Thermal effects on chaotic directed transport

We study a chaotic ratchet system under the influence of a thermal environment. By direct integration of the Lindblad equation we are able to analyze its behavior for a wide range of couplings with the environment, and for different finite temperatures. We observe that the enhancement of the classical and quantum currents due to temperature depend strongly on the specific properties of the system. This makes difficult to extract universal behaviors. We have also found that there is an analogy between the effects of the classical thermal noise and those of the finite $\hbar$ size. These results open many possibilities for their testing and implementation in kicked BECs and cold atoms experiments.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Quantum analysis of a nonlinear microwave cavity-embedded dc SQUID displacement detector

We carry out a quantum analysis of a dc SQUID mechanical displacement detector, comprising a SQUID with mechanically compliant loop segment, which is embedded in a microwave transmission line resonator. The SQUID is approximated as a nonlinear, current dependent inductance, inducing an external flux tunable, nonlinear Duffing self-interaction term in the microwave resonator mode equation. Motion of the compliant SQUID loop segment is transduced inductively through changes in the external flux threading SQUID loop, giving a ponderomotive, radiation pressure type coupling between the microwave and mechanical resonator modes. Expressions are derived for the detector signal response and noise, and it is found that a soft-spring Duffing self-interaction enables a closer approach to the displacement detection standard quantum limit, as well as cooling closer to the ground state

Exact and approximate many-body dynamics with stochastic one-body density matrix evolution

We show that the dynamics of interacting fermions can be exactly replaced by a quantum jump theory in the many-body density matrix space. In this theory, jumps occur between densities formed of pairs of Slater determinants, $D_{ab}=| \Phi_a > < \Phi_b |$, where each state evolves according to the Stochastic Schr\"odinger Equation (SSE) given in ref. \cite{Jul02}. A stochastic Liouville-von Neumann equation is derived as well as the associated Bogolyubov-Born-Green-Kirwood-Yvon (BBGKY) hierarchy. Due to the specific form of the many-body density along the path, the presented theory is equivalent to a stochastic theory in one-body density matrix space, in which each density matrix evolves according to its own mean field augmented by a one-body noise. Guided by the exact reformulation, a stochastic mean field dynamics valid in the weak coupling approximation is proposed. This theory leads to an approximate treatment of two-body effects similar to the extended Time-Dependent Hartree-Fock (Extended TDHF) scheme. In this stochastic mean field dynamics, statistical mixing can be directly considered and jumps occur on a coarse-grained time scale. Accordingly, numerical effort is expected to be significantly reduced for applications.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figur

Symmetry projection schemes for Gaussian Monte Carlo methods

A novel sign-free Monte Carlo method for the Hubbard model has recently been proposed by Corney and Drummond. High precision measurements on small clusters show that ground state correlation functions are not correctly reproduced. We argue that the origin of this mismatch lies in the fact that the low temperature density matrix does not have the symmetries of the Hamiltonian. Here we show that supplementing the algorithm with symmetry projection schemes provides reliable and accurate estimates of ground state properties.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

Opacity of electromagnetically induced transparency for quantum fluctuations

We analyze the propagation of a pair of quantized fields inside a medium of three-level atoms in $\Lambda$ configuration. We calculate the stationary quadrature noise spectrum of the field after propagating through the medium, in the case where the probe field is in a squeezed state and the atoms show electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). We find an oscillatory transfer of the initial quantum properties between the probe and pump fields which is most strongly pronounced when both fields have comparable Rabi frequencies. This implies that the quantum state measured after propagation can be completely different from the initial state, even though the mean values of the field are unaltered

Numerical Methods for Stochastic Differential Equations

Stochastic differential equations (sdes) play an important role in physics but existing numerical methods for solving such equations are of low accuracy and poor stability. A general strategy for developing accurate and efficient schemes for solving stochastic equations in outlined here. High order numerical methods are developed for integration of stochastic differential equations with strong solutions. We demonstrate the accuracy of the resulting integration schemes by computing the errors in approximate solutions for sdes which have known exact solutions