We consider graph states of an arbitrary number of particles undergoing generic decoherence. We present methods to obtain lower and upper bounds for the system’s entanglement in terms of that of considerably smaller subsystems. For an important class of noisy channels, namely, the Pauli maps, these bounds coincide and thus provide the exact analytical expression for the entanglement evolution. All of the results apply also to (mixed) graph-diagonal states and hold true for any convex entanglement monotone. Since any state can be locally depolarized to some graph-diagonal state, our method provides a lower bound for the entanglement decay of any arbitrary state. Finally, this formalism also allows for the direct identification of the robustness under size scaling of graph states in the presence of decoherence, merely by inspection of their connectivities.

We show that liquid crystals in the weak turbulence electroconvective regime respond to harmonic perturbations with oscillations whose intensity decay with an inverse power law of time. We use the results of this experiment to prove that this effect is the manifestation of a form of linear response theory (LRT) valid in the out-of-equilibrium case, as well as at thermodynamic equilibrium where it reduces to the ordinary LRT. We argue that this theory is a universal property, which is not confined to physical processes such as turbulent or excitable media, and that it holds true in all possible conditions, and for all possible systems, including complex networks, thereby establishing a bridge between statistical physics and all the fields of research in complexity.

We consider two capacity quantities associated with bipartite unitary gates: the entangling and the disentangling power. Here, we prove that these capacities are different in general by constructing an explicit example of a qubit-qutrit unitary whose entangling power is maximal (2 ebits), but whose disentangling power is strictly less. A corollary is that there can be no unique ordering for unitary gates in terms of their ability to perform nonlocal tasks. Finally, we show that in large dimensions, almost all bipartite unitaries have entangling and disentangling capacities close to maximal.

We demonstrate theoretically that, by using external magnetic fields, one can imprint pointlike topological defects on the spin texture of a dilute Bose-Einstein condensate. The symmetries of the condensate order parameter render this topological defect to be accompanied with a vortex filament corresponding to the Dirac string of a magnetic monopole. The vorticity in the condensate coincides with the magnetic field of a magnetic monopole, providing an ideal analogue to the monopole studied by Dirac.

The scale-free distribution of cluster sizes in continuous phase transitions is linked to the law of proportional effect. A numerical study of a two-dimensional Ising model suggests that a cluster size undergoes a multiplicative birth-death process. At the transition the ratio between birth and death rates approaches unity for large clusters, and the resulting steady state shows a power-law behavior. The percolation dynamic, on the other hand, yields a geometric phase transition without ergodicity breaking, where large-scale merging and splitting of clusters dominate the distribution. Instead of short-range birth-death jumps, the percolation transition is characterized by Lévi flights along the cluster-size axis.

We report the first experimental generation and characterization of a six-photon Dicke state. The produced state shows a fidelity of $F=0.56\pm 0.02$ with respect to an ideal Dicke state and violates a witness detecting genuine six-qubit entanglement by 4 standard deviations. We confirm characteristic Dicke properties of our resource and demonstrate its versatility by projecting out four- and five-photon Dicke states, as well as four-photon Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger and $W$ states. We also show that Dicke states have interesting applications in multiparty quantum networking protocols such as open-destination teleportation, telecloning, and quantum secret sharing.

We report on the experimental observation and characterization of a six-photon entangled Dicke state. We obtain a fidelity as high as $0.654\pm 0.024$ and prove genuine six-photon entanglement by, amongst others, a two-setting witness yielding $-0.422\pm 0.148$. This state has remarkable properties; e.g., it allows obtaining inequivalent entangled states of a lower qubit number via projective measurements, and it possesses a high entanglement persistency against qubit loss. We characterize the properties of the six-photon Dicke state experimentally by detecting and analyzing the entanglement of a variety of multipartite entangled states.

We propose and implement a scheme to produce long-lived entanglement between a signal field and a magnetically insensitive collective excitation in an atomic cloud cooled in a one-dimensional optical lattice. After a programmable storage time, we convert the spin-wave excitation into an idler field, and demonstrate violation of Bell’s inequality for storage times in excess of 3 ms.

Quantum computation can proceed solely through single-qubit measurements on an appropriate quantum state, such as the ground state of an interacting many-body system. We investigate a simple spin-lattice system based on the cluster-state model, and by using nonlocal correlation functions that quantify the fidelity of quantum gates performed between distant qubits, we demonstrate that it possesses a quantum (zero-temperature) phase transition between a disordered phase and an ordered “cluster phase” in which it is possible to perform a universal set of quantum gates.

We settle a long-standing controversy about the exactness of the fractal Einstein and Alexander-Orbach laws by showing that the properties of a class of fractal trees violate both laws. A new formula is derived which unifies the two classical results by showing that if one holds, then so must the other, and resolves a puzzling discrepancy in the properties of Eden trees and diffusion-limited aggregates. We also conjecture that the result holds for networks which have no fractal dimension. The failure of the classical laws is attributed to anisotropic exploration of the network by a random walker. The occurrence of this newly revealed behavior means that the conventional laws must be checked if they, or numerous results which depend on them, are to be applied accurately.

We conjecture a new entropic uncertainty principle governing the entropy of complementary observations made on a system given side information in the form of quantum states, generalizing the entropic uncertainty relation of Maassen and Uffink [Phys. Rev. Lett. 60, 1103 (1988)]. We prove a special case for certain conjugate observables by adapting a similar result found by Christandl and Winter pertaining to quantum channels [IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 51, 3159 (2005)], and discuss possible applications of this result to the decoupling of quantum systems and for security analysis in quantum cryptography.

We consider the transfer of quantum information down a single-mode quantum transmission line. Such a quantum channel is modeled as a damped harmonic oscillator, the interaction between the information carriers -a train of $N$ qubits- and the oscillator being of the Jaynes-Cummings kind. Memory effects appear if the state of the oscillator is not reset after each channel use. We show that the setup without resetting is convenient in order to increase the transmission rates, both for the transfer of quantum and classical private information. Our results can be applied to the micromaser.

This Letter reports the first experimental demonstration of Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) entanglement swapping. We start with three pairs of entangled photons. Upon projection of three single photons, each from an entangled pair, into a GHZ state, the other three originally independent photons are entangled in a GHZ state—creation of multiparticle entanglement without any direct interaction. This scheme may facilitate networks for quantum telephone exchange, multiparty quantum communication and distributed quantum computation.

It is proposed that in $s$-wave superfluids of cold fermionic atoms with laser-field-generated effective spin-orbit interactions, a topological phase with gapless edge states and Majorana fermion quasiparticles obeying non-Abelian statistics is realized in the case with a large Zeeman magnetic field. Our scenario provides a promising approach to the realization of quantum computation based on the manipulation of non-Abelian anyons via an $s$-wave Feshbach resonance.

We develop a low-energy model of an unidirectional Larkin-Ovchinnikov (LO) state. Because the underlying rotational and translational symmetries are broken spontaneously, this gapless superfluid is a smectic liquid crystal, that exhibits fluctuations that are qualitatively stronger than in a conventional superfluid, thus requiring a fully nonlinear description of its Goldstone modes. Consequently, at nonzero temperature the LO superfluid is an algebraic phase even in 3D. It exhibits half-integer vortex-dislocation defects, whose unbinding leads to transitions to a superfluid nematic and other phases. In 2D at nonzero temperature, the LO state is always unstable to a nematic superfluid. We expect this superfluid liquid-crystal phenomenology to be realizable in imbalanced resonant Fermi gases trapped isotropically.

We present a mechanism to protect quantum information stored in an ensemble of nuclear spins in a semiconductor quantum dot. When the dot is charged the nuclei interact with the spin of the excess electron through the hyperfine coupling. If this coupling is made off-resonant, it leads to an energy gap between the collective storage states and all other states. We show that the energy gap protects the quantum memory from local spin-flip and spin-dephasing noise. Effects of nonperfect initial spin polarization and inhomogeneous hyperfine coupling are discussed.

We analyze heat and work fluctuations in the gravitational wave detector AURIGA, modeled as a macroscopic electromechanical oscillator in contact with a thermostat and cooled by an active feedback system. The oscillator is driven to a steady state by the feedback cooling, equivalent to a viscous force. The experimentally measured fluctuations are in agreement with our theoretical analysis based on a stochastically driven Langevin system. The asymmetry of the fluctuations of the absorbed heat characterizes the oscillator’s nonequilibrium steady state and reveals the extent to which a feedback cooled system departs from equilibrium in a statistical mechanics perspective.

A generalized fluctuation-response relation is found for thermal systems driven out of equilibrium. Its derivation is independent of many details of the dynamics, which is only required to be first order. The result gives a correction to the equilibrium fluctuation-dissipation theorem, in terms of the correlation between observable and excess in dynamical activity caused by the perturbation. Previous approaches to this problem are recovered and extended in a unifying scheme.

We study fundamental features of spin current in a very weakly interacting Fermi gas of ${}^6\mathrm{Li}$. By creating a spin current and then reversing its flow, we demonstrate control of the spin current. This reversal is predicted by a spin vector evolution equation in energy representation, which shows how the spin and energy of individual atoms become correlated in the nearly undamped regime of the experiments. The theory provides a simple physical description of the spin current and explains both the large amplitude and the slow temporal evolution of the data. Our results have applications in studying and controlling fundamental spin interactions and spin currents in ultracold gases.

We present a quantization scheme for the electromagnetic field in time-dependent homogeneous nondispersive conducting and nonconducting linear media without sources. Using the Coulomb gauge, we demonstrate this quantization can be mapped into a damped (attenuated) time-dependent quantum harmonic oscillator. Remarkably, we find that the time dependence of the permittivity, for $\dot{\epsilon }>0$, gives rise to an attenuation of the radiation field. Afterwards, we obtain the exact wave functions for this problem and consider an exponential time accretion of the permittivity as a particular case.