Switchable ultrastrong coupling in circuit QED

Superconducting quantum circuits possess the ingredients for quantum information processing and for developing on-chip microwave quantum optics. From the initial manipulation of few-level superconducting systems (qubits) to their strong coupling to microwave resonators, the time has come to consider the generation and characterization of propagating quantum microwaves. In this paper, we design a key ingredient that will prove essential in the general frame: a swtichable coupling between qubit(s) and transmission line(s) that can work in the ultrastrong coupling regime, where the coupling strength approaches the qubit transition frequency. We propose several setups where two or more loops of Josephson junctions are directly connected to a closed (cavity) or open transmission line. We demonstrate that the circuit induces a coupling that can be modulated in strength and type. Given recent studies showing the accessibility to the ultrastrong regime, we expect our ideas to have an immediate impact in ongoing experiments

Zeno physics in ultrastrong circuit QED

We study the Zeno and anti-Zeno effects in a superconducting qubit interacting strongly and ultrastrongly with a microwave resonator. Using a model of a frequently measured two-level system interacting with a quantized mode, we show different behaviors and total control of the Zeno times depending on whether the rotating-wave approximation can be applied in the Jaynes-Cummings model, or not. We exemplify showing the strong dependence of our results with the properties of the initial field states and suggest applications for quantum tomography.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Coulomb displacement energies, energy differenced and neutron skins

A Fock space representation of the monopole part of the Coulomb potential is presented. Quantum effects show through a small orbital term in $l(l+1)$. Once it is averaged out, the classical electrostatic energy emerges as an essentially exact expression, which makes it possible to eliminate the Nolen-Schiffer anomaly, and to estimate neutron skins and the evolution of radii along yrast states of mirror nuclei. The energy differences of the latter are quantitatively reproduced by the monopole term and a schematic multipole one.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, Revte

Finite sampling effects on generalized fluctuation-dissipation relations for steady states

We study the effects of the finite number of experimental data on the computation of a generalized fluctuation-dissipation relation around a nonequilibrium steady state of a Brownian particle in a toroidal optical trap. We show that the finite sampling has two different effects, which can give rise to a poor estimate of the linear response function. The first concerns the accessibility of the generalized fluctuation-dissipation relation due to the finite number of actual perturbations imposed to the control parameter. The second concerns the propagation of the error made at the initial sampling of the external perturbation of the system. This can be highly enhanced by introducing an estimator which corrects the error of the initial sampled condition. When these two effects are taken into account in the data analysis, the generalized fluctuation-dissipation relation is verified experimentally

Effective Quantum Dynamics of Interacting Systems with Inhomogeneous Coupling

We study the quantum dynamics of a single mode/particle interacting inhomogeneously with a large number of particles and introduce an effective approach to find the accessible Hilbert space where the dynamics takes place. Two relevant examples are given: the inhomogeneous Tavis-Cummings model (e.g., N atomic qubits coupled to a single cavity mode, or to a motional mode in trapped ions) and the inhomogeneous coupling of an electron spin to N nuclear spins in a quantum dot.Comment: 9 pages and 10 figures, new version, accepted in Physical Review

Measure of phonon-number moments and motional quadratures through infinitesimal-time probing of trapped ions

A method for gaining information about the phonon-number moments and the generalized nonlinear and linear quadratures in the motion of trapped ions (in particular, position and momentum) is proposed, valid inside and outside the Lamb-Dicke regime. It is based on the measurement of first time derivatives of electronic populations, evaluated at the motion-probe interaction time t=0. In contrast to other state-reconstruction proposals, based on measuring Rabi oscillations or dispersive interactions, the present scheme can be performed resonantly at infinitesimal short motion-probe interaction times, remaining thus insensitive to decoherence processes.Comment: 10 pages. Accepted in JPhys

Facilitating the driver detection of road surface type by selective manipulation of the steering-wheel acceleration signal

Copyright @ 2012 by Institution of Mechanical Engineers.Previous research has investigated the possibility of facilitating the driver detection of road surface type by means of selective manipulation of the steering-wheel acceleration signal. In previous studies a selective increase in acceleration amplitude has been found to facilitate road-surface-type detection, as has selective manipulation of the individual transient events which are present in the signal. The previous research results have been collected into a first guideline for the optimization of the steering-wheel acceleration signal, and the guideline has been tested in the current study. The test stimuli used in the current study were ten steering-wheel acceleration-time histories which were selected from an extensive database of road test measurements performed by the research group. The time histories, which were all from midsized European automobiles and European roads, were selected such that the widest possible operating envelope could be achieved in terms of the r.m.s. value of the steering acceleration, the kurtosis, the power spectral density function, and the number of transient events present in the signal. The time histories were manipulated by means of the mildly non-stationary mission synthesis algorithm in order to increase, by a factor of 2, both the number and the size of the transient events contained within the frequency interval from 20 Hz to 60Hz. The ensemble, composed of both the unmanipulated and the manipulated time histories, was used to perform a laboratory-based detection task with 15 participants, who were presented the individual stimuli in random order. The participants were asked to state, by answering 'yes' or 'no', whether each stimulus was considered to be from the road surface that was displayed in front of them by means of a large photograph on a board. The results suggest that the selectively manipulated steering-wheel acceleration stimuli produced improved detection for eight of the ten road surface types which were tested, with a maximum improvement of 14 per cent in the case of the broken road surface. The selective manipulation did lead, however, to some degradation in detection for the motorway road stimulus and for the noise road stimulus, thus suggesting that the current guideline is not universally optimal for all road surfaces