We show a practical application of the Jarzynski equality in quantum computation. Its implementation may open a way to solve combinatorial optimization problems, minimization of a real single-valued function, cost function, with many arguments. We consider to incorporate the Jarzynski equality into quantum annealing, which is one of the generic algorithms to solve the combinatorial optimization problem. The ordinary quantum annealing suffers from nonadiabatic transitions whose rate is characterized by the minimum energy gap ${\Delta }_{\min }$ of the quantum system under consideration. The quantum sweep speed is therefore restricted to be extremely slow for the achievement to obtain a solution without relevant errors. However, in our strategy shown in the present study, we find that such a difficulty would not matter.

The geometry dependence of Casimir forces is significantly more pronounced in the presence of thermal fluctuations due to a generic geometry-temperature interplay. We show that the thermal force for standard sphere-plate or cylinder-plate geometries develops a nonmonotonic behavior already in the simple case of a fluctuating Dirichlet scalar. In particular, the attractive thermal force can increase for increasing distances below a critical temperature. This anomalous behavior is triggered by a reweighting of relevant fluctuations on the scale of the thermal wavelength. The essence of the phenomenon becomes transparent within the worldline picture of the Casimir effect.

We have measured the effect of dipole-dipole interactions on the frequency of a collective mode of a Bose-Einstein condensate. At relatively large numbers of atoms, the experimental measurements are in good agreement with zero temperature theoretical predictions based on the Thomas-Fermi approach. Experimental results obtained for the dipolar shift of a collective mode show a larger dependency to both the trap geometry and the atom number than the ones obtained when measuring the modification of the condensate aspect ratio due to dipolar forces. These findings are in good agreement with simulations based on a Gaussian ansatz.

We propose a hybrid architecture in which an on-chip high finesse superconducting cavity is coupled to the lateral motion and spin state of a single electron trapped on the surface of superfluid helium. We estimate the motional coherence times to exceed $15\mu \mathrm{s}$, while energy will be coherently exchanged with the cavity photons in less than 10 ns for charge states and faster than $1\mu \mathrm{s}$ for spin states, making the system attractive for quantum information processing and strong coupling cavity quantum electrodynamics experiments. The cavity is used for nondestructive readout and as a quantum bus mediating interactions between distant electrons or an electron and a superconducting qubit.

The nitrogen-vacancy defect center ($\mathrm{N}\mathrm{\text{−}}V$ center) is a promising candidate for quantum information processing due to the possibility of coherent manipulation of individual spins in the absence of the cryogenic requirement. We report a room-temperature implementation of the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm by encoding both a qubit and an auxiliary state in the electron spin of a single $\mathrm{N}\mathrm{\text{−}}V$ center. By thus exploiting the specific $S=1$ character of the spin system, we demonstrate how even scarce quantum resources can be used for test-bed experiments on the way towards a large-scale quantum computing architecture.

The mutual information between the sender of a classical message encoded in quantum carriers and a receiver is fundamentally limited by the Holevo quantity. Using strong subadditivity of entropy, we prove that the Holevo quantity is not larger than an exchange entropy. This implies an upper bound for coherent information. Moreover, restricting our attention to classical information, we bound the transmission distance between probability distributions by their entropic distance, which is a concave function of their Hellinger distance.

Quantum state detectors based on switching of hysteretic Josephson junctions biased close to their critical current are simple to use but have strong backaction. We show that the backaction of a dc-switching detector can be considerably reduced by limiting the switching voltage and using a fast cryogenic amplifier, such that a single readout can be completed within 25 ns at a repetition rate of 1 MHz without loss of contrast. Based on a sequence of two successive readouts we show that the measurement has a clear quantum nondemolition character, with a QND fidelity of 75%.

Quasistationary states are long-lived nonequilibrium states, observed in some systems with long-range interactions under deterministic Hamiltonian evolution. These intriguing non-Boltzmann states relax to equilibrium over times which diverge algebraically with the system size. To test the robustness of this phenomenon to nondeterministic dynamical processes, we have generalized the paradigmatic model exhibiting such a behavior, the Hamiltonian mean-field model, to include energy-conserving stochastic processes. Analysis, based on the Boltzmann equation, a scaling approach, and numerical studies, demonstrates that in the long time limit the system relaxes to the equilibrium state on time scales which do not diverge algebraically with the system size. Thus, quasistationarity takes place only as a crossover phenomenon on times determined by the strength of the stochastic process.

We propose an approach to quantum error correction based on coding and continuous syndrome readout via scattering of coherent probe fields, in which the usual steps of measurement and discrete restoration are replaced by direct physical processing of the probe beams and coherent feedback to the register qubits. Our approach is well matched to physical implementations that feature solid-state qubits embedded in planar electromagnetic circuits, providing an autonomous and “on-chip” quantum memory design requiring no external clocking or control logic.

We elaborate the idea of quantum computation through measuring the correlation of a gapped ground state, while the bulk Hamiltonian is utilized to stabilize the resource. A simple computational primitive, by pulling out a single spin adiabatically from the bulk followed by its measurement, is shown to make any ground state of the one-dimensional isotropic Haldane phase useful ubiquitously as a quantum logical wire. The primitive is compatible with certain discrete symmetries that protect this topological order, and the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg spin-1 finite chain is practically available. Our approach manifests a holographic principle in that the logical information of a universal quantum computer can be written and processed perfectly on the edge state (i.e., boundary) of the system, supported by the persistent entanglement from the bulk even when the ground state and its evolution cannot be exactly analyzed.

Nonergodic renewal processes have recently been shown by several authors to be insensitive to periodic perturbations, thereby apparently sanctioning the death of linear response, a building block of nonequilibrium statistical physics. We show that it is possible to go beyond the “death of linear response” and establish a permanent correlation between an external stimulus and the response of a complex network generating nonergodic renewal processes, by taking as stimulus a similar nonergodic process. The ideal condition of $1/f$ noise corresponds to a singularity that is expected to be relevant in several experimental conditions.

Local density fluctuations and density profiles of a Fermi gas are measured in situ and analyzed. In the quantum degenerate regime, the weakly interacting ${}^6\mathrm{Li}$ gas shows a suppression of the density fluctuations compared to the nondegenerate case, where atomic shot noise is observed. This manifestation of antibunching is a direct result of the Pauli principle and constitutes a local probe of quantum degeneracy. We analyze our data using the predictions of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem and the local density approximation, demonstrating a fluctuation-based temperature measurement.

We study density profiles of an ideal Fermi gas and observe Pauli suppression of density fluctuations (atom shot noise) for cold clouds deep in the quantum degenerate regime. Strong suppression is observed for probe volumes containing more than 10 000 atoms. Measuring the level of suppression provides sensitive thermometry at low temperatures. After this method of sensitive noise measurements has been validated with an ideal Fermi gas, it can now be applied to characterize phase transitions in strongly correlated many-body systems.

We investigate the phase diagram of a two-component repulsive Fermi gas at $T=0$ by means of quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Both purely repulsive and resonant attractive model potentials are considered in order to analyze the limits of the universal regime where the details of interatomic forces can be neglected. The equation of state of both balanced and unbalanced systems is calculated as a function of the interaction strength and the critical density for the onset of ferromagnetism is determined. The energy of the strongly polarized gas is calculated and parametrized in terms of the physical properties of repulsive polarons, which are relevant for the stability of the fully ferromagnetic state. Finally, we analyze the phase diagram in the interaction-polarization plane under the assumption that only phases with homogeneous magnetization can be produced.

When used in quantum state estimation, projections onto mutually unbiased bases have the ability to maximize information extraction per measurement and to minimize redundancy. We present the first experimental demonstration of quantum state tomography of two-qubit polarization states to take advantage of mutually unbiased bases. We demonstrate improved state estimation as compared to standard measurement strategies and discuss how this can be understood from the structure of the measurements we use. We experimentally compared our method to the standard state estimation method for three different states and observe that the infidelity was up to $1.84\pm 0.06$ times lower by using our technique than it was by using standard state estimation methods.

Quantum teleportation faces increasingly demanding requirements for transmitting large or even entangled systems. However, knowledge of the state to be transmitted eases its reconstruction, resulting in a protocol known as remote state preparation. A number of experimental demonstrations to date have been restricted to single-qubit systems. We report the remote preparation of two-qubit “hybrid” entangled states, including a family of vector-polarization beams. Our single-photon states are encoded in the photon spin and orbital angular momentum. We reconstruct the states by spin-orbit state tomography and transverse polarization tomography. The high fidelities achieved for the vector-polarization states opens the door to optimal coupling of down-converted photons to other physical systems, such as an atom, as required for scalable quantum networks, or plasmons in photonic nanostructures.

We have prepared a degenerate gas of fermionic atoms which move in two dimensions while the motion in the third dimension is “frozen” by tight confinement and low temperature. In situ imaging provides direct measurement of the density profile and temperature. The gas is confined in a defect-free optical potential, and the interactions are widely tunable by means of a Fano-Feshbach resonance. This system can be a starting point for exploration of 2D Fermi physics and critical phenomena in a pure, controllable environment.

Quantum discord, a measure of genuinely quantum correlations, is generalized to continuous variable systems. For all two-mode Gaussian states, we calculate analytically the quantum discord and a related measure of classical correlations, solving an optimization over all Gaussian measurements. Almost all two-mode Gaussian states are shown to have quantum correlations, while for separable states, the discord is smaller than unity. For a given amount of entanglement, it admits tight upper and lower bounds. Via a duality between entanglement and classical correlations, we derive a closed formula for the Gaussian entanglement of formation of a family of three-mode Gaussian states.

Anyon models can be symmetric under some permutations of their topological charges. One can then conceive topological defects that, under monodromy, transform anyons according to a symmetry. We study the realization of such defects in the toric code model, showing that a process where defects are braided and fused has the same outcome as if they were Ising anyons. These ideas can also be applied in the context of topological codes.

We report quantum degeneracy in a gas of ultracold fermionic ${}^{87}\mathrm{Sr}$ atoms. By evaporatively cooling a mixture of spin states in an optical dipole trap for 10.5 s, we obtain samples well into the degenerate regime with $T/T_F={0.26}_{-0.06}^{+0.05}$. The main signature of degeneracy is a change in the momentum distribution as measured by time-of-flight imaging, and we also observe a decrease in evaporation efficiency below $T/T_F\sim 0.5$.