We investigate the minimum entanglement cost of the deterministic implementation of two-qubit controlled-unitary operations using local operations and classical communication (LOCC). We show that any such operation can be implemented by a three-turn LOCC protocol, which requires at least 1 ebit of entanglement when the resource is given by a bipartite entangled state with Schmidt number 2. Our result implies that there is a gap between the minimum entanglement cost and the entangling power of controlled-unitary operations. This gap arises due to the requirement of implementing the operations while oblivious to the identity of the inputs.

We provide a general framework of utilizing the no-signaling principle in derivation of the guessing probability in the minimum-error quantum state discrimination. We show that, remarkably, the guessing probability can be determined by the no-signaling principle. This is shown by proving that, in the semidefinite programing for the discrimination, the optimality condition corresponds to the constraint that quantum theory cannot be used for a superluminal communication. Finally, a general bound to the guessing probability is presented in a closed form.

Entanglement witnesses such as Bell inequalities are frequently used to prove the nonclassicality of a light source and its suitability for further tasks. By demonstrating Bell inequality violations using classical light in common experimental arrangements, we highlight why strict locality and efficiency conditions are not optional, particularly in security-related scenarios.

We address the interaction of two Gaussian states through bilinear exchange Hamiltonians and analyze the correlations exhibited by the resulting bipartite systems. We demonstrate that entanglement arises if and only if the fidelity between the two input Gaussian states falls under a threshold value depending only on their purities, first moments, and the strength of the coupling. Our result clarifies the role of quantum fluctuations (squeezing) as a prerequisite for entanglement generation and provides a tool to optimize the generation of entanglement in linear systems of interest for quantum technology.

We establish a connection between ground states of local quantum Hamiltonians and thermal states of classical spin systems. For any discrete classical statistical mechanical model in any spatial dimension, we find an associated quantum state such that the reduced density operator behaves as the thermal state of the classical system. We show that all these quantum states are unique ground states of a universal 5-body local quantum Hamiltonian acting on a (polynomially enlarged) qubit system on a 2D lattice. The only free parameters of the quantum Hamiltonian are coupling strengths of two-body interactions, which allow one to choose the type and dimension of the classical model as well as the interaction strength and temperature. This opens the possibility to study and simulate classical spin models in arbitrary dimension using a 2D quantum system.

A method is proposed for obtaining the spectrum for noise that causes the phase decoherence of a qubit directly from experimentally available data. The method is based on a simple relationship between the spectrum and the coherence time of the qubit in the presence of a $\pi$ pulse sequence. The relationship is found to hold for every system of a qubit interacting with the classical-noise, bosonic, and spin baths.

We report the observation by a new method of mechanical momentum transferred to gas phase atoms and molecules upon application of crossed oscillating electric and static magnetic fields. We identify this momentum as the microscopic analogue of the classical Abraham force. Two QED predictions of additional magnetoelectrically induced mechanical momentum are addressed. One of them is experimentally refuted; the other is found to be currently below our experimental detection.

We present a general, systematic, and efficient method for decomposing any given exponential operator of bosonic mode operators, describing an arbitrary multimode Hamiltonian evolution, into a set of universal unitary gates. Although our approach is mainly oriented towards continuous-variable quantum computation, it may be used more generally whenever quantum states are to be transformed deterministically, e.g., in quantum control, discrete-variable quantum computation, or Hamiltonian simulation. We illustrate our scheme by presenting decompositions for various nonlinear Hamiltonians including quartic Kerr interactions. Finally, we conclude with two potential experiments utilizing offline-prepared optical cubic states and homodyne detections, in which quantum information is processed optically or in an atomic memory using quadratic light-atom interactions.

We characterize the behavior of quantum correlations under the influence of local noisy channels. Intuition suggests that such noise should be detrimental for quantumness. When considering qubit systems, we show for which channels this is indeed the case: The amount of quantum correlations can only decrease under the action of unital channels. However, nonunital channels (e.g., such as dissipation) can create quantum correlations for some initially classical states. Furthermore, for higher-dimensional systems even unital channels may increase the amount of quantum correlations. Thus, counterintuitively, local decoherence can generate quantum correlations.

We demonstrate coherent control of two nuclear spins mediated by the magnetic resonance of a hyperfine-coupled electron spin. This control is used to create a double-nuclear coherence in one of the two electron spin manifolds, starting from an initial thermal state, in direct analogy to the creation of an entangled (Bell) state from an initially pure unentangled state. We identify challenges and potential solutions to obtaining experimental gate fidelities useful for quantum information processing in this type of system.

We present a study of residence time statistics for $N$ renewal processes with a long tailed distribution of the waiting time. Such processes describe many nonequilibrium systems ranging from the intensity of $N$ blinking quantum dots to the residence time of $N$ Brownian particles. With numerical simulations and exact calculations, we show sharp transitions for a critical number of degrees of freedom $N$. In contrast to the expectation, the fluctuations in the limit of $N\to \infty$ are nontrivial. We briefly discuss how our approach can be used to detect nonergodic kinetics from the measurements of many blinking chromophores, without the need to reach the single molecule limit.

We measure the temporal pair correlation function $g^{(2)}(\tau )$ of a trapped gas of bosons above and below the critical temperature for Bose-Einstein condensation. The measurement is performed in situ by using a local, time-resolved single-atom sensitive probing technique. Third- and fourth-order correlation functions are also extracted. We develop a theoretical model and compare it with our experimental data, finding good quantitative agreement. We discuss, finally, the role of interactions. Our results promote temporal correlations as new observables to study the dynamical evolution of ultracold quantum gases.

Proton structure effects in hydrogenic bound states are analyzed using nonrelativistic QED effective field theory. Implications for the Lamb shift in muonic hydrogen are discussed. Model-dependent assumptions in previous analyses are isolated, and sensitivity to poorly constrained hadronic structure in the two-photon exchange contribution is identified.

The stationary points of the potential energy function $V$ are studied for the ${\varphi }^4$ model on a two-dimensional square lattice with nearest-neighbor interactions. On the basis of analytical and numerical results, we explore the relation of stationary points to the occurrence of thermodynamic phase transitions. We find that the phase transition potential energy of the ${\varphi }^4$ model does in general not coincide with the potential energy of any of the stationary points of $V$. This disproves earlier, allegedly rigorous, claims in the literature on necessary conditions for the existence of phase transitions. Moreover, we find evidence that the indices of stationary points scale extensively with the system size, and therefore the index density can be used to characterize features of the energy landscape in the infinite-system limit. We conclude that the finite-system stationary points provide one possible mechanism of how a phase transition can arise, but not the only one.

We report the first experimental realization of an approximate partial transpose for photonic two-qubit systems. The proposed scheme is based on the local operation on single copies of quantum states and classical communication, and therefore can be easily applied for other quantum information tasks within current technologies. Direct detection of entanglement, i.e., without performing quantum state tomography, using the partial transpose operation, is also demonstrated.

We report the implementation of a 3-qubit quantum error-correction code on a quantum information processor realized by the magnetic resonance of carbon nuclei in a single crystal of malonic acid. The code corrects for phase errors induced on the qubits due to imperfect decoupling of the magnetic environment represented by nearby spins, as well as unwanted evolution under the internal Hamiltonian. We also experimentally demonstrate sufficiently high-fidelity control to implement two rounds of quantum error correction. This is a demonstration of state-of-the-art control in solid state nuclear magnetic resonance, a leading test bed for the implementation of quantum algorithms.

The sub-Ohmic spin-boson model possesses a quantum phase transition at zero temperature between a localized and a delocalized phase, whose properties have so far only been extracted by numerical approaches. Here we present an extension of the Silbey-Harris variational polaron ansatz which allows us to develop an analytical theory which correctly describes a continuous transition with mean-field exponents for $0<s<0.5$. The critical properties, couplings, and observables we obtain show excellent agreement with existing numerical results, and we give an intuitive microscopic description of the changing correlations between the system and bath which suppress the spin coherence and drive the transition.

A decoherence-free subspace (DFS) is an important class of quantum-error-correcting (QEC) codes that have been proposed for fault-tolerant quantum computation. The applications of QEC techniques, however, are not limited to quantum-information processing (QIP). Here we demonstrate how QEC codes may be used to improve experimental designs of quantum devices to achieve noise suppression. In particular, neutron interferometry is used as a test bed to show the potential for adding quantum error correction to quantum measurements. We built a five-blade neutron interferometer that incorporates both a standard Mach-Zender configuration and a configuration based on a DFS. Experiments verify that the DFS interferometer is protected against low-frequency mechanical vibrations. We anticipate these improvements will increase the range of applications for matter-wave interferometry.

We propose a feasible experimental test of a 1D version of the Fermi problem using superconducting qubits. We give an explicit nonperturbative proof of strict causality in this model, showing that the probability of excitation of a two-level artificial atom with a dipolar coupling to a quantum field is completely independent of the other qubit until signals from it may arrive. We explain why this is in perfect agreement with the existence of nonlocal correlations and previous results which were used to claim apparent causality problems for Fermi’s two-atom system.

Motivated by recent experiments carried out by Spielman’s group at NIST, we study a general scheme for generating families of gauge fields, spanning the scalar, spin-orbit, and non-Abelian regimes. The NIST experiments, which impart momentum to bosons while changing their spin state, can in principle realize all these. In the spin-orbit regime, we show that a Bose gas is a spinor condensate made up of two non-orthogonal dressed spin states carrying different momenta. As a result, its density shows a stripe structure with a contrast proportional to the overlap of the dressed states, which can be made very pronounced by adjusting the experimental parameters.