Geometry of entangled states, Bloch spheres and Hopf fibrations

We discuss a generalization to 2 qubits of the standard Bloch sphere representation for a single qubit, in the framework of Hopf fibrations of high dimensional spheres by lower dimensional spheres. The single qubit Hilbert space is the 3-dimensional sphere S3. The S2 base space of a suitably oriented S3 Hopf fibration is nothing but the Bloch sphere, while the circular fibres represent the qubit overall phase degree of freedom. For the two qubits case, the Hilbert space is a 7-dimensional sphere S7, which also allows for a Hopf fibration, with S3 fibres and a S4 base. A main striking result is that suitably oriented S7 Hopf fibrations are entanglement sensitive. The relation with the standard Schmidt decomposition is also discussedComment: submitted to J. Phys.

A formula for the number of tilings of an octagon by rhombi

We propose the first algebraic determinantal formula to enumerate tilings of a centro-symmetric octagon of any size by rhombi. This result uses the Gessel-Viennot technique and generalizes to any octagon a formula given by Elnitsky in a special case.Comment: New title. Minor improvements. To appear in Theoretical Computer Science, special issue on "Combinatorics of the Discrete Plane and Tilings

Entanglement in a second order quantum phase transition

We consider a system of mutually interacting spin 1/2 embedded in a transverse magnetic field which undergo a second order quantum phase transition. We analyze the entanglement properties and the spin squeezing of the ground state and show that, contrarily to the one-dimensional case, a cusp-like singularity appears at the critical point $\lambda_c$, in the thermodynamic limit. We also show that there exists a value $\lambda_0 \geq \lambda_c$ above which the ground state is not spin squeezed despite a nonvanishing concurrence.Comment: 4 pages, 4 EPS figures, minor corrections added and title change

Landau levels in quasicrystals

Two-dimensional tight-binding models for quasicrystals made of plaquettes with commensurate areas are considered. Their energy spectrum is computed as a function of an applied perpendicular magnetic field. Landau levels are found to emerge near band edges in the zero-field limit. Their existence is related to an effective zero-field dispersion relation valid in the continuum limit. For quasicrystals studied here, an underlying periodic crystal exists and provides a natural interpretation to this dispersion relation. In addition to the slope (effective mass) of Landau levels, we also study their width as a function of the magnetic flux per plaquette and identify two fundamental broadening mechanisms: (i) tunneling between closed cyclotron orbits and (ii) individual energy displacement of states within a Landau level. Interestingly, the typical broadening of the Landau levels is found to behave algebraically with the magnetic field with a nonuniversal exponent.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figure

Geometric Approach to Digital Quantum Information

We present geometric methods for uniformly discretizing the continuous N-qubit Hilbert space. When considered as the vertices of a geometrical figure, the resulting states form the equivalent of a Platonic solid. The discretization technique inherently describes a class of pi/2 rotations that connect neighboring states in the set, i.e. that leave the geometrical figures invariant. These rotations are shown to generate the Clifford group, a general group of discrete transformations on N qubits. Discretizing the N-qubit Hilbert space allows us to define its digital quantum information content, and we show that this information content grows as N^2. While we believe the discrete sets are interesting because they allow extra-classical behavior--such as quantum entanglement and quantum parallelism--to be explored while circumventing the continuity of Hilbert space, we also show how they may be a useful tool for problems in traditional quantum computation. We describe in detail the discrete sets for one and two qubits.Comment: Introduction rewritten; 'Sample Application' section added. To appear in J. of Quantum Information Processin

Arctic octahedron in three-dimensional rhombus tilings and related integer solid partitions

Three-dimensional integer partitions provide a convenient representation of codimension-one three-dimensional random rhombus tilings. Calculating the entropy for such a model is a notoriously difficult problem. We apply transition matrix Monte Carlo simulations to evaluate their entropy with high precision. We consider both free- and fixed-boundary tilings. Our results suggest that the ratio of free- and fixed-boundary entropies is $\sigma_{free}/\sigma_{fixed}=3/2$, and can be interpreted as the ratio of the volumes of two simple, nested, polyhedra. This finding supports a conjecture by Linde, Moore and Nordahl concerning the ``arctic octahedron phenomenon'' in three-dimensional random tilings