The author of the Comment [Phys. Rev. A 104, 016401 (2021)] pointed out the missing part in the proof of Theorem 20 in our work [L. Qian et al., Phys. Rev. A 99, 032312 (2019)], and presented a sufficient and necessary condition for the separability of completely symmetric (CS) states in the two-qutrit system. While being technically correct, the proposed example is still a separable CS state according to Ha's sufficient and necessary condition. We provide another proof to show that every bipartite CS state of rank five is separable. This result bridges the gap appearing in our previous proof. It turns out that every two-qutrit CS state is separable, and thus making our conclusion (Theorem 20 of our work) still valid.

The binary paint shop problem (BPSP) is an APX-hard optimization problem of the automotive industry. In this work, we show how to use the quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) to find solutions of the BPSP. We demonstrate that QAOA with constant depth is able to beat all known heuristics for the binary paint shop problem on average in the infinite size limit $n\to \infty$. We complete our studies by running first experiments of small-sized instances on a trapped-ion quantum computer through Amazon Braket.

Quantum coherence, like entanglement, is a fundamental resource in quantum information. In recent years, remarkable progress has been made in formulating resource theory of coherence from a broader perspective. The notions of block-coherence and POVM-based coherence have been established. Certain challenges, however, remain to be addressed. It is difficult to define incoherent operations directly, without requiring incoherent states, which proves a major obstacle in establishing the resource theory of dynamical coherence. In this paper, we overcome this limitation by introducing an alternate definition of incoherent operations induced via coherence measures and quantify dynamical coherence based on this definition. Finally, we apply our proposed definition to quantify POVM-based dynamical coherence.

A single-qubit circuit can approximate any bounded complex function stored in the degrees of freedom defining its quantum gates. The single-qubit approximant presented in this work is operated through a series of gates that take as their parametrization the independent variable of the target function and an additional set of adjustable parameters. The independent variable is re-uploaded in every gate while the parameters are optimized for each target function. The output state of this quantum circuit becomes more accurate as the number of re-uploadings of the independent variable increases, i.e., as more layers of gates parameterized with the independent variable are applied. In this work, we provide two proofs of this claim related to both the Fourier series and the universal approximation theorem for neural networks, and we benchmark both methods against their classical counterparts. We further implement a single-qubit approximant in a real superconducting qubit device, demonstrating how the ability to describe a set of functions improves with the depth of the quantum circuit. This work shows the robustness of the re-uploading technique on quantum machine learning.

We develop a quantum-optical description of Auger decay, which is an ultrafast, high-energy autoionization process, on the basis of macroscopic quantum electrodynamics. One consequence of this perspective is a simple analytical formula for the free-space Auger rate which we compare with available rates of the F-like isoelectronic sequence. More importantly, the formalism enables us to study the Auger decay in different dispersing and absorbing environments. We show that in contrast to common assumptions the Auger rate can be influenced by an environment, presenting two simple examples, namely a dielectric surface and a surrounding bulk medium.

Open-system dynamics play a key role in the experimental and theoretical study of cavity optomechanical systems. In many cases, the quantum Langevin equations have enabled excellent models for optical decoherence, yet a master-equation approach to the fully nonlinear optomechanical Hamiltonian has thus far proven more elusive. To address this outstanding question and broaden the mathematical tool set available, we derive a solution to the Lindblad master equation that models optical decoherence for a system evolving with the nonlinear optomechanical Hamiltonian. The method combines a Lie-algebra solution to the unitary dynamics with a vectorization of the Lindblad equation, and we demonstrate its applicability by considering the preparation of optical cat states via the optomechanical nonlinearity in the presence of optical loss. Our results provide a direct way of analytically assessing the impact of optical decoherence on the optomechanical intracavity state.

We study the energy-level evolution and ground-state cooling of mechanical resonators under a synthetic phononic gauge field. The tunable gauge phase is mediated by the phase difference between the $\mathcal{PT}$- and anti-$\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric mechanical couplings in a multimode optomechanical system. The transmission spectrum then exhibits an asymmetric Fano line shape or a double optomechanically induced transparency by modulating the gauge phase. Moreover, the eigenvalues will collapse and become degenerate, although the mechanical coupling is continuously increased. Such counterintuitive energy-level attraction, instead of anticrossing, is attributed to destructive interferences between $\mathcal{PT}$- and anti-$\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric couplings. We find that the energy-level attraction, as well as the accompanying exceptional points (EPs), can be clearly observed in the cavity output power spectrum where the mechanical eigenvalues correspond to distinct peaks. For mechanical cooling, the average phonon occupation number is minimized at the EPs. Especially, phonon transport becomes nonreciprocal and even ideally unidirectional at the EPs. Finally, we propose a heating-resistant ground-state cooling based on the nonreciprocal phonon transport, which is mediated by the gauge field. Towards the quantum regime of macroscopic mechanical resonators, most optomechanical systems are ultimately limited by their intrinsic cavity or mechanical heating. Our work shows that the thermal energy transfer can be blocked by tuning the gauge phase, which suggests a promising route to bypass the heating limitations.

Quantum cascaded up-conversion (CUpC) of parametric down conversion (PDC) in a finite nonlinear ${\chi }^{\left(2\right)}$ crystal is studied theoretically within parametric approximation. The exact solution for creation and annihilation operators presented in the form of Bogoliubov transformation is valid for the high-gain regime and explicitly includes the nonzero wave-vector mismatch both for PDC and CUpC. Characteristic equation is used to analyze parametric amplification and oscillating regimes for degenerate, three- and four-mode cases. We show that the parametric amplification exists under the fulfillment of the cascaded phase-matching conditions while both the PDC and CUpC processes are separately non-phase-matched. The influence of CUpC on quadrature squeezing of degenerate PDC is estimated.

The Bell inequalities can be violated by postselecting on the results of a measurement of the Bell states. If information about the original state preparation is available, we point out how the violation can be reproduced classically by postselecting on the basis of this information. We thus propose a variant of existing experiments that rules out such alternative explanations by having the preparation and the postselection at spacelike separation. Unlike the timelike case in which one can sharply distinguish Bell inequality violations based on pre- or postselection of a Bell state, in our scenario the distinction between these physical effects becomes foliation dependent. We call this “relativity of pre- and postselection” and conclude from it that quantum state evolution is not a fundamental process and that we should adopt an event-based Heisenbergian picture instead.

To effectively realize a $\mathcal{P}\mathcal{T}$-symmetric system, one can dilate a $\mathcal{P}\mathcal{T}$-symmetric Hamiltonian to some global Hermitian one and simulate its evolution in the dilated Hermitian system. However, with only a global Hermitian Hamiltonian, how do we know whether it is a dilation and is useful for simulation? To answer this question, we consider the problem of how to extract the internal nonlocality in the Hermitian dilation. We unveil that the internal nonlocality brings nontrivial correlations between the subsystems. By evaluating the correlations with local measurements in three different pictures, the resulting different expectations of the Bell operator reveal the distinction of the internal nonlocality. When the simulated $\mathcal{P}\mathcal{T}$-symmetric Hamiltonian approaches its exceptional point, such a distinction tends to be most significant. Our results clearly make a distinction between the Hermitian dilation and other global Hamiltonians without internal nonlocality. They also provide the figure of merit to test the reliability of the simulation, as well as to verify a $\mathcal{P}\mathcal{T}$-symmetric (sub)system.

Generative models are a promising technology for the enhancement of quantum simulators. These machine learning methods are capable of reconstructing a quantum state from experimental measurements, and can aid in the calculation of physical observables. In this paper, we employ a recurrent neural network (RNN) to reconstruct the ground state of the spin-1/2 $XY$ model, a prototypical Hamiltonian explored in trapped ion simulators. We explore its performance after enforcing a U(1) symmetry, which was recently shown by Hibat-Allah et al. [Phys. Rev. Res. 2, 023358 (2020)] to preserve the autoregressive nature of the RNN. By studying the reconstruction of the $XY$ model ground state from projective measurement data, we show that imposing U(1) symmetry on the RNN significantly increases the efficiency of learning, particularly in the early epoch regime. We argue that this performance increase may result from the tendency of the enforced symmetry to alleviate vanishing and exploding gradients, which helps stabilize the training process. Thus, symmetry-enforced RNNs may be particularly useful for applications of quantum simulators where a rapid feedback between optimization and circuit preparation is necessary, such as in hybrid classical-quantum algorithms.

Reliable processing of quantum information for developing quantum technologies requires precise control of out-of-equilibrium many-body systems. This is a highly challenging task because the fragility of quantum states to external perturbations increases with the system size. Here, we report on a series of experimental quantum simulations that quantify the sensitivity of a controlled Hamiltonian evolution to perturbations that drive the system away from the targeted evolution. Based on out-of-time ordered correlations, we demonstrate that the decay rate of the process fidelity increases with the effective number $K$ of correlated qubits as $K^{\alpha }$. As a function of the perturbation strength, we observe a decoherence scaling transition of the exponent $\alpha$ between two distinct dynamical regimes. In the limiting case below the critical perturbation strength, the exponent $\alpha$ drops sharply below 1, and there is no inherent limit to the number of qubits that can be controlled. This resilient quantum feature of the controlled dynamics of quantum information is promising for reliable control of large quantum systems.

We report theoretical investigations of vibronic quantum beats (QBs) which can be observed in the molecular dissociation under the intense infrared (IR) laser pump-IR laser probe scheme. We show how the vibronic coherences can be probed by analyzing the interchannel QB signals obtained from the numerical solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation (TDSE) and the quantum Liouville equation in combination with the strong-field approximation for the treatment of coherences between multiple states of the target ion. The validities of our methods are first tested on a one-dimensional model of ${{\mathrm{H}}_2}^{+}$, for which exact solutions of the TDSE can be obtained. We then illustrate our method using an example of ${\mathrm{O}}_2$, for which various experiments have been reported recently. The case of an attosecond pump pulse is also considered. Our results indicate that the strong-field dissociation pump-probe experiments are capable of providing information on the vibronic coherences that complements other techniques such as attosecond transient absorption spectroscopy.

In multiphoton ionization of atoms, elliptical dichroism may arise in the photoelectron angular distributions due to the interference of the possible ionization pathways. We here consider the interaction of atoms with an elliptically polarized biharmonic ($\omega + 2\omega$) field which simultaneously allows one- and two-photon ionization of the atoms. The interference between these two ionization pathways introduces contributions to the elliptical dichroism in addition to the dichroism that arises from the two-photon ionization alone. We show that these additional dichroism contributions can lead to a stronger dichroism in comparison to the one arising from two-photon ionization only. We present a relativistic analysis of the corresponding photoelectron angular distributions and discuss individual contributions to the dichroic phenomena. Detailed computations have been performed for biharmonic ionization of neutral helium atoms.

Quantum simulators employing cold atoms are among the most promising approaches to tackle quantum many-body problems. Nanophotonic structures are widely employed to engineer the band structure of light and are thus investigated as a means to tune the interactions between atoms placed in their vicinity. A key shortcoming of this approach is that excitations can decay into free photons, limiting the coherence of such quantum simulators. Here, we overcome this challenge by proposing to use a simple cubic three-dimensional array of atoms to produce an omnidirectional band gap for light and show that it enables coherent, dissipation-free interactions between embedded impurities. We show explicitly that the band gaps persist for moderate lattice sizes and finite filling fraction, which makes this effect readily observable in experiment. Our paper paves the way toward analog spin quantum simulators with long-range interactions using ultracold atomic lattices, and is an instance of the emerging field of atomic quantum metamaterials.

Two-photon decay of the $2s$ state in H-like ions is investigated. We report that asymmetry in the emission of photons with left- and right-hand circular polarizations can be observed in this transition if the initial state has a certain polarization. This asymmetry can be used to measure the polarization of ion beams.

The static dipole polarizabilities of the first three lowest states of hydrogen molecules ${\mathrm{H}}_2$, HD, and ${\mathrm{D}}_2$ are calculated using variationally generated wave functions in Hylleraas coordinates without using the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. Our results for ${\mathrm{H}}_2$ and HD are two orders of magnitude more accurate than the best literature values. We also improve the previous best results for ${\mathrm{D}}_2$.

Despite the increasing interest, the research field which studies the concepts of work and heat at the quantum level has suffered from two main drawbacks: first, the difficulty to properly define and measure the work, heat, and internal energy variation in a quantum system and, second, the lack of experiments. Here, we report a full characterization of the dissipated heat, work, and internal energy variation in a two-level quantum system interacting with an engineered environment. We use the IBMQ quantum computer to implement the driven system's dynamics in a dissipative environment. The experimental data allow us to construct quasiprobability distribution functions from which we recover the correct averages of work, heat, and internal energy variation in the dissipative processes. Interestingly, by increasing the environment coupling strength, we observe a reduction of the pure quantum features of the energy exchange processes that we interpret as the emergence of the classical limit. This makes the present approach a privileged tool to study, understand, and exploit quantum effects in energy exchanges.