Understanding disordered particle packings is of great significance from both theoretical and engineering perspectives. Establishing a quantitative relationship between nonspherical particle shape and disordered packing properties is generally challenging, due to the complex geometry and topology. Here we resolve this issue by numerically investigating disordered jammed packings of various frictional congruent nonspherical particles, including superellipsoids and polyhedra, over a wide range of friction coefficients. We discover several universal packing characteristics across different particle shapes and frictions. In the infinite friction limit, the coordination numbers for all shapes approach the identical lower bound for jamming. The resulting “random loose packing” (RLP) state possesses minimal structural correlations, with the packing fraction as a simple monotonic decreasing function of the orientation-averaged excluded volume for different particle shapes. Packings with finite friction can then be understood via a perturbative approach based on RLP. The nature of RLP can be illuminated by the percolation transition of contacting particle network during the quasistatic densification process. Moreover, the large-scale density fluctuations for all jammed frictional packings are also strongly suppressed, broadening the previous claim of hyperuniformity for the frictionless ones.

Parameterized quantum circuits are a promising technology for achieving a quantum advantage. An important application is the variational simulation of time evolution of quantum systems. To make the most of quantum hardware, variational algorithms need to be as hardware-efficient as possible. Here we present alternatives to the time-dependent variational principle that are hardware-efficient and do not require matrix inversion. In relation to imaginary time evolution, our approach significantly reduces the hardware requirements. With regards to real time evolution, where high precision can be important, we present algorithms of systematically increasing accuracy and hardware requirements. We numerically analyze the performance of our algorithms using quantum Hamiltonians with local interactions.

Measuring small separations between two optical sources, either in space or in time, constitutes an important metrological challenge as standard intensity-only measurements fail for vanishing separations. Contrarily, it has been established that appropriate coherent mode projections can appraise arbitrarily small separations with quantum-limited precision. However, the question of whether the optical coherence brings any metrological advantage to mode projections is still a point of debate. Here, we elucidate this problem by experimentally investigating the effect of varying coherence on estimating the temporal separation between two single-photon pulses. We show that, for an accurate interpretation, special attention must be paid to properly normalize the quantum Fisher information to account for the strength of the signal.

The detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) is extensively useful in stochastic processes to unveil the long-term correlation. Here, we apply the DFA to point processes that mimic earthquake data. The point processes are synthesized by a model similar to the epidemic-type aftershock sequence model, and we apply the DFA to time series $N\left(t\right)$ of the point processes, where $N\left(t\right)$ is the cumulative number of events up to time $t$. Crossover phenomena are found in the DFA for these time series, and extensive numerical simulations suggest that the crossover phenomena are signatures of nonstationarity in the time series. We also find that the crossover time represents a characteristic time scale of the nonstationary process embedded in the time series. Therefore, the DFA for point processes is especially useful in extracting information of nonstationary processes when time series are superpositions of stationary and nonstationary signals. Furthermore, we apply the DFA to the cumulative number $N\left(t\right)$ of real earthquakes in Japan, and we find a crossover phenomenon similar to that found for the synthesized data.

Willis coupling, also known as pressure-velocity cross coupling, in acoustic materials has received much attention in the past years. This effect has been found useful in acoustic metasurface designs for wave redirection. We find that Willis coupling in phononic crystals also provides rich physics to manipulate waves. Here, we report the extreme asymmetric lateral sound beaming effect in a two-dimensional phononic crystal composed of Willis scatterers. By matching the second-order Bragg scattering with two leaky guided modes (a quadrupole resonance and a cross-coupling-induced dipole resonance), a normally incident wave is redirected towards the positive and negative directions orthogonal to the incident wave with different amounts of energy. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate the extraordinary asymmetric lateral beaming effect in the Willis medium. The results presented here may find applications in the design of tunable beam splitters and waveguides.

For a particle moving on a half-line or in an interval the operator $\widehat{p}=-i{\partial }_x$ is not self-adjoint and thus does not qualify as the physical momentum. Consequently canonical quantization based on $\widehat{p}$ fails. Based upon an alternative concept for a self-adjoint momentum operator ${\widehat{p}}_R$, we show that canonical quantization can indeed be implemented on the half-line and on an interval. Both the Hamiltonian $\widehat{H}$ and the momentum operator ${\widehat{p}}_R$ are endowed with self-adjoint extension parameters that characterize the corresponding domains $D\left(\widehat{H}\right)$ and $D\left({\widehat{p}}_R\right)$ in the Hilbert space. When one replaces Poisson brackets by commutators, one obtains meaningful results only if the corresponding operator domains are properly taken into account. The alternative concept for the momentum is used to describe the results of momentum measurements of a quantum mechanical particle that is reflected at impenetrable boundaries, either at the end of the half-line or at the two ends of an interval.

We study direct and indirect magnetoexcitons in Rydberg states in monolayers and heterostructures of transition metal dichalcogenices (TMDCs) in an external magnetic field, applied perpendicular to the monolayer or heterostructures in the framework of a Mott-Wannier model of excitons. We calculate binding energies of magnetoexcitons for the Rydberg states $1s, 2s, 3s$, and $4s$ by numerical integration of the Schrödinger equation using the Rytova-Keldysh potential for direct magnetoexcitons and both the Rytova-Keldysh and Coulomb potentials for indirect magnetoexcitons. The latter allows understanding the role of screening in TMDCs heterostructures. We report the magnetic field energy contribution to the binding energies and diamagnetic coefficients (DMCs) for direct and indirect magnetoexcitons. The tunability of the energy contribution of direct and indirect magnetoexcitons by the magnetic field is demonstrated. It is shown that binding energies and DMCs of indirect magnetoexcitons can be manipulated by the number of hBN layers. Therefore, our study raises the possibility of controlling the binding energies of direct and indirect magnetoexcitons in TMDC monolayers, bilayers, and van der Waals heterostructures using magnetic field and opens an additional degree of freedom to tailor the binding energies and DMCs for heterostructures by varying the number of hBN sheets between TMDC layers. The calculations of the binding energies and DMCs of indirect magnetoexcitons in TMDC heterostructures can be compared with the experimental results when they are available.

The variance of an observable in a preselected quantum system, which is always real and non-negative, appears as an increase in the probe wave packet width in indirect measurements. Extending this framework to pre- and postselected systems, we formulate a complex-valued counterpart of the variance called “weak variance.” In our formulation, the real and imaginary parts of the weak variance appear as changes in the probe wave packet width in the vertical-horizontal and diagonal-antidiagonal directions, respectively, on the quadrature phase plane. Using an optical system, we experimentally demonstrate these changes in the probe wave packet width caused by the real negative and purely imaginary weak variances. Furthermore, we show that the weak variance can be expressed as the variance of the weak-valued probability distribution in pre- and postselected systems. These operational and statistical interpretations support the rationality of formulating the weak variance as a complex counterpart of the variance in pre- and postselected systems.

Using a microscopic theory for the magnetoconductivity at low magnetic fields, we show how all components of the conductivity tensor can be calculated in the low scattering rate limit. In the lowest order of the scattering rate, we recover the result of the semiclassical Boltzmann transport theory. At higher order, we get corrections containing the Berry curvature and the orbital magnetic moment. We use this formalism to study the linear longitudinal magnetoconductivity in tilted Weyl semimetals. We discuss how our result is related to the semiclassical Boltzmann approach and show the differences that arise compared to previous studies related to the orbital magnetic moment.

We develop a hydrodynamic theory for an electron system exhibiting the anomalous Hall effect, and show that an additional anomalous Hall effect is induced by a vorticity generated near boundaries. We calculate the momentum flux and force proportional to the electric field using linear response theory. The hydrodynamic equation is obtained by replacing the local electric field with the electric current, focusing on a scale that is sufficiently larger than the mean-free path. It is demonstrated that there is a coupling between a vorticity of an electric current and a magnetization which generates a pressure from nonuniform vorticity. Taking into account Hall viscosity and relaxation forces, a nonuniform flow near a boundary and an additional Hall force are calculated. The additional anomalous Hall force is opposite to a conventional anomalous Hall force, resulting in a sign reversal in thin systems. An antisymmetric viscosity turns out to arise from the side-jump process due to the anomalous velocity.

Optical trapping using laser tweezer has revolutionized the field of force spectroscopy having enormous applications in biological manipulation. While a number of theories were developed for particles of different sizes to estimate trapping force under continuous-wave excitation, they were not under short pulsed excitation which leads to nonlinear optical force. Here, we present a comparative study of various theories and provide a unified description for laser trapping under femtosecond pulsed excitation. Numerical results show that exact Mie theory (EMT) can provide a precise qualitative and quantitative prediction of trapping force when optical Kerr effect is included. Moreover, we also show how Mie interference phenomena, leading to observation of Fano resonance, are naturally captured within EMT. Thus, our findings pave the way for potential far-reaching applications in the accurate numerical estimation of nonlinear optical force on arbitrary-sized spherical dielectric particles.

We demonstrate the hallmark concept of periodic collapse and revival of coherence in a room-temperature ensemble of quantum dots (QDs) in the form of a 1.5-mm-long optical amplifier. Femtosecond excitation pulses induce coherent interactions with a number of discrete homogeneous QD subgroups within an inhomogeneously broadened ensemble, which interfere constructively to induce coherent revival (CR). The amplitude decay of CR is dictated by the QD homogeneous linewidth, thus enabling its extraction in a double-pulse Ramsey-type experiment. The more common photon echo technique is also invoked and yields the same linewidth provided that both experiments use the same bias. A dephasing time $T_2$ longer than 5 ps is extracted. This is a record long $T_2$ for a room-temperature QD ensemble and testifies to the high quality of the InAs/InP QDs used in the experiments. Measured electrical bias and temperature dependencies of the transverse relaxation times ($T_2$ and $T_2^{*}$) enable the determination of the two main decoherence mechanisms: carrier-carrier and carrier-phonon scatterings.

We propose a streamlined combination of the transcorrelation (TC) and coupled cluster (CC) theory, which not only increases the convergence rate with respect to the basis set but also extends the applicability of the lowest-order CC approximations to strongly correlated systems. Using the three-dimensional uniform electron gas as a model for real periodic solids and highly accurate ground-state energies from the state-of-the-art quantum Monte Carlo methods as benchmark, we show that, with the correct physical insights incorporated, our TC-CC methods gain drastic improvements in accuracy compared with canonical CC methods, and the errors of our methods remain $\pm 0.001$ Hartree per electron (Ha/electron) across a wide range of densities. With the greatly improved efficiencies and the balanced and accurate performances at both low and high densities, our methods present great promise for applications on real solids with weak and strong correlations.

Cavity-optomechanics is an ideal platform for the generation non-Gaussian quantum states due to the anharmonic interaction between the light field and the mechanical oscillator, but it is exactly this interaction that also impedes the preparation of pure states of the light field. In this paper we derive a driving protocol that helps to exploit the anharmonic interaction for state preparation and that ensures that the state of the light field remains close to pure. This shall enable the deterministic preparation of photon Fock states or coherent superpositions thereof.

Noise is ubiquitous in various systems. In systems with multiple timescales, noise can induce various coherent behaviors. Self-induced stochastic resonance (SISR) is a typical noise-induced phenomenon identified in such systems, wherein noise acting on the fast subsystem causes stochastic resonancelike boundary crossings. In this paper, we analyze the stochastic periodic orbits caused by SISR in fast-slow systems. By introducing the notion of the mean first passage velocity toward the boundary, a distance-matching condition is established, through which the critical transition position of boundary crossing can be calculated. The theoretical stochastic periodic orbit can be accordingly obtained via gluing the dynamics along the slow manifolds. It is shown that the theoretical predictions are in excellent agreement with the results of Monte Carlo simulations for a piecewise linear FitzHugh-Nagumo system even for large noise. Furthermore, the proposed method is extended to the original FitzHugh-Nagumo system and also found to exhibit consistent accuracy. These results provide insights into the mechanisms of coherent behaviors in fast-slow systems and will shed light on the coherent behaviors in more complex systems and large networks.

The synthetic dimension, a research topic of both fundamental significance and practical applications, has been attracting increasing attention in recent years. In this paper, we propose a theoretical framework to construct arbitrary synthetic dimensions, or N-boson synthetic lattices, using multiple bosons on one-dimensional lattices. We show that a one-dimensional lattice hosting N indistinguishable bosons can be mapped to a single boson on an N-dimensional lattice with high symmetry. Band structure analyses on this N-dimensional lattice can then be mathematically performed to predict the existence of exotic eigenstates and the motion of N-boson wave packets. As illustrative examples, we demonstrate the edge states in two-boson Su-Schrieffer-Heeger synthetic lattices without interactions, interface states in two-boson Su-Schrieffer-Heeger synthetic lattices with interactions, and weakly bound triplon states in three-boson tight-binding synthetic lattices with interactions. The interface states and weakly bound triplon states have not been thoroughly understood in previous research. Our proposed theoretical framework hence provides an interesting perspective to explore the multiboson dynamics on lattices with boson-boson interactions, and opens up a future avenue in the field of multiboson manipulation in quantum engineering.

Permeation of compounds through membranes is important in biological and engineering processes, e.g., drug delivery through lipid bilayers, anesthetics, or chemical reactor design. Simulations at the atomic scale can provide insight in the diffusive pathways and they give estimates of the membrane permeability based on counting membrane transitions or on the inhomogeneous solubility-diffusivity model described by the Smoluchowski equation. For many permeants, permeation through a membrane is too slow to gather sufficient statistics with conventional molecular dynamics simulations, i.e., permeation is a rare event. Recent attempts to improve the description of the dynamics of such rare permeation events have been based on milestoning, which allows the study of processes at timescales beyond those achievable by straightforward molecular dynamics. The approach is not relying on an overdamped description, but, still, it uses a Markovian approximation which is only valid for small permeants that are not disruptive to the membrane structure. To overcome this fundamental limitation, we show here how replica exchange transition interface sampling (RETIS) can effectively be used on this problem by deriving an effective set of equations that relate the outcome of RETIS simulations and the permeability coefficient. In addition, we introduce two new path Monte Carlo (MC) moves specifically for permeation dynamics, that are used in combination with the ordinary path generating moves, which considerably increase the efficiency. The advantage of our method is that it gives exact results, identical to brute force molecular dynamics, but orders of magnitude faster.

The availability of efficient photon sources with specific properties is important for quantum-technological applications. However, the realization of such photon sources is often challenging and hence alternative perspectives that suggest different means to enhance desired properties while suppressing detrimental processes are valuable. In this work we highlight that ab initio simulations of coupled light-matter systems can provide such alternative avenues. We show for a simple model of a quantum ring that by treating light and matter on equal footing, we can create and enhance pathways for down-conversion processes. By changing the matter subsystem as well as the photonic environment in experimentally feasible ways, we can engineer hybrid light-matter states that enhance at the same time the efficiency of the down-conversion process and the nonclassicality of the created photons. Furthermore, we show that this also leads to a faster down-conversion, potentially avoiding detrimental decoherence effects.