Faithful qubit transmission against collective noise without ancillary qubits

We present a faithful qubit transmission scheme with linear optics against collective noise, not resorting to ancillary qubits. Its set-up is composed of three unbalanced polarization interferometers, based on a polarizing beam splitter, a beam splitter and a half-wave plate, which makes this scheme more feasible than others with present technology. The fidelity of successful transmission is 1, independent of the parameters of the collective noise, and the success probability for obtaining an uncorrupted state can be improved to 100% with some time delayers. Moreover, this scheme has some good applications in one-way quantum communication for rejecting the errors caused by the collective noise in quantum channel.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figur

Switchable resonant coupling of flux qubits

We propose a coupling scheme, where two or more flux qubits with different eigenfrequencies share Josephson junctions with a coupler loop devoid of its own quantum dynamics. Switchable two-qubit coupling is realized by tuning the frequency of the AC magnetic flux through the coupler to a combination frequency of two of the qubits. The coupling allows any or all of the qubits to be simultaneously at the degeneracy point and can change sign.Comment: REVTeX 4, 4 pages, 2 figures, v2: reference added, v3: final version published in Phys. Rev.

Study of Phonon Modes in Germanium Nanowires

The observation of pure phonon confinement effect in germanium nanowires is limited due to the illumination sensitivity of Raman spectra. In this paper we measured Raman spectra for different size germanium nanowires with different excitation laser powers and wavelengths. By eliminating the local heating effect, the phonon confinement effect for small size nanowires was clearly identified. We have also fitted the Raman feature changes to estimate the size distribution of nanowires for the first time.Comment: 11 pages,15 figure

Measuring the quality factor of a microwave cavity using superconduting qubit devices

We propose a method to create superpositions of two macroscopic quantum states of a single-mode microwave cavity field interacting with a superconducting charge qubit. The decoherence of such superpositions can be determined by measuring either the Wigner function of the cavity field or the charge qubit states. Then the quality factor Q of the cavity can be inferred from the decoherence of the superposed states. The proposed method is experimentally realizable within current technology even when the $Q$ value is relatively low, and the interaction between the qubit and the cavity field is weak.Comment: 8 page

Efficient quantum key distribution over a collective noise channel

We present two efficient quantum key distribution schemes over two different collective-noise channels. The accepted hypothesis of collective noise is that photons travel inside a time window small compared to the variation of noise. Noiseless subspaces are made up of two Bell states and the spatial degree of freedom is introduced to form two nonorthogonal bases. Although these protocols resort to entangled states for encoding the key bit, the receiver is only required to perform single-particle product measurements and there is no basis mismatch. Moreover, the detection is passive as the receiver does not switch his measurements between two conjugate measurement bases to get the key.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure; the revised version of the paper published in Phys. Rev. A 78, 022321 (2008). Some negligible errors on the error rates of eavesdropping check are correcte

Preparation of macroscopic quantum superposition states of a cavity field via coupling to a superconducting charge qubit

We propose how to generate macroscopic quantum superposition states using a microwave cavity containing a superconducting charge qubit. Based on the measurement of charge states, we show that the superpositions of two macroscopically distinguishable coherent states of a single-mode cavity field can be generated by a controllable interaction between a cavity field and a charge qubit. After such superpositions of the cavity field are created, the interaction can be switched off by the classical magnetic field, and there is no information transfer between the cavity field and the charge qubit. We also discuss the generation of the superpositions of two squeezed coherent states.Comment: 6 page

Dimensionless ratios: characteristics of quantum liquids and their phase transitions

Dimensionless ratios of physical properties can characterize low-temperature phases in a wide variety of materials. As such, the Wilson ratio (WR), the Kadowaki-Woods ratio and the Wiedemann\--Franz law capture essential features of Fermi liquids in metals, heavy fermions, etc. Here we prove that the phases of many-body interacting multi-component quantum liquids in one dimension (1D) can be described by WRs based on the compressibility, susceptibility and specific heat associated with each component. These WRs arise due to additivity rules within subsystems reminiscent of the rules for multi-resistor networks in series and parallel --- a novel and useful characteristic of multi-component Tomonaga-Luttinger liquids (TLL) independent of microscopic details of the systems. Using experimentally realised multi-species cold atomic gases as examples, we prove that the Wilson ratios uniquely identify phases of TLL, while providing universal scaling relations at the boundaries between phases. Their values within a phase are solely determined by the stiffnesses and sound velocities of subsystems and identify the internal degrees of freedom of said phase such as its spin-degeneracy. This finding can be directly applied to a wide range of 1D many-body systems and reveals deep physical insights into recent experimental measurements of the universal thermodynamics in ultracold atoms and spins.Comment: 12 pages (main paper), (6 figures

Size-dependent decoherence of excitonic states in semiconductor microcrystallites

The size-dependent decoherence of the exciton states resulting from the spontaneous emission is investigated in a semiconductor spherical microcrystallite under condition $a_{B}\ll R_{0}\leq\lambda$. In general, the larger size of the microcrystallite corresponds to the shorter coherence time. If the initial state is a superposition of two different excitonic coherent states, the coherence time depends on both the overlap of two excitonic coherent states and the size of the microcrystallite. When the system with fixed size is initially in the even or odd coherent states, the larger average number of the excitons corresponds to the faster decoherence. When the average number of the excitons is given, the bigger size of the microcrystallite corresponds to the faster decoherence. The decoherence of the exciton states for the materials GaAs and CdS is numerically studied by our theoretical analysis.Comment: 4 pages, two figure