87 research outputs found
Quantum anti-Zeno effect without wave function reduction
We study the measurement-induced enhancement of the spontaneous decay (called
quantum anti-Zeno effect) for a two-level subsystem, where measurements are
treated as couplings between the excited state and an auxiliary state rather
than the von Neumann's wave function reduction. The photon radiated in a fast
decay of the atom, from the auxiliary state to the excited state, triggers a
quasi-measurement, as opposed to a projection measurement. Our use of the term
"quasi-measurement" refers to a "coupling-based measurement". Such frequent
quasi-measurements result in an exponential decay of the survival probability
of atomic initial state with a photon emission following each
quasi-measurement. Our calculations show that the effective decay rate is of
the same form as the one based on projection measurements. What is more
important, the survival probability of the atomic initial state which is
obtained by tracing over all the photon states is equivalent to the survival
probability of the atomic initial state with a photon emission following each
quasi-measurement to the order under consideration. That is because the
contributions from those states with photon number less than the number of
quasi-measurements originate from higher-order processes.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure
Fidelity of optimally controlled quantum gates with randomly coupled multiparticle environments
This work studies the feasibility of optimal control of high-fidelity quantum
gates in a model of interacting two-level particles. One particle (the qubit)
serves as the quantum information processor, whose evolution is controlled by a
time-dependent external field. The other particles are not directly controlled
and serve as an effective environment, coupling to which is the source of
decoherence. The control objective is to generate target one-qubit gates in the
presence of strong environmentally-induced decoherence and under physically
motivated restrictions on the control field. It is found that interactions
among the environmental particles have a negligible effect on the gate fidelity
and require no additional adjustment of the control field. Another interesting
result is that optimally controlled quantum gates are remarkably robust to
random variations in qubit-environment and inter-environment coupling
strengths. These findings demonstrate the utility of optimal control for
management of quantum-information systems in a very precise and specific
manner, especially when the dynamics complexity is exacerbated by inherently
uncertain environmental coupling.Comment: tMOP LaTeX, 9 pages, 3 figures; Special issue of the Journal of
Modern Optics: 37th Winter Colloquium on the Physics of Quantum Electronics,
2-6 January 200
Dynamics and quantum Zeno effect for a qubit in either a low- or high-frequency bath beyond the rotating-wave approximation
Laboratory of Physical Sciences; National Security Agency; Army Research Office; National Science Foundation [0726909]; JSPS-RFBR [09-02-92114]; MEXT; Funding Program for Innovative R&D on ST (FIRST); National Natural Science Foundation of China [10904126We use a non-Markovian approach to study the decoherence dynamics of a qubit in either a low- or high-frequency bath modeling the qubit environment. This is done for two separate cases: either with measurements or without them. This approach is based on a unitary transformation and does not require the rotating-wave approximation. In the case without measurement, we show that, for low- frequency noise, the bath shifts the qubit energy toward higher energies (blue shift), while the ordinary high-frequency cutoff Ohmic bath shifts the qubit energy toward lower energies (red shift). In order to preserve the coherence of the qubit, we also investigate the dynamics of the qubit subject to measurements (quantum Zeno regime) in two cases: low- and high-frequency baths. For very frequent projective measurements, the low- frequency bath gives rise to the quantum anti-Zeno effect on the qubit. The quantum Zeno effect only occurs in the high-frequency-cutoff Ohmic bath, after counterrotating terms are considered. In the condition that the decay rate due to the two kinds of baths are equal under the Wigner-Weisskopf approximation, we find that without the approximation, for a high-frequency environment, the decay rate should be faster (without measurements) or slower (with frequent measurements, in the Zeno regime), compared to the low- frequency bath case. The experimental implementation of our results here could distinguish the type of bath (either a low- or high-frequency one) and protect the coherence of the qubit by modulating the dominant frequency of its environment
Thermodynamical Control by Frequent Quantum Measurements
Heat flow between a large ``bath'' and a smaller system brings them
progressively closer to thermal equilibrium while increasing their entropy.
Deviations from this trend are fluctuations involving a small fraction of a
statistical ensemble of systems interacting with the bath: in this respect,
quantum and classical thermodynamics are in agreement. Can there be drastic
differences between them? Here we address a distinctly quantum mechanical
setting that displays such differences: disturbances of thermal equilibrium
between two-level systems (TLS) and a bath by frequent and brief quantum
(non-demolishing) measurements of the TLS energy-states. If the measurements
are frequent enough to induce either the Zeno or the anti-Zeno regime, namely,
the slowdown or speedup of the TLS relaxation, then the resulting entropy and
temperature of both the system and the bath are found to be completely
unrelated to what is expected by standard thermodynamical rules that hold for
memoryless baths. The practical advantage of these anomalies is the possibility
of very fast control of heat and entropy, allowing cooling and
state-purification of quantum systems much sooner than their thermal
equilibration time.Comment: 10 Pages. Pre-submission version of Nature {\bf 452}, 724 (2008).
Includes Supplementary Informatio
Fluids in cosmology
We review the role of fluids in cosmology by first introducing them in
General Relativity and then by applying them to a FRW Universe's model. We
describe how relativistic and non-relativistic components evolve in the
background dynamics. We also introduce scalar fields to show that they are able
to yield an inflationary dynamics at very early times (inflation) and late
times (quintessence). Then, we proceed to study the thermodynamical properties
of the fluids and, lastly, its perturbed kinematics. We make emphasis in the
constrictions of parameters by recent cosmological probes.Comment: 34 pages, 4 figures, version accepted as invited review to the book
"Computational and Experimental Fluid Mechanics with Applications to Physics,
Engineering and the Environment". Version 2: typos corrected and references
expande
Recrudescence of massive fermion production by oscillons
We bring together the physics of preheating, following a period of inflation, and the dynamics of non-topological solitons, namely oscillons. We show that the oscillating condensate that makes up an oscillon can be an efficient engine for producing heavy fermions, just as a homogeneous condensate is known for doing the same. This then allows heavy fermions to be produced when the energy scale of the Universe has dropped below the scale naturally associated to the fermions
Long-time Low-latency Quantum Memory by Dynamical Decoupling
Quantum memory is a central component for quantum information processing
devices, and will be required to provide high-fidelity storage of arbitrary
states, long storage times and small access latencies. Despite growing interest
in applying physical-layer error-suppression strategies to boost fidelities, it
has not previously been possible to meet such competing demands with a single
approach. Here we use an experimentally validated theoretical framework to
identify periodic repetition of a high-order dynamical decoupling sequence as a
systematic strategy to meet these challenges. We provide analytic
bounds-validated by numerical calculations-on the characteristics of the
relevant control sequences and show that a "stroboscopic saturation" of
coherence, or coherence plateau, can be engineered, even in the presence of
experimental imperfection. This permits high-fidelity storage for times that
can be exceptionally long, meaning that our device-independent results should
prove instrumental in producing practically useful quantum technologies.Comment: abstract and authors list fixe
Quantum Process Tomography of a Universal Entangling Gate Implemented with Josephson Phase Qubits
Quantum logic gates must perform properly when operating on their standard
input basis states, as well as when operating on complex superpositions of
these states. Experiments using superconducting qubits have validated the truth
table for particular implementations of e.g. the controlled-NOT gate [1,2], but
have not fully characterized gate operation for arbitrary superpositions of
input states. Here we demonstrate the use of quantum process tomography (QPT)
[3,4] to fully characterize the performance of a universal entangling gate
between two superconducting quantum bits. Process tomography permits complete
gate analysis, but requires precise preparation of arbitrary input states,
control over the subsequent qubit interaction, and simultaneous single-shot
measurement of the output states. We use QPT to measure the fidelity of the
entangling gate and to quantify the decoherence mechanisms affecting the gate
performance. In addition to demonstrating a promising fidelity, our entangling
gate has a on/off ratio of 300, a level of adjustable coupling that will become
a requirement for future high-fidelity devices. This is the first solid-state
demonstration of QPT in a two-qubit system, as solid-state process tomography
has previously only been demonstrated with single qubits [5,6]
The Cosmological Constant
This is a review of the physics and cosmology of the cosmological constant.
Focusing on recent developments, I present a pedagogical overview of cosmology
in the presence of a cosmological constant, observational constraints on its
magnitude, and the physics of a small (and potentially nonzero) vacuum energy.Comment: 50 pages. Submitted to Living Reviews in Relativity
(http://www.livingreviews.org/), December 199
f(R) theories
Over the past decade, f(R) theories have been extensively studied as one of
the simplest modifications to General Relativity. In this article we review
various applications of f(R) theories to cosmology and gravity - such as
inflation, dark energy, local gravity constraints, cosmological perturbations,
and spherically symmetric solutions in weak and strong gravitational
backgrounds. We present a number of ways to distinguish those theories from
General Relativity observationally and experimentally. We also discuss the
extension to other modified gravity theories such as Brans-Dicke theory and
Gauss-Bonnet gravity, and address models that can satisfy both cosmological and
local gravity constraints.Comment: 156 pages, 14 figures, Invited review article in Living Reviews in
Relativity, Published version, Comments are welcom
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