Optimal entanglement generation in cavity QED with dissipation

We investigate a two-level atom coupled to a cavity with a strong classical driving field in a dissipative environment and find an analytical expression of the time evolution density matrix for the system. The analytical density operator is then used to study the entanglement between the atom and cavity by considering the competing process between the atom-field interactions and the field-environment interactions. It is shown that there is an optimal interaction time for generating atom-cavity entanglement.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Strong stability of Nash equilibria in load balancing games

We study strong stability of Nash equilibria in the load balancing games of m (m >= 2) identical servers, in which every job chooses one of the m servers and each job wishes to minimize its cost, given by the workload of the server it chooses. A Nash equilibrium (NE) is a strategy profile that is resilient to unilateral deviations. Finding an NE in such a game is simple. However, an NE assignment is not stable against coordinated deviations of several jobs, while a strong Nash equilibrium (SNE) is. We study how well an NE approximates an SNE. Given any job assignment in a load balancing game, the improvement ratio (IR) of a deviation of a job is defined as the ratio between the pre-and post-deviation costs. An NE is said to be a ρ-approximate SNE (ρ >= 1) if there is no coalition of jobs such that each job of the coalition will have an IR more than ρ from coordinated deviations of the coalition. While it is already known that NEs are the same as SNEs in the 2-server load balancing game, we prove that, in the m-server load balancing game for any given m >= 3, any NE is a (5=4)-approximate SNE, which together with the lower bound already established in the literature implies that the approximation bound is tight. This closes the final gap in the literature on the study of approximation of general NEs to SNEs in the load balancing games. To establish our upper bound, we apply with novelty a powerful graph-theoretic tool

Robustness of Quantum Spin Hall Effect in an External Magnetic Field

The edge states in the quantum spin Hall effect are expected to be protected by time reversal symmetry. The experimental observation of the quantized conductance was reported in the InAs/GaSb quantum well {[}Du et al, arXiv:1306.1925{]}, up to a large magnetic field, which raises a question on the robustness of the edge states in the quantum spin Hall effect under time reversal symmetry breaking. Here we present a theoretical calculation on topological invariants for the Benevig-Hughes-Zhang model in an external magnetic field, and find that the quantum spin Hall effect retains robust up to a large magnetic field. The critical value of the magnetic field breaking the quantum spin Hall effect is dominantly determined by the band gap at the $\Gamma$ point instead of the indirect band gap between the conduction and valence bands. This illustrates that the quantum spin Hall effect could persist even under time reversal symmetry breaking.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Linear magnetoconductivity in an intrinsic topological Weyl semimetal

Searching for the signature of the violation of chiral charge conservation in solids has inspired a growing passion on the magneto-transport in topological semimetals. One of the open questions is how the conductivity depends on magnetic fields in a semimetal phase when the Fermi energy crosses the Weyl nodes. Here, we study both the longitudinal and transverse magnetoconductivity of a topological Weyl semimetal near the Weyl nodes with the help of a two-node model that includes all the topological semimetal properties. In the semimetal phase, the Fermi energy crosses only the 0th Landau bands in magnetic fields. For a finite potential range of impurities, it is found that both the longitudinal and transverse magnetoconductivity are positive and linear at the Weyl nodes, leading to an anisotropic and negative magnetoresistivity. The longitudinal magnetoconductivity depends on the potential range of impurities. The longitudinal conductivity remains finite at zero field, even though the density of states vanishes at the Weyl nodes. This work establishes a relation between the linear magnetoconductivity and the intrinsic topological Weyl semimetal phase.Comment: An extended version accepted by New. J. Phys. with 15 pages and 3 figure

High-field magnetoconductivity of topological semimetals with short-range potential

Weyl semimetals are three-dimensional topological states of matter, in a sense that they host paired monopoles and antimonopoles of Berry curvature in momentum space, leading to the chiral anomaly. The chiral anomaly has long been believed to give a positive magnetoconductivity or negative magnetoresistivity in strong and parallel fields. However, several recent experiments on both Weyl and Dirac topological semimetals show a negative magnetoconductivity in high fields. Here, we study the magnetoconductivity of Weyl and Dirac semimetals in the presence of short-range scattering potentials. In a strong magnetic field applied along the direction that connects two Weyl nodes, we find that the conductivity along the field direction is determined by the Fermi velocity, instead of by the Landau degeneracy. We identify three scenarios in which the high-field magnetoconductivity is negative. Our findings show that the high-field positive magnetoconductivity may not be a compelling signature of the chiral anomaly and will be helpful for interpreting the inconsistency in the recent experiments and earlier theories.Comment: An extended version accepted by Phys. Rev. B, with 11 pages and 4 figure

Edge states and integer quantum Hall effect in topological insulator thin films

The integer quantum Hall effect is a topological state of quantum matter in two dimensions, and has recently been observed in three-dimensional topological insulator thin films. Here we study the Landau levels and edge states of surface Dirac fermions in topological insulators under strong magnetic field. We examine the formation of the quantum plateaux of the Hall conductance and find two different patterns, in one pattern the filling number covers all integers while only odd integers in the other. We focus on the quantum plateau closest to zero energy and demonstrate the breakdown of the quantum spin Hall effect resulting from structure inversion asymmetry. The phase diagrams of the quantum Hall states are presented as functions of magnetic field, gate voltage and chemical potential. This work establishes an intuitive picture of the edge states to understand the integer quantum Hall effect for Dirac electrons in topological insulator thin films.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

Appearance of the universal value e2/he^{2}/h of the zero-bias conductance in a Weyl semimetal-superconductor junction

We study the differential conductance of a time-reversal symmetric Weyl semimetal-superconductor (N-S) junction with an s-wave superconducting state. We find that there exists an extended regime where the zero-bias differential conductance acquires the universal value $e^{2}/h$ per unit channel, independent of the pairing and chemical potentials on each side of the junction, due to a perfect cancellation of Andreev and normal reflection contributions. This universal conductance can be attributed to the interplay of the unique spin/orbital-momentum locking and s-wave pairing that couples Weyl nodes of the same chirality. We expect that the universal conductance can serve as a robust and distinct signature for time-reversal symmetric Weyl fermions, and be observed in the recently discovered time-reversal symmetric Weyl semimetals.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure