594 research outputs found
Dynamical Topological Quantum Phase Transitions for Mixed States
We introduce and study dynamical probes of band structure topology in the
post-quench time-evolution from mixed initial states of quantum many-body
systems. Our construction generalizes the notion of dynamical quantum phase
transitions (DQPTs), a real-time counterpart of conventional equilibrium phase
transitions in quantum dynamics, to finite temperatures and generalized Gibbs
ensembles. The non-analytical signatures hallmarking these mixed state DQPTs
are found to be characterized by observable phase singularities manifesting in
the dynamical formation of vortex-antivortex pairs in the interferometric phase
of the density matrix. Studying quenches in Chern insulators, we find that
changes in the topological properties of the Hamiltonian can be identified in
this scenario, without ever preparing a topologically non-trivial or
low-temperature initial state. Our observations are of immediate relevance for
current experiments aimed at realizing topological phases in ultracold atomic
gases.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, version close to publishe
The Crooks relation in optical spectra - universality in work distributions for weak local quenches
We show that work distributions and non-equilibrium work fluctuation theorems
can be measured in optical spectra for a wide class of quantum systems. We
consider systems where the absorption or emission of a photon corresponds to
the sudden switch on or off of a local perturbation. For the particular case of
a weak local perturbation, the Crooks relation establishes a universal relation
in absorption as well as in emission spectra. Due to a direct relation between
the spectra and work distribution functions this is equivalent to universal
relations in work distributions for weak local quenches. As two concrete
examples we treat the X-ray edge problem and the Kondo exciton.Comment: 4+ pages, 1 figure; version as publishe
Real-time dynamics of lattice gauge theories with a few-qubit quantum computer
Gauge theories are fundamental to our understanding of interactions between
the elementary constituents of matter as mediated by gauge bosons. However,
computing the real-time dynamics in gauge theories is a notorious challenge for
classical computational methods. In the spirit of Feynman's vision of a quantum
simulator, this has recently stimulated theoretical effort to devise schemes
for simulating such theories on engineered quantum-mechanical devices, with the
difficulty that gauge invariance and the associated local conservation laws
(Gauss laws) need to be implemented. Here we report the first experimental
demonstration of a digital quantum simulation of a lattice gauge theory, by
realising 1+1-dimensional quantum electrodynamics (Schwinger model) on a
few-qubit trapped-ion quantum computer. We are interested in the real-time
evolution of the Schwinger mechanism, describing the instability of the bare
vacuum due to quantum fluctuations, which manifests itself in the spontaneous
creation of electron-positron pairs. To make efficient use of our quantum
resources, we map the original problem to a spin model by eliminating the gauge
fields in favour of exotic long-range interactions, which have a direct and
efficient implementation on an ion trap architecture. We explore the Schwinger
mechanism of particle-antiparticle generation by monitoring the mass production
and the vacuum persistence amplitude. Moreover, we track the real-time
evolution of entanglement in the system, which illustrates how particle
creation and entanglement generation are directly related. Our work represents
a first step towards quantum simulating high-energy theories with atomic
physics experiments, the long-term vision being the extension to real-time
quantum simulations of non-Abelian lattice gauge theories
Compact Lyman-alpha Emitting Candidates at z~2.4 in Deep Medium-band HST WFPC2 Images
Medium-band imaging with HST/WFPC2 in the F410M filter has previously
revealed a population of compact Lyman-alpha emission objects around the radio
galaxy 53W002 at z~2.4. We report detections of similar objects at z~2.4 in
random, high-latitude HST parallel observations of three additional fields,
lending support to the idea that they constitute a widespread population at
these redshifts. The three new fields contain 18 Lyman-alpha candidates, in
contrast to the 17 detected in the deeper exposure of the single WFPC2 field
around 53W002. We find substantial differences in the number of candidates from
field to field, suggesting that significant large-scale structure is already
present in the galaxy distribution at this cosmic epoch. The likely existence
of z~2.4 sub-galactic clumps in several random fields shows that these objects
may have been common in the early universe and strengthens the argument that
such objects may be responsible for the formation of a fraction of the luminous
present-day galaxies through hierarchical merging.Comment: Uses slightly modified AASTeX preprint style file (included).
Contains 22 pages, including 5 figures and 2 tables. Accepted for the
December issue of the Astronomical Journa
Quantifying and Controlling Prethermal Nonergodicity in Interacting Floquet Matter
The use of periodic driving for synthesizing many-body quantum states depends crucially on the existence of a prethermal regime, which exhibits drive-tunable properties while forestalling the effects of heating. This dependence motivates the search for direct experimental probes of the underlying localized nonergodic nature of the wave function in this metastable regime. We report experiments on a many-body Floquet system consisting of atoms in an optical lattice subjected to ultrastrong sign-changing amplitude modulation. Using a double-quench protocol, we measure an inverse participation ratio quantifying the degree of prethermal localization as a function of tunable drive parameters and interactions. We obtain a complete prethermal map of the drive-dependent properties of Floquet matter spanning four square decades of parameter space. Following the full time evolution, we observe sequential formation of two prethermal plateaux, interaction-driven ergodicity, and strongly frequency-dependent dynamics of long-time thermalization. The quantitative characterization of the prethermal Floquet matter realized in these experiments, along with the demonstration of control of its properties by variation of drive parameters and interactions, opens a new frontier for probing far-from-equilibrium quantum statistical mechanics and new possibilities for dynamical quantum engineering
XUV Frequency Combs via Femtosecond Enhancement Cavities
We review the current state of tabletop extreme ultraviolet (XUV) sources
based on high harmonic generation (HHG) in femtosecond enhancement cavities
(fsEC). Recent developments have enabled generation of high photon flux (1014
photons/sec) in the XUV, at high repetition rates (>50 MHz) and spanning the
spectral region from 40 nm - 120 nm. This level of performance has enabled
precision spectroscopy with XUV frequency combs and promises further
applications in XUV spectroscopic and photoemission studies. We discuss the
theory of operation and experimental details of the fsEC and XUV generation
based on HHG, including current technical challenges to increasing the photon
flux and maximum photon energy produced by this type of system. Current and
future applications for these sources are also discussed.Comment: invited review article, 38 page
Two-photon double ionization of neon using an intense attosecond pulse train
We present the first demonstration of two-photon double ionization of neon
using an intense extreme ultraviolet (XUV) attosecond pulse train (APT) in a
photon energy regime where both direct and sequential mechanisms are allowed.
For an APT generated through high-order harmonic generation (HHG) in argon we
achieve a total pulse energy close to 1 J, a central energy of 35 eV and a
total bandwidth of eV. The APT is focused by broadband optics in a
neon gas target to an intensity of Wcm. By tuning
the photon energy across the threshold for the sequential process the double
ionization signal can be turned on and off, indicating that the two-photon
double ionization predominantly occurs through a sequential process. The
demonstrated performance opens up possibilities for future XUV-XUV pump-probe
experiments with attosecond temporal resolution in a photon energy range where
it is possible to unravel the dynamics behind direct vs. sequential double
ionization and the associated electron correlation effects
Weak Lensing Reconstruction and Power Spectrum Estimation: Minimum Variance Methods
Large-scale structure distorts the images of background galaxies, which
allows one to measure directly the projected distribution of dark matter in the
universe and determine its power spectrum. Here we address the question of how
to extract this information from the observations. We derive minimum variance
estimators for projected density reconstruction and its power spectrum and
apply them to simulated data sets, showing that they give a good agreement with
the theoretical minimum variance expectations. The same estimator can also be
applied to the cluster reconstruction, where it remains a useful reconstruction
technique, although it is no longer optimal for every application. The method
can be generalized to include nonlinear cluster reconstruction and photometric
information on redshifts of background galaxies in the analysis. We also
address the question of how to obtain directly the 3-d power spectrum from the
weak lensing data. We derive a minimum variance quadratic estimator, which
maximizes the likelihood function for the 3-d power spectrum and can be
computed either from the measurements directly or from the 2-d power spectrum.
The estimator correctly propagates the errors and provides a full correlation
matrix of the estimates. It can be generalized to the case where redshift
distribution depends on the galaxy photometric properties, which allows one to
measure both the 3-d power spectrum and its time evolution.Comment: revised version, 36 pages, AAS LateX, submitted to Ap
Interference effects in two-color high-order harmonic generation
We study high-order harmonic generation in argon driven by an intense 800 nm laser field and a small fraction of its second harmonic. The intensity and divergence of the emitted even and odd harmonics are strongly modulated as a function of the relative delay between the two fields. We provide a detailed analysis of the underlying interference effects. The interference changes drastically when approaching the cutoff region due to a switch of the dominant trajectory responsible for harmonic generation
Interaction quench dynamics in the Kondo model in presence of a local magnetic field
In this work we investigate the quench dynamics in the Kondo model on the
Toulouse line in presence of a local magnetic field. It is shown that this
setup can be realized by either applying the local magnetic field directly or
by preparing the system in a macroscopically spin-polarized initial state. In
the latter case, the magnetic field results from a subtlety in applying the
bosonization technique where terms that are usually referred to as finite-size
corrections become important in the present non-equilibrium setting. The
transient dynamics is studied by analyzing exact analytical results for the
local spin dynamics. The time scale for the relaxation of the local dynamical
quantities turns out to be exclusively determined by the Kondo scale. In the
transient regime, one observes damped oscillations in the local correlation
functions with a frequency set by the magnetic field.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures; minor changes, version as publishe
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