We study the effect of different types of fluctuation on the motion of self-propelled particles in two spatial dimensions. We distinguish between passive and active fluctuations. Passive fluctuations (e.g., thermal fluctuations) are independent of the orientation of the particle. In contrast, active ones point parallel or perpendicular to the time dependent orientation of the particle. We derive analytical expressions for the speed and velocity probability density for a generic model of active Brownian particles, which yields an increased probability of low speeds in the presence of active fluctuations in comparison to the case of purely passive fluctuations. As a consequence, we predict sharply peaked Cartesian velocity probability densities at the origin. Finally, we show that such a behavior may also occur in non-Gaussian active fluctuations and discuss briefly correlations of the fluctuating stochastic forces.

We show that for systems with broken time-reversal symmetry the maximum efficiency and the efficiency at maximum power are both determined by two parameters: a “figure of merit” and an asymmetry parameter. In contrast to the time-symmetric case, the figure of merit is bounded from above; nevertheless the Carnot efficiency can be reached at lower and lower values of the figure of merit and far from the so-called strong coupling condition as the asymmetry parameter increases. Moreover, the Curzon-Ahlborn limit for efficiency at maximum power can be overcome within linear response. Finally, always within linear response, it is allowed to have Carnot efficiency and nonzero power simultaneously .

We scrutinize the concept of saturation of the thermal component in a partially condensed trapped Bose gas. Using a ${}^{39}\mathrm{K}$ gas with tunable interactions, we demonstrate strong deviation from Einstein’s textbook concept of a saturated vapor. However, the saturation picture can be recovered by extrapolation to the strictly noninteracting limit. We provide evidence for the universality of our observations through additional measurements with a different atomic species, ${}^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$.

We devise a protocol in which general nonclassical multipartite correlations produce a physically relevant effect, leading to the creation of bipartite entanglement. In particular, we show that the relative entropy of quantumness, which measures all nonclassical correlations among subsystems of a quantum system, is equivalent to and can be operationally interpreted as the minimum distillable entanglement generated between the system and local ancillae in our protocol. We emphasize the key role of state mixedness in maximizing nonclassicality: Mixed entangled states can be arbitrarily more nonclassical than separable and pure entangled states.

We introduce a new approach to create and detect Majorana fermions using optically trapped 1D fermionic atoms. In our proposed setup, two internal states of the atoms couple via an optical Raman transition—simultaneously inducing an effective spin-orbit interaction and magnetic field—while a background molecular BEC cloud generates $s$-wave pairing for the atoms. The resulting cold-atom quantum wire supports Majorana fermions at phase boundaries between topologically trivial and nontrivial regions, as well as “Floquet Majorana fermions” when the system is periodically driven. We analyze experimental parameters, detection schemes, and various imperfections.

Physical observables are often represented as walkers performing random displacements. When the number of collisions before leaving the explored domain is small, the diffusion approximation leads to incongruous results. In this Letter, we explicitly derive an explicit formula for the moments of the number of particle collisions in an arbitrary volume, for a broad class of transport processes. This approach is shown to generalize the celebrated Kac formula for the moments of residence times. Some applications are illustrated for bounded, unbounded and absorbing domains.

In the distrustful quantum cryptography model the parties have conflicting interests and do not trust one another. Nevertheless, they trust the quantum devices in their labs. The aim of the device-independent approach to cryptography is to do away with the latter assumption, and, consequently, significantly increase security. It is an open question whether the scope of this approach also extends to protocols in the distrustful cryptography model, thereby rendering them “fully” distrustful. In this Letter, we show that for bit commitment—one of the most basic primitives within the model—the answer is positive. We present a device-independent (imperfect) bit-commitment protocol, where Alice’s and Bob’s cheating probabilities are $\simeq 0.854$ and $\frac{3}{4}$, which we then use to construct a device-independent coin flipping protocol with bias $\lesssim 0.336$.

We perform state tomography of an itinerant squeezed state of the microwave field prepared by a Josephson parametric amplifier (JPA). We use a second JPA as a preamplifier to improve the quantum efficiency of the field quadrature measurement from 2% to $36\%\pm 4\%$. Without correcting for the detection inefficiency we observe a minimum quadrature variance which is ${68}_{-7}^{+9}\%$ of the variance of the vacuum. We reconstruct the state’s density matrix by a maximum likelihood method and infer that the squeezed state has a minimum variance less than 40% of the vacuum, with uncertainty mostly caused by calibration systematics.

A wide range of experiments studying microwave photons localized in superconducting cavities have made important contributions to our understanding of the quantum properties of radiation. Propagating microwave photons, however, have so far been studied much less intensely. Here we present measurements in which we reconstruct the quantum state of itinerant single photon Fock states and their superposition with the vacuum by analyzing moments of the measured amplitude distribution up to fourth order. Using linear amplifiers and quadrature amplitude detectors, we have developed efficient methods to separate the detected single photon signal from the noise added by the amplifier. From our measurement data we have also reconstructed the corresponding Wigner function.

Based on phase-space structures of quantum states, we propose a novel measure to quantify macroscopic quantum superpositions. Our measure simultaneously quantifies two different kinds of essential information for a given quantum state in a harmonious manner: the degree of quantum coherence and the effective size of the physical system that involves the superposition. It enjoys remarkably good analytical and algebraic properties. It turns out to be the most general and inclusive measure ever proposed that it can be applied to any types of multipartite states and mixed states represented in phase space.

We analytically and numerically study spin transport in a one-dimensional Heisenberg model in linear-response regime at infinite temperature. It is shown that as the anisotropy parameter $\Delta$ is varied spin transport changes from ballistic for $\Delta <1$ to anomalous at the isotropic point $\Delta =1$, to diffusive for finite $\Delta >1$, ending up as a perfect isolator in the Ising limit of infinite $\Delta$. Using perturbation theory for large $\Delta$ a quantitative prediction is made for the dependence of diffusion constant on $\Delta$.

We consider transitions of electron holes (vacancies in otherwise filled shells of atomic systems) in multiply charged ions that, due to level crossing of the holes, have frequencies within the range of optical atomic clocks. Strong E1 transitions provide options for laser cooling and trapping, while narrow transitions can be used for high-precision spectroscopy and tests of fundamental physics. We show that hole transitions can have extremely high sensitivity to $\alpha$ variation and propose candidate transitions that have much larger $\alpha$ sensitivities than any previously seen in atomic systems.

The Casimir force between arbitrary objects in equilibrium is related to scattering from individual bodies. We extend this approach to heat transfer and Casimir forces in nonequilibrium cases where each body, and the environment, is at a different temperature. The formalism tracks the radiation from each body and its scatterings by the other objects. We discuss the radiation from a cylinder, emphasizing its polarized nature, and obtain the heat transfer between a sphere and a plate, demonstrating the validity of proximity transfer approximation at close separations and arbitrary temperatures.

Entanglement between stationary systems at remote locations is a key resource for quantum networks. We report on the experimental generation of remote entanglement between a single atom inside an optical cavity and a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). To produce this, a single photon is created in the atom-cavity system, thereby generating atom-photon entanglement. The photon is transported to the BEC and converted into a collective excitation in the BEC, thus establishing matter-matter entanglement. After a variable delay, this entanglement is converted into photon-photon entanglement. The matter-matter entanglement lifetime of $100\mu \mathrm{s}$ exceeds the photon duration by 2 orders of magnitude. The total fidelity of all concatenated operations is 95%. This hybrid system opens up promising perspectives in the field of quantum information.

Quantum information is nonlocal in the sense that local measurements on a composite quantum system, prepared in one of many mutually orthogonal states, may not reveal in which state the system was prepared. It is shown that in the many copy limit this kind of nonlocality is fundamentally different for pure and mixed quantum states. In particular, orthogonal mixed states may not be distinguishable by local operations and classical communication, no matter how many copies are supplied, whereas any set of $N$ orthogonal pure states can be perfectly discriminated with $m$ copies, where $m<N$. Thus mixed quantum states can exhibit a new kind of nonlocality absent in pure states. We also argue that a set of orthogonal quantum states may be said to be maximally indistinguishable iff the set is not conclusively locally distinguishable with multiple copies.

We study a recent experiment [K. Li et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 250401 (2008)] on diffracting a Bose-Einstein condensate by two counterpropagating optical fields. Including the local-field effect, we explain the asymmetric momentum distribution and self-imaging of the Bose-Einstein condensate self-consistently. Moreover, we find that the two counterpropagating optical fields could not produce a perfect optical lattice, which is actually deformed by the local-field effect. Our work implies that the local-field effect could be essential for getting a better quantitative analysis of other optical lattice experiments. In particular, the intensity imbalance of the two optical fields could act as a new means to tailor both cold atom dynamics and light propagation.

An open question in the field of relativistic quantum information is how parties in arbitrary motion may distribute and store quantum entanglement. We propose a scheme for storing quantum information in the field modes of cavities moving in flat space-time and analyze it in a quantum field theoretical framework. In contrast with previous work that found entanglement degradation between observers moving with uniform acceleration, we find the quantum information in such systems is protected. We further discuss a method for establishing the entanglement in the first place and show that in principle it is always possible to produce maximally entangled states between the cavities.

The only available quantitative description of the slowing down of the dynamics upon approaching the glass transition has been, so far, the mode-coupling theory, developed in the 1980s by Götze and collaborators. The standard derivation of this theory does not result from a systematic expansion. We present a field-theoretic formulation that arrives at very similar mode-coupling equation but which is based on a variational principle and on a controlled expansion in a small dimensionless parameter. Our approach applies to such physical systems as colloids interacting via a mildly repulsive potential. It can in principle, with moderate efforts, be extended to higher orders and to multipoint correlation functions.

We discuss an experimentally amenable class of two-particle states of motion giving rise to nonlocal spatial interference under position measurements. Using the concept of modular variables, we derive a separability criterion which is violated by these non-Gaussian states. While we focus on the free motion of material particles, the presented results are valid for any pair of canonically conjugate continuous variable observables and should apply to a variety of bipartite interference phenomena.

We demonstrate collective atomic recoil motion with a dilute, ultracold, degenerate fermion gas in a single spin state. By utilizing an adiabatically decompressed magnetic trap with an aspect ratio different from that of the initial trap, a momentum-squeezed fermion cloud is achieved. With a single pump pulse of the proper polarization, we observe, for the first time, multiple wave-mixing processes that result in distinct collective atomic recoil motion modes in a degenerate fermion cloud. Contrary to the case with Bose condensates, no pump-laser detuning asymmetry is present.