity dependence. While no large velocity-dependent enhancement is found, expressions for the plate-induced spectroscopic effects on the atom were found and further shown to be equivalent to the Doppler-shifted static result within certain velocity constraints. A numerical analysis investigates the behavior of this system for the well-studied case of the $6D_{3/2}\to 7P_{1/2}$ transition in ${}^{133}\mathrm{Cs}$ interacting with sapphire plates.