Berry phases of quantum trajectories in semiconductors under strong terahertz fields

Quantum evolution of particles under strong fields can be essentially captured by a small number of quantum trajectories that satisfy the stationary phase condition in the Dirac-Feynmann path integrals. The quantum trajectories are the key concept to understand extreme nonlinear optical phenomena, such as high-order harmonic generation (HHG), above-threshold ionization (ATI), and high-order terahertz sideband generation (HSG). While HHG and ATI have been mostly studied in atoms and molecules, the HSG in semiconductors can have interesting effects due to possible nontrivial "vacuum" states of band materials. We find that in a semiconductor with non-vanishing Berry curvature in its energy bands, the cyclic quantum trajectories of an electron-hole pair under a strong terahertz field can accumulate Berry phases. Taking monolayer MoS$_2$ as a model system, we show that the Berry phases appear as the Faraday rotation angles of the pulse emission from the material under short-pulse excitation. This finding reveals an interesting transport effect in the extreme nonlinear optics regime.Comment: 5 page

Quantum discord: "discord" between the whole and its constituent

Quantum discord, a measure of quantum correlation beyond entanglement, is initially defined as the discord between two classically equivalent while quantum discordant definitions of mutual information. In this paper, we report some new interpretations of discord which rely on the differences between measurement induced effects on the local measured system and the whole system. Specifically, with proper quantitative definitions introduced in [Buscemi, Hayashi and Horodecki, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 2210504 (2008)], we find that quantum discord can be interpreted as the differences of measurement induced disturbance or information gain on the local measured system and on the whole system. Combined with previous similar results based on measurement induced entanglement and decoherence, our results provide a unified view on quantum discord.Comment: title changed, abstract rewritten. Rank-1 POVM measurements are needed for our result

Imaginary geometric phases of quantum trajectories

A quantum object can accumulate a geometric phase when it is driven along a trajectory in a parameterized state space with non-trivial gauge structures. Inherent to quantum evolutions, a system can not only accumulate a quantum phase but may also experience dephasing, or quantum diffusion. Here we show that the diffusion of quantum trajectories can also be of geometric nature as characterized by the imaginary part of the geometric phase. Such an imaginary geometric phase results from the interference of geometric phase dependent fluctuations around the quantum trajectory. As a specific example, we study the quantum trajectories of the optically excited electron-hole pairs, driven by an elliptically polarized terahertz field, in a material with non-zero Berry curvature near the energy band extremes. While the real part of the geometric phase leads to the Faraday rotation of the linearly polarized light that excites the electron-hole pair, the imaginary part manifests itself as the polarization ellipticity of the terahertz sidebands. This discovery of geometric quantum diffusion extends the concept of geometric phases.Comment: 5 pages with 3 figure

Nonlinear optical response induced by non-Abelian Berry curvature in time-reversal-invariant insulators

We propose a general framework of nonlinear optics induced by non-Abelian Berry curvature in time-reversal-invariant (TRI) insulators. We find that the third-order response of a TRI insulator under optical and terahertz light fields is directly related to the integration of the non-Abelian Berry curvature over the Brillouin zone. We apply the result to insulators with rotational symmetry near the band edge. Under resonant excitations, the optical susceptibility is proportional to the flux of the Berry curvature through the iso-energy surface, which is equal to the Chern number of the surface times $2\pi$. For the III-V compound semiconductors, microscopic calculations based on the six-band model give a third-order susceptibility with the Chern number of the iso-energy surface equal to three

Non-monogamy of quantum discord and upper bounds for quantum correlation

We consider a monogamy inequality of quantum discord in a pure tripartite state and show that it is equivalent to an inequality between quantum mutual information and entanglement of formation of two parties. Since this inequality does not hold for arbitrary bipartite states, quantum discord can generally be both monogamous and polygamous. We also carry out numerical calculations for some special states. The upper bounds of quantum discord and classical correlation are also discussed and we give physical analysis on the invalidness of a previous conjectured upper bound of quantum correlation. Our results provide new insights for further understanding of distributions of quantum correlations.Comment: Title changed, abstract and introduction revised, references adde

New approach for solving master equation of open atomic system

We describe a new approach called Ket-Bra Entangled State (KBES) Method which enables one convert master equations into Schr\"odinger-like equation. In sharply contrast to the super-operator method, the KBES method is applicable for any master equation of finite-level system in theory, and the calculation can be completed by computer. With this method, we obtain the exact dynamic evolution of a radioactivity damped 2-level atom in time-dependent external field, and a 3-level atom coupled with bath; Moreover, the master equation of N-qubits Heisenberg chain each qubit coupled with a reservoir is also resolved in Sec.III; Besides, the paper briefly discuss the physical implications of the solution.Comment: 7 pages, 5figure

Dynamic Entanglement Evolution of Two-qubit XYZ Spin Chain in Markovian Environment

We propose a new approach called Ket-Bra Entangled State (KBES) Method for converting master equation into Schr\"{o}dinger-like equation. With this method, we investigate decoherence process and entanglement dynamics induced by a $2$-qubit spin chain that each qubit coupled with reservoir. The spin chain is an anisotropy $XYZ$ Heisenberg model in the external magnetic field $B$, the corresponding master equation is solved concisely by KBES method; Furthermore, the effects of anisotropy, temperature, external field and initial state on concurrence dynamics is analyzed in detail for the case that initial state is Extended Wenger-Like(EWL) state. Finally we research the coherence and concurrence of the final state (namely the density operator for time tend to infinite

Giant Faraday rotation induced by Berry phase in bilayer graphene under strong terahertz fields

High-order terahertz (THz) sideband generation (HSG) in semiconductors is a phenomenon with physics similar to high-order harmonic generation but in a much lower frequency regime. It was found that the electron-hole pairs excited by a weak optical laser can accumulate Berry phases along a cyclic path under the driving of a strong THz field. The Berry phases appear as the Faraday rotation angles of the emission signal under short-pulse excitation in monolayer MoS$_2$. In this paper, the theory of Berry phase in THz extreme nonlinear optics is applied to biased bilayer graphene with Bernal stacking, which has similar Bloch band features and optical properties to the monolayer MoS$_2$, such as time-reversal related valleys and valley contrasting optical selection rules. The bilayer graphene has much larger Berry curvature than monolayer MoS$_2$, which leads to a giant Faraday rotation of the optical emission ($\sim$ 1 rad for a THz field with frequency 1 THz and strength 8 kV/cm). This provides opportunities to use bilayer graphene and low-power THz lasers for ultrafast electro-optical devices.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Tuning-Free Heterogeneity Pursuit in Massive Networks

Heterogeneity is often natural in many contemporary applications involving massive data. While posing new challenges to effective learning, it can play a crucial role in powering meaningful scientific discoveries through the understanding of important differences among subpopulations of interest. In this paper, we exploit multiple networks with Gaussian graphs to encode the connectivity patterns of a large number of features on the subpopulations. To uncover the heterogeneity of these structures across subpopulations, we suggest a new framework of tuning-free heterogeneity pursuit (THP) via large-scale inference, where the number of networks is allowed to diverge. In particular, two new tests, the chi-based test and the linear functional-based test, are introduced and their asymptotic null distributions are established. Under mild regularity conditions, we establish that both tests are optimal in achieving the testable region boundary and the sample size requirement for the latter test is minimal. Both theoretical guarantees and the tuning-free feature stem from efficient multiple-network estimation by our newly suggested approach of heterogeneous group square-root Lasso (HGSL) for high-dimensional multi-response regression with heterogeneous noises. To solve this convex program, we further introduce a tuning-free algorithm that is scalable and enjoys provable convergence to the global optimum. Both computational and theoretical advantages of our procedure are elucidated through simulation and real data examples.Comment: 29 pages for the main text including 1 figure and 7 tables, 28 pages for the Supplementary Materia

Series expansion in fractional calculus and fractional differential equations

Fractional calculus is the calculus of differentiation and integration of non-integer orders. In a recently paper (Annals of Physics 323 (2008) 2756-2778), the Fundamental Theorem of Fractional Calculus is highlighted. Based on this theorem, in this paper we introduce fractional series expansion method to fractional calculus. We define a kind of fractional Taylor series of an infinitely fractionally-differentiable function. Further, based on our definition we generalize hypergeometric functions and derive corresponding differential equations. For finitely fractionally-differentiable functions, we observe that the non-infinitely fractionally-differentiability is due to more than one fractional indices. We expand functions with two fractional indices and display how this kind of series expansion can help to solve fractional differential equations.Comment: 15 pages, no figur