Localization and Fluctuations in Quantum Kicked Rotors

We address the issue of fluctuations, about an exponential lineshape, in a pair of one-dimensional kicked quantum systems exhibiting dynamical localization. An exact renormalization scheme establishes the fractal character of the fluctuations and provides a new method to compute the localization length in terms of the fluctuations. In the case of a linear rotor, the fluctuations are independent of the kicking parameter $k$ and exhibit self-similarity for certain values of the quasienergy. For given $k$, the asymptotic localization length is a good characteristic of the localized lineshapes for all quasienergies. This is in stark contrast to the quadratic rotor, where the fluctuations depend upon the strength of the kicking and exhibit local "resonances". These resonances result in strong deviations of the localization length from the asymptotic value. The consequences are particularly pronounced when considering the time evolution of a packet made up of several quasienergy states.Comment: REVTEV Document. 9 pages, 4 figures submitted to PR

Engineering Time-Reversal Invariant Topological Insulators With Ultra-Cold Atoms

Topological insulators are a broad class of unconventional materials that are insulating in the interior but conduct along the edges. This edge transport is topologically protected and dissipationless. Until recently, all existing topological insulators, known as quantum Hall states, violated time-reversal symmetry. However, the discovery of the quantum spin Hall effect demonstrated the existence of novel topological states not rooted in time-reversal violations. Here, we lay out an experiment to realize time-reversal topological insulators in ultra-cold atomic gases subjected to synthetic gauge fields in the near-field of an atom-chip. In particular, we introduce a feasible scheme to engineer sharp boundaries where the "edge states" are localized. Besides, this multi-band system has a large parameter space exhibiting a variety of quantum phase transitions between topological and normal insulating phases. Due to their unprecedented controllability, cold-atom systems are ideally suited to realize topological states of matter and drive the development of topological quantum computing.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure

Phase transitions, entanglement and quantum noise interferometry in cold atoms

We show that entanglement monotones can characterize the pronounced enhancement of entanglement at a quantum phase transition if they are sensitive to long-range high order correlations. These monotones are found to develop a sharp peak at the critical point and to exhibit universal scaling. We demonstrate that similar features are shared by noise correlations and verify that these experimentally accessible quantities indeed encode entanglement information and probe separability.Comment: 4 pages 4 figure

Dimer Decimation and Intricately Nested Localized-Ballistic Phases of Kicked Harper

Dimer decimation scheme is introduced in order to study the kicked quantum systems exhibiting localization transition. The tight-binding representation of the model is mapped to a vectorized dimer where an asymptotic dissociation of the dimer is shown to correspond to the vanishing of the transmission coefficient thru the system. The method unveils an intricate nesting of extended and localized phases in two-dimensional parameter space. In addition to computing transport characteristics with extremely high precision, the renormalization tools also provide a new method to compute quasienergy spectrum.Comment: There are five postscript figures. Only half of the figure (3) is shown to reduce file size. However, missing part is the mirror image of the part show