Sensitivity to perturbations and quantum phase transitions

The local density of states or its Fourier transform, usually called fidelity amplitude, are important measures of quantum irreversibility due to imperfect evolution. In this Rapid Communication we study both quantities in a paradigmatic many body system, the Dicke Hamiltonian, where a single-mode bosonic field interacts with an ensemble of N two-level atoms. This model exhibits a quantum phase transition in the thermodynamic limit, while for finite instances the system undergoes a transition from quasi-integrability to quantum chaotic. We show that the width of the local density of states clearly points out the imprints of the transition from integrability to chaos but no trace remains of the quantum phase transition. The connection with the decay of the fidelity amplitude is also established.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication PRE rapid communicatio

Editorial: Change and Continuity

The short editorial introduces the new volume and provides information on the new composition of the board of editors. Starting from this issue, the main responsibility for editing the two journals "Moneta e Credito" and "PSL Quarterly Review" shifts from Alessandro Roncaglia to Carlo D’Ippoliti. Roncaglia, chairman of Economia Civile, which publishes both journals, remains on the board as co-editor. The present introduction explains the main reasons for this change, and shortly recalls the recent history of the Review

The dimer-RVB State of the Four-Leg Heisenberg Ladder: Interference among Resonances

We study the ground state of the 4-leg spin ladder using a dimer-RVB ansatz and the Lanczos method. Besides the well known resonance mechanism between valence bond configurations we find novel interference effects among nearby resonances.Comment: 4 pages, RevTex, 7 eps fig

Measuring work and heat in ultracold quantum gases

We propose a feasible experimental scheme to direct measure heat and work in cold atomic setups. The method is based on a recent proposal which shows that work is a positive operator valued measure (POVM). In the present contribution, we demonstrate that the interaction between the atoms and the light polarisation of a probe laser allows us to implement such POVM. In this way the work done on or extracted from the atoms after a given process is encoded in the light quadrature that can be measured with a standard homodyne detection. The protocol allows one to verify fluctuation theorems and study properties of the non-unitary dynamics of a given thermodynamic process.Comment: Published version in the Focus Issue on "Quantum Thermodynamics

Lyapunov decay in quantum irreversibility

The Loschmidt echo -- also known as fidelity -- is a very useful tool to study irreversibility in quantum mechanics due to perturbations or imperfections. Many different regimes, as a function of time and strength of the perturbation, have been identified. For chaotic systems, there is a range of perturbation strengths where the decay of the Loschmidt echo is perturbation independent, and given by the classical Lyapunov exponent. But observation of the Lyapunov decay depends strongly on the type of initial state upon which an average is done. This dependence can be removed by averaging the fidelity over the Haar measure, and the Lyapunov regime is recovered, as it was shown for quantum maps. In this work we introduce an analogous quantity for systems with infinite dimensional Hilbert space, in particular the quantum stadium billiard, and we show clearly the universality of the Lyapunov regime.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures. Accepted in Phil. Trans. R. Soc.

Relaxation of isolated quantum systems beyond chaos

In classical statistical mechanics there is a clear correlation between relaxation to equilibrium and chaos. In contrast, for isolated quantum systems this relation is -- to say the least -- fuzzy. In this work we try to unveil the intricate relation between the relaxation process and the transition from integrability to chaos. We study the approach to equilibrium in two different many body quantum systems that can be parametrically tuned from regular to chaotic. We show that a universal relation between relaxation and delocalization of the initial state in the perturbed basis can be established regardless of the chaotic nature of system.Comment: 4+ pages, 4 figs. Closest to published versio

Quantum correlation dynamics in photosynthetic processes assisted by molecular vibrations

During the long course of evolution, nature has learnt how to exploit quantum effects. In fact, recent experiments reveal the existence of quantum processes whose coherence extends over unexpectedly long time and space ranges. In particular, photosynthetic processes in light-harvesting complexes display a typical oscillatory dynamics ascribed to quantum coherence. Here, we consider the simple model where a dimer made of two chromophores is strongly coupled with a quasi-resonant vibrational mode. We observe the occurrence of wide oscillations of genuine quantum correlations, between electronic excitations and the environment, represented by vibrational bosonic modes. Such a quantum dynamics has been unveiled through the calculation of the negativity of entanglement and the discord, indicators widely used in quantum information for quantifying the resources needed to realize quantum technologies. We also discuss the possibility of approximating additional weakly-coupled off-resonant vibrational modes, simulating the disturbances induced by the rest of the environment, by a single vibrational mode. Within this approximation, one can show that the off-resonant bath behaves like a classical source of noise

Un cambiamento nella continuità

The short editorial introduces the new volume and provides information on the new composition of the board of editors. Starting from this issue, the main responsibility for editing the two journals Moneta e Credito and PSL Quarterly Review shifts from Alessandro Roncaglia to Carlo D’Ippoliti. Roncaglia, chairman of Economia Civile, which publishes both journals, remains on the board as co-editor. The present introduction explains the main reasons for this change, and shortly recalls the recent history of the review

Why pitch sensitivity matters : event-related potential evidence of metric and syntactic violation detection among spanish late learners of german

Event-related potential (ERP) data in monolingual German speakers have shown that sentential metric expectancy violations elicit a biphasic ERP pattern consisting of an anterior negativity and a posterior positivity (P600). This pattern is comparable to that elicited by syntactic violations. However, proficient French late learners of German do not detect violations of metric expectancy in German. They also show qualitatively and quantitatively different ERP responses to metric and syntactic violations. We followed up the questions whether (1) latter evidence results from a potential pitch cue insensitivity in speech segmentation in French speakers, or (2) if the result is founded in rhythmic language differences. Therefore, we tested Spanish late learners of German, as Spanish, contrary to French, uses pitch as a segmentation cue even though the basic segmentation unit is the same in French and Spanish (i.e., the syllable). We report ERP responses showing that Spanish L2 learners are sensitive to syntactic as well as metric violations in German sentences independent of attention to task in a P600 response. Overall, the behavioral performance resembles that of German native speakers. The current data suggest that Spanish L2 learners are able to extract metric units (trochee) in their L2 (German) even though their basic segmentation unit in Spanish is the syllable. In addition Spanish in contrast to French L2 learners of German are sensitive to syntactic violations indicating a tight link between syntactic and metric competence. This finding emphasizes the relevant role of metric cues not only in L2 prosodic but also in syntactic processing