3,256 research outputs found
Schwinger pair production with ultracold atoms
We consider a system of ultracold atoms in an optical lattice as a quantum
simulator for electron-positron pair production in quantum electrodynamics
(QED). For a setup in one spatial dimension, we investigate the nonequilibrium
phenomenon of pair production including the backreaction leading to plasma
oscillations. Unlike previous investigations on quantum link models, we focus
on the infinite-dimensional Hilbert space of QED and show that it may be well
approximated by experiments employing Bose-Einstein condensates interacting
with fermionic atoms. The calculations based on functional integral techniques
give a unique access to the physical parameters required to realize the QED
phenomena in a cold atom experiment. In particular, we use our approach to
consider quantum link models in a yet unexplored parameter regime and give
bounds for their ability to capture essential features of the physics. The
results suggest a paradigmatic change towards realizations using coherent
many-body states rather than single atoms for quantum simulations of
high-energy particle physics phenomena.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, PLB versio
Implementing quantum electrodynamics with ultracold atomic systems
We discuss the experimental engineering of model systems for the description
of QED in one spatial dimension via a mixture of bosonic Na and
fermionic Li atoms. The local gauge symmetry is realized in an optical
superlattice, using heteronuclear boson-fermion spin-changing interactions
which preserve the total spin in every local collision. We consider a large
number of bosons residing in the coherent state of a Bose-Einstein condensate
on each link between the fermion lattice sites, such that the behavior of
lattice QED in the continuum limit can be recovered. The discussion about the
range of possible experimental parameters builds, in particular, upon
experiences with related setups of fermions interacting with coherent samples
of bosonic atoms. We determine the atomic system's parameters required for the
description of fundamental QED processes, such as Schwinger pair production and
string breaking. This is achieved by benchmark calculations of the atomic
system and of QED itself using functional integral techniques. Our results
demonstrate that the dynamics of one-dimensional QED may be realized with
ultracold atoms using state-of-the-art experimental resources. The experimental
setup proposed may provide a unique access to longstanding open questions for
which classical computational methods are no longer applicable
Multidimensional perfect fluid cosmology with stable compactified internal dimensions
Multidimensional cosmological models in the presence of a bare cosmological
constant and a perfect fluid are investigated under dimensional reduction to
4-dimensional effective models. Stable compactification of the internal spaces
is achieved for a special class of perfect fluids. The external space behaves
in accordance with the standard Friedmann model. Necessary restrictions on the
parameters of the models are found to ensure dynamical behavior of the external
(our) universe in agreement with observations.Comment: 11 pages, Latex2e, uses IOP packages, submitted to Class.Quant.Gra
A discriminating string order parameter for topological phases of gapped SU(N) spin chains
One-dimensional gapped spin chains with symmetry PSU(N) = SU(N)/Z_N are known
to possess N different topological phases. In this paper, we introduce a
non-local string order parameter which characterizes each of these N phases
unambiguously. Numerics confirm that our order parameter allows to extract a
quantized topological invariant from a given non-degenerate gapped ground state
wave function. Discontinuous jumps in the discrete topological order that arise
when varying physical couplings in the Hamiltonian may be used to detect
quantum phase transitions between different topological phases.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure
Complete determination of the reflection coefficient in neutron specular reflection by absorptive non-magnetic media
An experimental method is proposed which allows the complete determination of
the complex reflection coefficient for absorptive media for positive and
negative values of the momenta. It makes use of magnetic reference layers and
is a modification of a recently proposed technique for phase determination
based on polarization measurements. The complex reflection coefficient
resulting from a simulated application of the method is used for a
reconstruction of the scattering density profiles of absorptive non-magnetic
media by inversion.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, reformulation of abstract, ref.12 added,
typographical correction
Maximal Unitarity at Two Loops
We show how to compute the coefficients of the double box basis integrals in
a massless four-point amplitude in terms of tree amplitudes. We show how to
choose suitable multidimensional contours for performing the required cuts, and
derive consistency equations from the requirement that integrals of total
derivatives vanish. Our formulae for the coefficients can be used either
analytically or numerically.Comment: 42 pages, 9 figures; several misprints corrected and one figure
added, extraneous figures removed, final journal version with one added
referenc
Performance and structure of single-mode bosonic codes
The early Gottesman, Kitaev, and Preskill (GKP) proposal for encoding a qubit
in an oscillator has recently been followed by cat- and binomial-code
proposals. Numerically optimized codes have also been proposed, and we
introduce new codes of this type here. These codes have yet to be compared
using the same error model; we provide such a comparison by determining the
entanglement fidelity of all codes with respect to the bosonic pure-loss
channel (i.e., photon loss) after the optimal recovery operation. We then
compare achievable communication rates of the combined encoding-error-recovery
channel by calculating the channel's hashing bound for each code. Cat and
binomial codes perform similarly, with binomial codes outperforming cat codes
at small loss rates. Despite not being designed to protect against the
pure-loss channel, GKP codes significantly outperform all other codes for most
values of the loss rate. We show that the performance of GKP and some binomial
codes increases monotonically with increasing average photon number of the
codes. In order to corroborate our numerical evidence of the cat/binomial/GKP
order of performance occurring at small loss rates, we analytically evaluate
the quantum error-correction conditions of those codes. For GKP codes, we find
an essential singularity in the entanglement fidelity in the limit of vanishing
loss rate. In addition to comparing the codes, we draw parallels between
binomial codes and discrete-variable systems. First, we characterize one- and
two-mode binomial as well as multi-qubit permutation-invariant codes in terms
of spin-coherent states. Such a characterization allows us to introduce check
operators and error-correction procedures for binomial codes. Second, we
introduce a generalization of spin-coherent states, extending our
characterization to qudit binomial codes and yielding a new multi-qudit code.Comment: 34 pages, 11 figures, 4 tables. v3: published version. See related
talk at https://absuploads.aps.org/presentation.cfm?pid=1351
Einstein and Brans-Dicke frames in multidimensional cosmology
Inhomogeneous multidimensional cosmological models with a higher dimensional
space-time manifold M= M_0 x M_1 ...x M_n are investigated under dimensional
reduction to a D_0-dimensional effective non-minimally coupled sigma-model
which generalizes the familiar Brans-Dicke model.
It is argued that the Einstein frame should be considered as the physical
one. The general prescription for the Einstein frame reformulation of known
solutions in the Brans-Dicke frame is given. As an example, the reformulation
is demonstrated explicitly for the generalized Kasner solutions where it is
shown that in the Einstein frame there are no solutions with inflation of the
external space.Comment: 27 pages, Revte
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