Chirality waves in two-dimensional magnets

We theoretically show that moderate interaction between electrons confined to move in a plane and localized magnetic moments leads to formation of a noncoplanar magnetic state. The state is similar to the skyrmion crystal recently observed in cubic systems with the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction; however, it does not require spin-orbit interaction. The non-coplanar magnetism is accompanied by the ground-state electrical and spin currents, generated via the real-space Berry phase mechanism. We examine the stability of the state with respect to lattice discreteness effects and the magnitude of magnetic exchange interaction. The state can be realized in a number of transition metal and magnetic semiconductor systems

Time-resolved density correlations as probe of squeezing in toroidal Bose-Einstein condensates

I study the evolution of mean field and linear quantum fluctuations in a toroidal Bose-Einstein condensate, whose interaction strength is quenched from a finite (repulsive) value to zero. The azimuthal equal-time density-density correlation function is calculated and shows temporal oscillations with twice the (final) excitation frequencies after the transition. These oscillations are a direct consequence of positive and negative frequency mixing during non-adiabatic evolution. I will argue that a time-resolved measurement of the equal-time density correlator might be used to calculate the moduli of the Bogoliubov coefficients and thus the amount of squeezing imposed on a mode, i.e., the number of atoms excited out of the condensate.Comment: 18 pages, IOP styl

Quantum Nucleation and Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling in Cold-Atom Boson-Fermion Mixtures

Kinetics of phase separation transition in boson-fermion cold atom mixtures is investigated. We identify the parameters at which the transition is governed by quantum nucleation mechanism, responsible for the formation of critical nuclei of a stable phase. We demonstrate that for low fermion-boson mass ratio the density dependence of quantum nucleation transition rate is experimentally observable. The crossover to macroscopic quantum tunneling regime is analyzed. Based on a microscopic description of interacting cold atom boson-fermion mixtures we derive an effective action for the critical droplet and obtain an asymptotic expression for the nucleation rate in the vicinity of the phase transition and near the spinodal instability of the mixed phase. We show that dissipation due to excitations in fermion subsystem play a dominant role close to the transition point.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure

Quantitative Treatment of Decoherence

We outline different approaches to define and quantify decoherence. We argue that a measure based on a properly defined norm of deviation of the density matrix is appropriate for quantifying decoherence in quantum registers. For a semiconductor double quantum dot qubit, evaluation of this measure is reviewed. For a general class of decoherence processes, including those occurring in semiconductor qubits, we argue that this measure is additive: It scales linearly with the number of qubits.Comment: Revised version, 26 pages, in LaTeX, 3 EPS figure