Quantum phase transitions in superconductor--quantum-dot--superconductor Josephson structures with attractive intradot interaction

We theoretically study the superconducting proximity effect in a quantum dot coupled to two superconducting leads when the intradot interaction between electrons is made attractive. Because of the superconducting proximity effect, the electronic states for the embedded quantum dot are either spin-polarized states with an odd occupation number or BCS-like states with an even occupation number. We show that in the presence of an external magnetic field, the system can exhibit quantum phase transitions of fermion parity associated with the occupation number. In this work, we adopt a self-consistent theoretical method to extend our considerations beyond the so-called superconducting atomic limit in which the superconducting gap for the leads is assumed to be the largest energy scale. The method enables us to numerically investigate the electronic structure of the dot as results of the attractive interaction. For energy phase diagrams in the regime away from the atomic limit, we find a reentrant behavior where a BCS-like phase of the dot exists in an intermediate range of the hybridization strength between the quantum dot and the leads. We also consider Josephson current phase relations and identify a number of examples showing $0-\pi$ phase transitions that may offer important switching effects

Two-dimensional group delay in graphene probed by spin precession measurements

We take graphene as an example to demonstrate that the present widely adopted expression is only the scattering component of a true 2D group delay in the condensed matter context, in which the spatial Goos-H\"{a}nchen (GH) shift along an interface contributes an intrinsic component. We relate the dwell time to spin precession and derive a relation between the 2D group delay and dwell time, whereby we for the first time reveal that, the group delay for 2D ballistic electronic systems can be directly observed by measuring a conductance difference in a weak-field spin precession experiment. This physical observable not only implies the group delay being a relevant quantity even in the condensed matter context, but also provides an experimental evidence for the intrinsic effect of the GH shift. Finally, we revisit the 2D Hartman effect, a central issue of the group delay, by analytically solving it via the vested relation and calculating the proposed observable at the Dirac point.Comment: 12 preprint pages and 6 figure

Negative differential resistances with back gate-controlled lowest operation windows in graphene double barrier resonant tunneling diodes

We theoretically investigate negative differential resistance (NDR) of massless and massive Dirac Fermions in double barrier resonant tunneling diodes based on sufficiently short and wide graphene strips. The current-voltage characteristics calculated in a rotated pseudospin space show that, the NDR feature only presents with appropriate structural parameters for the massless case and the peak-to-valley current ratio can be enhanced exponentially by a tunable band gap. Remarkably, the lowest NDR operation window is nearly structure-free and can be almost solely controlled by a back gate, which may have potential applications in NDR devices with the operation window as a crucial parameter.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Nonparametric and adaptive modeling of dynamic seasonality and trend with heteroscedastic and dependent errors

Seasonality (or periodicity) and trend are features describing an observed sequence, and extracting these features is an important issue in many scientific fields. However, it is not an easy task for existing methods to analyze simultaneously the trend and {\it dynamics} of the seasonality such as time-varying frequency and amplitude, and the {\it adaptivity} of the analysis to such dynamics and robustness to heteroscedastic, dependent errors is not guaranteed. These tasks become even more challenging when there exist multiple seasonal components. We propose a nonparametric model to describe the dynamics of multi-component seasonality, and investigate the recently developed Synchrosqueezing transform (SST) in extracting these features in the presence of a trend and heteroscedastic, dependent errors. The identifiability problem of the nonparametric seasonality model is studied, and the adaptivity and robustness properties of the SST are theoretically justified in both discrete- and continuous-time settings. Consequently we have a new technique for de-coupling the trend, seasonality and heteroscedastic, dependent error process in a general nonparametric setup. Results of a series of simulations are provided, and the incidence time series of varicella and herpes zoster in Taiwan and respiratory signals observed from a sleep study are analyzed

Geometric Steering Criterion for Two-qubit States

According to the geometric characterization of measurement assemblages and local hidden state (LHS) models, we propose a steering criterion which is both necessary and sufficient for two-qubit states under arbitrary measurement sets. A quantity is introduced to describe the required local resources to reconstruct a measurement assemblage for two-qubit states. We show that the quantity can be regarded as a quantification of steerability and be used to find out optimal LHS models. Finally we propose a method to generate unsteerable states, and construct some two-qubit states which are entangled but unsteerable under all projective measurements

Characterizing Nonlocal Correlations via Universal Uncertainty Relations

Characterization and certification of nonlocal correlations is one of the the central topics in quantum information theory. In this work, we develop the detection methods of entanglement and steering based on the universal uncertainty relations and fine-grained uncertainty relations. In the course of our study, the uncertainty relations are formulated in majorization form, and the uncertainty quantifier can be chosen as any convex Schur concave functions, this leads to a large set of inequalities, including all existing criteria based on entropies. We address the question that if all steerable states (or entangled states) can be witnessed by some uncertainty-based inequality, we find that for pure states and many important families of states, this is the case

Monogamy Relation in No-disturbance Theories

The monogamy is a fundamental property of Bell nonlocality and contextuality. In this article, we studied the $n$-cycle noncontextual inequalities and generalized CHSH inequalities in detail and found the sufficient conditions for those inequalities to be hold. According to those conditions, we provide several kind of tradeoff relations: monogamy of generalized Bell inequalities in non-signaling framework, monogamy of cycle type noncontextual inequalities and monogamy between Bell inequality and noncontextual inequality in general no-disturbance framework. At last, some generic tradeoff relations of generalized CHSH inequalities for $n$-party physical systems, which are beyond one-to-many scenario, are discussed

Geometric Local Hidden State Model for Some Two-qubit States

Adopting the geometric description of steering assemblages and local hidden states (LHS) model, we construct the optimal LHS model for some two-qubit states under continuous projective measurements, and obtain a sufficient steering criterion for all two-qubit states. Using the criterion, we show more two-qubit states that are asymmetric in steering scenario under projective measurements. Then we generalize the geometric description into higher dimensional bipartite cases, calculate the steering bound of two-qutrit isotropic states and make discussion on more general cases

Hierarchy of Genuine Multipartite Quantum Correlations

Classifying states which exhibiting different statistical correlations is among the most important problems in quantum information science and quantum many-body physics. In bipartite case, there is a clear hierarchy of states with different correlations: total correlation (T) $\supsetneq$ discord (D) $\supsetneq$ entanglement (E) $\supsetneq$ steering (S) $\supsetneq$ Bell~nonlocality (NL). However, very little is known about genuine multipartite correlations (GM$\mathcal{C}$) for both conceptual and technical difficulties. In this work, we show that, for any $N$-partite qudit states, there also exist such a hierarchy: genuine multipartite total correlations (GMT) $\supseteq$ genuine multipartite discord (GMD) $\supseteq$ genuine multipartite entanglement (GME) $\supseteq$ genuine multipartite steering (GMS) $\supseteq$ genuine multipartite nonlocality (GMNL). Furthermore, by constructing precise states, we show that GMT, GME and GMS are inequivalent with each other, thus GMT $\supsetneq$ GME $\supsetneq$ GMS

Entropic No-Disturbance as a Physical Principle

The celebrated Bell-Kochen-Specker no-go theorem asserts that quantum mechanics does not present the property of realism, the essence of the theorem is the lack of a joint probability distributions for some experiment settings. In this work, we exploit the information theoretic form of the theorem using information measure instead of probabilistic measure and indicate that quantum mechanics does not present such entropic realism neither. The entropic form of Gleason's no-disturbance principle is developed and it turns out to be characterized by the intersection of several entropic cones. Entropic contextuality and entropic nonlocality are investigated in depth in this framework. We show how one can construct monogamy relations using entropic cone and basic Shannon-type inequalities. The general criterion for several entropic tests to be monogamous is also developed, using the criterion, we demonstrate that entropic nonlocal correlations are monogamous, entropic contextuality tests are monogamous and entropic nonlocality and entropic contextuality are also monogamous. Finally, we analyze the entropic monogamy relations for multiparty and many-test case, which plays a crucial role in quantum network communication