The 7.6 eV electromagnetic transition between the nearly degenerate ground state and first excited state in the ${}^{229}\mathrm{Th}$ nucleus may be very sensitive to potential changes in the fine-structure constant, $\alpha =e^2/\hslash c$. However, the sensitivity is not known, and nuclear calculations are currently unable to determine it. We propose measurements of the differences of atomic transition frequencies between thorium atoms (or ions) with the nucleus in the ground state and in the first excited (isomeric) state. This will enable extraction of the change in nuclear charge radius and electric-quadrupole moment between the isomers, and hence the $\alpha$ dependence of the isomeric transition frequency with reasonable accuracy.

We show that qubits traveling along closed timelike curves are a resource that a party can exploit to distinguish perfectly any set of quantum states. As a result, an adversary with access to closed timelike curves can break any prepare-and-measure quantum key distribution protocol. Our result also implies that a party with access to closed timelike curves can violate the Holevo bound.

Based on the observation that the thermodynamic equilibrium free energy of an open quantum system in contact with a thermal environment is the difference between the free energy of the total system and that of the bare environment, the validity of the Crooks theorem and of the Jarzynski equality is extended to open quantum systems. No restrictions on the nature of the environment or on the strength of the coupling between system and environment need to be imposed. This free energy entering the Crooks theorem and the Jarzynski equality is closely related to the Hamiltonian of mean force that generalizes the classical statistical mechanical concept of the potential of mean force.

Quantum state tomography is an important tool in quantum information science for complete characterization of multiqubit states and their correlations. Here we report a method to perform a joint simultaneous readout of two superconducting qubits dispersively coupled to the same mode of a microwave transmission line resonator. The nonlinear dependence of the resonator transmission on the qubit state dependent cavity frequency allows us to extract the full two-qubit correlations without the need for single-shot readout of individual qubits. We employ standard tomographic techniques to reconstruct the density matrix of two-qubit quantum states.

We report the first measurement of the low-energy neutron-${}^3\mathrm{He}$ incoherent scattering length using neutron interferometry: $b_i^{\prime }=(-2.512\pm 0.012\mathrm{\text{stat}}\pm 0.014\mathrm{\text{syst}})\mathrm{fm}$. This is in good agreement with a recent calculation using the $\mathrm{AV}18+3N$ potential. The neutron-${}^3\mathrm{He}$ scattering lengths are important for testing and developing nuclear potential models that include three-nucleon forces, effective field theories for few-body nuclear systems, and neutron scattering measurements of quantum excitations in liquid helium. This work demonstrates the first use of a polarized nuclear target in a neutron interferometer.

Many proposals for quantum information processing are subject to detectable loss errors. In this Letter, we show that topological error correcting codes, which protect against computational errors, are also extremely robust against losses. We present analytical results showing that the maximum tolerable loss rate is 50%, which is determined by the square-lattice bond percolation threshold. This saturates the bound set by the no-cloning theorem. Our numerical results support this and show a graceful trade-off between tolerable thresholds for computational and loss errors.

We demonstrate quantum-limited electronic refrigeration of a metallic island in a low-temperature microcircuit. We show that matching the impedance of the circuit enables refrigeration at a distance, of about $50\mu \mathrm{m}$ in our case, through superconducting leads with a cooling power determined by the quantum of thermal conductance. In a reference sample with a mismatched circuit this effect is absent. Our results are consistent with the concept of electromagnetic heat transport. We observe and analyze the crossover between electromagnetic and quasiparticle heat flux in a superconductor.

We address recent momentum-resolved radio frequency (rf) spectroscopy experiments, showing how they yield more stringent tests than other comparisons with theory, associated with the ultracold Fermi gases. We demonstrate that, by providing a clear dispersion signature of pairing, they remove the ambiguity plaguing the interpretation of previous rf experiments. Our calculated spectral intensities are in semiquantitative agreement with the data. Even in the presence of a trap, the spectra are predicted to exhibit two BCS-like branches.

Using tools from classical signal processing, we show how to determine the dimensionality of a quantum system as well as the effective size of the environment’s memory from observable dynamics in a model-independent way. We discuss the dependence on the number of conserved quantities, the relation to ergodicity and prove a converse showing that a Hilbert space of dimension $D+2$ is sufficient to describe every bounded sequence of measurements originating from any $D$-dimensional linear equations of motion. This is in sharp contrast to classical stochastic processes which are subject to more severe restrictions: a simple spectral analysis shows that the gap between the required dimensionality of a quantum and a classical description of an observed evolution can be arbitrary large.

Using a nonperturbative renormalization-group technique, we compute the momentum and frequency dependence of the anomalous self-energy and the one-particle spectral function of two-dimensional interacting bosons at zero temperature. Below a characteristic momentum scale $k_G$, where the Bogoliubov approximation breaks down, the anomalous self-energy develops a square-root singularity and the Goldstone mode of the superfluid phase (Bogoliubov sound mode) coexists with a continuum of excitations, in agreement with the predictions of Popov’s hydrodynamic theory. Thus our results provide a unified picture of superfluidity in interacting boson systems and connect Bogoliubov’s theory (valid for momenta larger than $k_G$) to Popov’s hydrodynamic approach.

We study transport of interacting particles in weakly disordered media. Our one-dimensional system includes (i) disorder, the hopping rate governing the movement of a particle between two neighboring lattice sites is inhomogeneous, and (ii) hard core interaction, the maximum occupancy at each site is one particle. We find that over a substantial regime, the root-mean-square displacement of a particle $\sigma$ grows superdiffusively with time $t$, $\sigma \sim (ϵt{)}^{2/3}$, where $ϵ$ is the disorder strength. Without disorder the particle displacement is subdiffusive, $\sigma \sim t^{1/4}$, and therefore disorder strongly enhances particle mobility. We explain this effect using scaling arguments, and verify the theoretical predictions through numerical simulations. Also, the simulations show that regardless of disorder strength, disorder leads to stronger mobility over an intermediate time regime.

So-called direct measurements of entanglement are collective measurements on multiple copies of a (bipartite or multipartite) quantum system that directly provide one with a value for some entanglement measure, such as the concurrence for bipartite states. Multiple copies are needed since the entanglement of a mixed state is not a linear function of the density matrix. The procedures proposed and implemented so far make certain assumptions about the states generated. This feature distinguishes direct measurements from standard entanglement verification tests such as Bell inequalities, entanglement witnesses, and quantum-state tomography, which make no such assumptions. I discuss how a direct measurement can be turned into a quantitative entanglement verification test without such assumptions by exploiting a recent theorem by Renner [Nature Phys. 3, 645 (2007)].

It is often argued that entanglement is at the root of the speedup for quantum compared to classical computation, and that one needs a sufficient amount of entanglement for this speedup to be manifest. In measurement-based quantum computing, the need for a highly entangled initial state is particularly obvious. Defying this intuition, we show that quantum states can be too entangled to be useful for the purpose of computation, in that high values of the geometric measure of entanglement preclude states from offering a universal quantum computational speedup. We prove that this phenomenon occurs for a dramatic majority of all states: the fraction of useful $n$-qubit pure states is less than $\exp (-n^2)$. This work highlights a new aspect of the role entanglement plays for quantum computational speedups.

We show the following: a randomly chosen pure state as a resource for measurement-based quantum computation is—with overwhelming probability—of no greater help to a polynomially bounded classical control computer, than a string of random bits. Thus, unlike the familiar “cluster states,” the computing power of a classical control device is not increased from P to BQP (bounded-error, quantum polynomial time), but only to BPP (bounded-error, probabilistic polynomial time). The same holds if the task is to sample from a distribution rather than to perform a bounded-error computation. Furthermore, we show that our results can be extended to states with significantly less entanglement than random states.

We introduce a class of states, called minimally entangled typical thermal states, designed to resemble a typical state of a quantum system at finite temperature with a bias towards classical (minimally entangled) properties. These states reveal in an intuitive way properties such as short-range order which may often be hidden. A finite-$T$ density matrix renormalization group algorithm is presented which is only modestly slower than the $T=0$ density matrix renormalization group.

We study the bosonic analog of Andreev reflection at a normal-superfluid interface where the superfluid is a boson condensate. We model the normal region as a zone where nonlinear effects can be neglected. Against the background of a decaying condensate, we identify a novel contribution to the current of reflected atoms. The group velocity of this Andreev reflected component differs from that of the normally reflected one. For a three-dimensional planar or two-dimensional linear interface Andreev reflection is neither specular nor conjugate.

We propose and test a scheme for entanglement renormalization capable of addressing large two-dimensional quantum lattice systems. In a translationally invariant system, the cost of simulations grows only as the logarithm of the lattice size; at a quantum critical point, the simulation cost becomes independent of the lattice size and infinite systems can be analyzed. We demonstrate the performance of the scheme by investigating the low energy properties of the 2D quantum Ising model on a square lattice of linear size $L=\{6,9,18,54,\infty \}$ with periodic boundary conditions. We compute the ground state and evaluate local observables and two-point correlators. We also produce accurate estimates of the critical magnetic field and critical exponent $\beta$. A calculation of the energy gap shows that it scales as $1/L$ at the critical point.

An optical analogue of a quantum particle bouncing on a hard surface under the influence of gravity (a quantum bouncer) is experimentally demonstrated using a circularly curved optical waveguide. Spatially resolved tunneling optical microscopy measurements of multiple beam reflections at the waveguide edge clearly show the appearance of wave packet collapses and revivals (either integer and fractional), corresponding to the full quantum regime of the quantum bouncer.

We study the phase sensitivity of collisional phase diffusion between weakly coupled Bose-Einstein condensates, using a semiclassical picture of the two-mode Bose-Hubbard model. When weak coupling is allowed, zero relative phase locking is attained in the Josephson-Fock transition regime, whereas a $\pi$ relative phase is only locked in Rabi-Josephson point. Our analytic semiclassical estimates agree well with the numerical results.

We consider the grand potential $\Omega$ of a two-dimensional weakly interacting homogeneous Bose gas at zero temperature. Building on a number-conserving Bogoliubov method for a lattice model in the grand canonical ensemble, we calculate the next order term as compared to the Bogoliubov prediction, in a systematic expansion of $\Omega$ in powers of the parameter measuring the weakness of the interaction. Our prediction is in very good agreement with recent Monte Carlo calculations.