In this Letter, we consider the variation of the entanglement entropy of a region as the shape of the entangling surface is changed. We show that the variation satisfies a Wess-Zumino-like integrability condition in field theories which can be consistently coupled to gravity. In this case, the “anomaly” is localized on the entangling surface. The solution of the integrability condition should give all the nontrivial finite local terms which can appear in the variation of the entanglement entropy. The answers depend on the intrinsic and extrinsic geometry of the entangling surface, but the form does not depend on the details of the field theory. The coefficients, which multiply the purely geometric contributions, will depend on the particular details of the field theory.

Though topological aspects of energy bands are known to play a key role in quantum transport in solid-state systems, the implications of Floquet band topology for transport in momentum space (i.e., acceleration) have not been explored so far. Using a ratchet accelerator model inspired by existing cold-atom experiments, here we characterize a class of extended Floquet bands of one-dimensional driven quantum systems by Chern numbers, reveal topological phase transitions therein, and theoretically predict the quantization of adiabatic transport in momentum space. Numerical results confirm our theory and indicate the feasibility of experimental studies.

We implement dynamical decoupling techniques to mitigate noise and enhance the lifetime of an entangled state that is formed in a superconducting flux qubit coupled to a microscopic two-level system. By rapidly changing the qubit’s transition frequency relative to the two-level system, we realize a refocusing pulse that reduces dephasing due to fluctuations in the transition frequencies, thereby improving the coherence time of the entangled state. The coupling coherence is further enhanced when applying multiple refocusing pulses, in agreement with our $1/f$ noise model. The results are applicable to any two-qubit system with transverse coupling and they highlight the potential of decoupling techniques for improving two-qubit gate fidelities, an essential prerequisite for implementing fault-tolerant quantum computing.

The spin Peierls instability describes a structural transition of a crystal due to strong magnetic interactions. Here, we demonstrate that cold Coulomb crystals of trapped ions provide an experimental test bed in which to study this complex many-body problem and to access extreme regimes where the instability is triggered by quantum fluctuations alone. We present a consistent analysis based on different analytical and numerical methods, and we provide a detailed discussion of its experimental feasibility.

We consider a system consisting of a 2D network of links between Majorana fermions on superconducting islands. We show that the fermionic Hamiltonian modeling this system is topologically ordered in a region of parameter space: we show that Kitaev’s toric code emerges in fourth-order perturbation theory. By using a Jordan—Wigner transformation we can map the model onto a family of signed 2D Ising models in a transverse field where the signs, ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic, are determined by additional gauge bits. Our mapping allows an understanding of the nonperturbative regime and the phase transition to a nontopological phase. We discuss the physics behind a possible implementation of this model and argue how it can be used for topological quantum computation by adiabatic changes in the Hamiltonian.

Emerging models of quantum computation driven by multiphoton quantum interference, while not universal, may offer an exponential advantage over classical computers for certain problems. Implementing these circuits via geometric phase gates could mitigate requirements for error correction to achieve fault tolerance while retaining their relative physical simplicity. We report an experiment in which a geometric phase is embedded in an optical network with no closed loops, enabling quantum interference between two photons as a function of the phase.

Experimental implementations of quantum information processing have now reached a level of sophistication where quantum process tomography is impractical. The number of experimental settings as well as the computational cost of the data postprocessing now translates to days of effort to characterize even experiments with as few as 8 qubits. Recently a more practical approach to determine the fidelity of an experimental quantum process has been proposed, where the experimental data are compared directly with an ideal process using Monte Carlo sampling. Here, we present an experimental implementation of this scheme in a circuit quantum electrodynamics setup to determine the fidelity of 2-qubit gates, such as the CPHASE and the CNOT gate, and 3-qubit gates, such as the Toffoli gate and two sequential CPHASE gates.

It is suggested that for a Fermi gas at unitarity, the two-body bond plays a special role. We propose an equation of state using an ansatz relating the interaction part of the $l$-body cluster to its two-body counterpart. This allows a parameter-free comparison with the recently measured equation of state by the ENS group. The agreement between the two over a range of fugacity ($z<5$ for a homogeneous gas, and $z<10$ for the trapped gas) leads us to perform the calculations of more sensitive quantities measured recently by the MIT group.

We consider two celebrated criteria for defining the nonclassicality of bipartite bosonic quantum systems, the first stemming from information theoretic concepts and the second from physical constraints on the quantum phase space. Consequently, two sets of allegedly classical states are singled out: (i) the set $\mathcal{C}$ composed of the so-called classical-classical (CC) states—separable states that are locally distinguishable and do not possess quantum discord; (ii) the set $\mathcal{P}$ of states endowed with a positive $P$ representation ($P$-classical states)—mixtures of Glauber coherent states that, e.g., fail to show negativity of their Wigner function. By showing that $\mathcal{C}$ and $\mathcal{P}$ are almost disjoint, we prove that the two defining criteria are maximally inequivalent. Thus, the notions of classicality that they put forward are radically different. In particular, generic CC states show quantumness in their $P$ representation, and vice versa, almost all $P$-classical states have positive quantum discord and, hence, are not CC. This inequivalence is further elucidated considering different applications of $P$-classical and CC states. Our results suggest that there are other quantum correlations in nature than those revealed by entanglement and quantum discord.

Pusey, Barrett, and Rudolph introduce a new no-go theorem for hidden-variables models of quantum theory. We make precise the class of models targeted and construct equivalent models that evade the theorem. The theorem requires assumptions for models of composite systems, which we examine, determining compactness as the weakest assumption needed. On that basis, we demonstrate results of the Bell-Kochen-Specker theorem. Given compactness and the relevant class of models, the theorem can be seen as showing that some measurements on composite systems must have built-in inefficiencies, complicating its testing.

In quantum mechanics, the Heisenberg uncertainty relations and the Cramér-Rao inequalities typically limit the precision in the estimation of a parameter through the standard deviation of a conjugate observable. Here we extend these relations by giving a bound to the precision of a parameter in terms of the expectation value of the conjugate observable. This has both foundational and practical consequences: in quantum optics it resolves a controversy over which is the ultimate precision in interferometry.

Future quantum information networks will consist of quantum and classical agents, who have the ability to communicate in a variety of ways with trusted and untrusted parties and securely delegate computational tasks to untrusted large-scale quantum computing servers. Multipartite quantum entanglement is a fundamental resource for such a network and, hence, it is imperative to study the possibility of verifying a multipartite entanglement source in a way that is efficient and provides strong guarantees even in the presence of multiple dishonest parties. In this Letter, we show how an agent of a quantum network can perform a distributed verification of a source creating multipartite Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states with minimal resources, which is, nevertheless, resistant against any number of dishonest parties. Moreover, we provide a tight tradeoff between the level of security and the distance between the state produced by the source and the ideal GHZ state. Last, by adding the resource of a trusted common random source, we can further provide security guarantees for all honest parties in the quantum network simultaneously.

We describe an extension of single-qubit gate randomized benchmarking that measures the error of multiqubit gates in a quantum information processor. This platform-independent protocol evaluates the performance of Clifford unitaries, which form a basis of fault-tolerant quantum computing. We implemented the benchmarking protocol with trapped ions and found an error per random two-qubit Clifford unitary of $0.162\pm 0.008$, thus setting the first benchmark for such unitaries. By implementing a second set of sequences with an extra two-qubit phase gate inserted after each step, we extracted an error per phase gate of $0.069\pm 0.017$. We conducted these experiments with transported, sympathetically cooled ions in a multizone Paul trap—a system that can in principle be scaled to larger numbers of ions.

We analyze the nonequilibrium Kondo model at finite voltage and temperature by using a new formulation of the real-time renormalization group method with the Laplace variable as the flow parameter. We evaluate the energy-dependent spin relaxation rate and nonlinear conductance, and derive an approximate form for the universal line shape for the latter in the whole crossover regime from weak to strong coupling. The results are shown to agree well with exact methods in equilibrium, Fermi-liquid theory, weak-coupling expansions, and recent experiments. For the transient spin dynamics we find a universal exponential decay in the long-time limit along with a truncation-dependent pre-exponential power law. For multichannel models a pure power-law decay typical for non-Fermi-liquid behavior is predicted.

In this Letter, we present an improved constraint on possible isotropic variations of the speed of light. Within the framework of the standard model extension, we provide a limit on the isotropic, scalar parameter ${\tilde{\kappa }}_{\mathrm{tr}}$ of $3\pm 11\times {10}^{-10}$, an improvement by a factor of 6 over previous constraints. This was primarily achieved by modulating the orientation of the experimental apparatus with respect to the velocity of Earth. This orientation modulation shifts the signal for Lorentz invariance to higher frequencies, and we have taken advantage of the higher stability of the resonator at shorter time scales, together with better rejection of systematic effects, to provide a new constraint.

The Cauchy-Schwarz (CS) inequality—one of the most widely used and important inequalities in mathematics—can be formulated as an upper bound to the strength of correlations between classically fluctuating quantities. Quantum-mechanical correlations can, however, exceed classical bounds. Here we realize four-wave mixing of atomic matter waves using colliding Bose-Einstein condensates, and demonstrate the violation of a multimode CS inequality for atom number correlations in opposite zones of the collision halo. The correlated atoms have large spatial separations and therefore open new opportunities for extending fundamental quantum-nonlocality tests to ensembles of massive particles.

In this work, we show that very natural, apparently simple problems in quantum measurement theory can be undecidable even if their classical analogues are decidable. Undecidability hence appears as a genuine quantum property here. Formally, an undecidable problem is a decision problem for which one cannot construct a single algorithm that will always provide a correct answer in finite time. The problem we consider is to determine whether sequentially used identical Stern-Gerlach-type measurement devices, giving rise to a tree of possible outcomes, have outcomes that never occur. Finally, we point out implications for measurement-based quantum computing and studies of quantum many-body models and suggest that a plethora of problems may indeed be undecidable.

A complete geometric view is presented for the optimal unambiguous discrimination among $N>2$ pure states. A single intuitive picture contains all aspects of the problem: linear independence of the states, positivity of the detection operators, and a graphic method for finding and classifying the optimal solutions. The method is illustrated on the example of three states. We show that the problem depends on the phases of the complex inner products only through an invariant combination, the Berry phase $\varphi$, and present complete analytical results for $\varphi =0$ and $\varphi =\pi$. The optimal solution exhibits full permutational symmetry and is single valued for a large range of parameters. However, for $\varphi =0$ it can be bivalued: beyond a critical value of the parameters a second, less symmetric solution becomes optimal. The bifurcation is analogous to a second-order symmetry-breaking phase transition. We conclude with a discussion of the unambiguous discrimination of $N>3$ states.

Finite topological quantum systems can undergo continuous metastable quantum phase transitions to change their topological nature. Here we show how to nucleate the transition between ring currents and dark soliton states in a toroidally trapped Bose-Einstein condensate. An adiabatic passage to wind and unwind its phase is achieved by explicit global breaking of the rotational symmetry. This could be realized with current experimental technology.

We propose a new strategy for Monte Carlo (MC) optimization on rugged multidimensional landscapes. The strategy is based on querying the statistical properties of the landscape in order to find the temperature at which the mean first passage time across the current region of the landscape is minimized. Thus, in contrast to other algorithms such as simulated annealing, we explicitly match the temperature schedule to the statistics of landscape irregularities. In cases where these statistics are approximately the same over the entire landscape or where nonlocal moves couple distant parts of the landscape, a single-temperature MC scheme outperforms any other MC algorithm with the same move set. We also find that in strongly anisotropic Coulomb spin glass and traveling salesman problems, the only relevant statistics (which we use to assign a single MC temperature) are those of irregularities in low-energy funnels. Our results may explain why protein folding is efficient at constant temperature.