We study the phase space distribution of an optomechanical cavity near the threshold of self-excited oscillation. A fully on-fiber optomechanical cavity is fabricated by patterning a suspended metallic mirror on the tip of the fiber. Optically induced self-excited oscillation of the suspended mirror is observed above a threshold value of the injected laser power. A theoretical analysis based on the Fokker-Planck equation evaluates the expected phase space distribution near threshold. A tomography technique is employed for extracting phase space distribution from the measured reflected optical power vs time in steady state. Comparison between theory and experimental results allows the extraction of the device parameters.

We demonstrate a high-efficiency deterministic quantum receiver to convert flying qubits to stationary qubits. We employ a superconducting resonator, which is driven with a shaped pulse through an adjustable coupler. For the ideal “time-reversed” shape, we measure absorption and receiver fidelities at the single microwave photon level of, respectively, 99.41% and 97.4%. These fidelities are comparable with gates and measurement and exceed the deterministic quantum communication and computation fault-tolerant thresholds, enabling new designs of deterministic qubit interconnects and hybrid quantum computers.

Grover’s quantum search algorithm can be formulated as a quantum particle randomly walking on the (highly symmetric) complete graph, with one vertex marked by a nonzero potential. From an initial equal superposition, the state evolves in a two-dimensional subspace. Strongly regular graphs have a local symmetry that ensures that the state evolves in a three-dimensional subspace but most have no global symmetry. Using degenerate perturbation theory, we show that quantum random walk search on known families of strongly regular graphs, nevertheless, achieves the full quantum speed-up of $\mathrm{\Theta }(\sqrt{N})$, disproving the intuition that fast quantum search requires global symmetry.

Lieb-Robinson-type bounds are reported for a large class of classical Hamiltonian lattice models. By a suitable rescaling of energy or time, such bounds can be constructed for interactions of arbitrarily long range. The bound quantifies the dependence of the system’s dynamics on a perturbation of the initial state. The effect of the perturbation is found to be effectively restricted to the interior of a causal region of logarithmic shape, with only small, algebraically decaying effects in the exterior. A refined bound, sharper than conventional Lieb-Robinson bounds, is required to correctly capture the shape of the causal region, as confirmed by numerical results for classical long-range $XY$ chains. We discuss the relevance of our findings for the relaxation to equilibrium of long-range interacting lattice models.

Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering is a form of quantum nonlocality exhibiting an inherent asymmetry between the observers, Alice and Bob. A natural question is then whether there exist entangled states which are one-way steerable, that is, Alice can steer Bob’s state, but it is impossible for Bob to steer the state of Alice. So far, such a phenomenon has been demonstrated for continuous variable systems, but with a strong restriction on allowed measurements, namely, considering only Gaussian measurements. Here we present a simple class of entangled two-qubit states which are one-way steerable, considering arbitrary projective measurements. This shows that the nonlocal properties of entangled states can be fundamentally asymmetrical.

We present a weak measurement protocol that permits a sensitive estimation of angular rotations based on the concept of weak-value amplification. The shift in the state of a pointer, in both angular position and the conjugate orbital angular momentum bases, is used to estimate angular rotations. This is done by an amplification of both the real and imaginary parts of the weak-value of a polarization operator that has been coupled to the pointer, which is a spatial mode, via a spin-orbit coupling. Our experiment demonstrates the first realization of weak-value amplification in the azimuthal degree of freedom. We have achieved effective amplification factors as large as 100, providing a sensitivity that is on par with more complicated methods that employ quantum states of light or extremely large values of orbital angular momentum.

We propose the implementation of a digital quantum simulator for prototypical spin models in a circuit quantum electrodynamics architecture. We consider the feasibility of the quantum simulation of Heisenberg and frustrated Ising models in transmon qubits coupled to coplanar waveguide microwave resonators. Furthermore, we analyze the time evolution of these models and compare the ideal spin dynamics with a realistic version of the proposed quantum simulator. Finally, we discuss the key steps for developing a toolbox of digital quantum simulators in superconducting circuits.

Using mode-coupling theory and dynamical Monte Carlo simulations, we investigate the scaling behavor of the dynamical structure function of a two-species asymmetric simple exclusion process, consisting of two coupled single-lane asymmetric simple exclusion processes. We demonstrate the appearance of a superdiffusive mode with dynamical exponent $z=5/3$ in the density fluctuations, along with a Kardar-Parisi-Zhang mode with $z=3/2$; we argue that this phenomenon is generic for short-ranged driven diffusive systems with more than one conserved density. When the dynamics is symmetric under the interchange of the two lanes, a diffusive mode with $z=2$ appears instead of the non-Kardar-Parisi-Zhang superdiffusive mode.

We note that the standard inverse system volume scaling for finite-size corrections at a first-order phase transition (i.e., $1/L^3$ for an $L\times L\times L$ lattice in 3D) is transmuted to $1/L^2$ scaling if there is an exponential low-temperature phase degeneracy. The gonihedric Ising model which has a four-spin interaction, plaquette Hamiltonian provides an exemplar of just such a system. We use multicanonical simulations of this model to generate high-precision data which provide strong confirmation of the nonstandard finite-size scaling law. The dual to the gonihedric model, which is an anisotropically coupled Ashkin-Teller model, has a similar degeneracy and also displays the nonstandard scaling.

We present a quantum-enhanced atomic clock protocol based on groups of sequentially larger Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states that achieves the best clock stability allowed by quantum theory up to a logarithmic correction. Importantly the protocol is designed to work under realistic conditions where the drift of the phase of the laser interrogating the atoms is the main source of decoherence. The simultaneous interrogation of the laser phase with a cascade of GHZ states realizes an incoherent version of the phase estimation algorithm that enables Heisenberg-limited operation while extending the coherent interrogation time beyond the laser noise limit. We compare and merge the new protocol with existing state of the art interrogation schemes, and identify the precise conditions under which entanglement provides an advantage for clock stabilization: it allows a significant gain in the stability for short averaging time.

Faster and more accurate state measurement is required for progress in superconducting qubit experiments with greater numbers of qubits and advanced techniques such as feedback. We have designed a multiplexed measurement system with a bandpass filter that allows fast measurement without increasing environmental damping of the qubits. We use this to demonstrate simultaneous measurement of four qubits on a single superconducting integrated circuit, the fastest of which can be measured to 99.8% accuracy in 140 ns. This accuracy and speed is suitable for advanced multiqubit experiments including surface-code error correction.

In recent years quantum simulation has made great strides, culminating in experiments that existing supercomputers cannot easily simulate. Although this raises the possibility that special purpose analog quantum simulators may be able to perform computational tasks that existing computers cannot, it also introduces a major challenge: certifying that the quantum simulator is in fact simulating the correct quantum dynamics. We provide an algorithm that, under relatively weak assumptions, can be used to efficiently infer the Hamiltonian of a large but untrusted quantum simulator using a trusted quantum simulator. We illustrate the power of this approach by showing numerically that it can inexpensively learn the Hamiltonians for large frustrated Ising models, demonstrating that quantum resources can make certifying analog quantum simulators tractable.

We demonstrate entangling quantum gates within a chain of five trapped ion qubits by optimally shaping optical fields that couple to multiple collective modes of motion. We individually address qubits with segmented optical pulses to construct multipartite entangled states in a programmable way. This approach enables high-fidelity gates that can be scaled to larger qubit registers for quantum computation and simulation.

We demonstrate the first implementation of polarization encoding measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD), which is immune to all detector side-channel attacks. Active phase randomization of each individual pulse is implemented to protect against attacks on imperfect sources. By optimizing the parameters in the decoy state protocol, we show that it is feasible to implement polarization encoding MDI-QKD with commercial off-the-shelf devices. A rigorous finite key analysis is applied to estimate the secure key rate. Our work paves the way for the realization of a MDI-QKD network, in which the users only need compact and low-cost state-preparation devices and can share complicated and expensive detectors provided by an untrusted network server.

We describe a new and experimentally feasible protocol for performing fundamental tests of quantum mechanics with massive objects. In our approach, a single two-level system is used to probe the motion of a nanomechanical resonator via multiple Ramsey interference measurements. This scheme enables the measurement of modular variables of macroscopic continuous-variable systems; we show that correlations thereof violate a Leggett-Garg inequality and can be applied for tests of quantum contextuality. Our method can be implemented with a variety of different solid-state or photonic qubit-resonator systems, and it provides a clear experimental signature to distinguish the predictions of quantum mechanics from those of other alternative theories at a macroscopic scale.

Using the framework of stochastic thermodynamics, we present an experimental study of a doublet of magnetic colloidal particles that is manipulated by a time-dependent magnetic field. Because of hydrodynamic interactions, each bead experiences a state-dependent friction, which we characterize using a hydrodynamic model. In this work, we compare two estimates of the dissipation in this system: the first one is energy based since it relies on the measured interaction potential, while the second one is information based since it uses only the information content of the trajectories. While the latter only offers a lower bound of the former, we find it to be simple to implement and of general applicability to more complex systems.

We propose a new look at the heat bath for two Brownian particles, in which the heat bath as a “system” is both perturbed and sensed by the Brownian particles. Nonlocal thermal fluctuations give rise to bath-mediated static forces between the particles. Based on the general sum rule of the linear response theory, we derive an explicit relation linking these forces to the friction kernel describing the particles’ dynamics. The relation is analytically confirmed in the case of two solvable models and could be experimentally challenged. Our results point out that the inclusion of the environment as a part of the whole system is important for micron- or nanoscale physics.

Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering is a form of bipartite quantum correlation that is intermediate between entanglement and Bell nonlocality. It allows for entanglement certification when the measurements performed by one of the parties are not characterized (or are untrusted) and has applications in quantum key distribution. Despite its foundational and applied importance, Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering lacks a quantitative assessment. Here we propose a way of quantifying this phenomenon and use it to study the steerability of several quantum states. In particular, we show that every pure entangled state is maximally steerable and the projector onto the antisymmetric subspace is maximally steerable for all dimensions; we provide a new example of one-way steering and give strong support that states with positive-partial transposition are not steerable.