Dynamical formation and manipulation of Majorana fermions in driven quantum wires

Controlling the dynamics of Majorana fermions (MF) subject to time-varying driving fields is of fundamental importance for the practical realization of topological quantum computing. In this work we study how it is possible to dynamically generate and maintain the topological phase in one-dimensional superconducting nanowires after the temporal variation of the Hamiltonian parameters. Remarkably we show that for a sudden quench the system can never relax towards a state exhibiting fully developed MF, independently of the initial and final Hamiltonians. Only for sufficiently slow protocols the system behaves adiabatically, and the topological phase can be reached. Finally we address the crucial question of how "adiabatic" a protocol must be in order to manipulate the MF inside the topological phase without deteriorating their Majorana character.Comment: 5 pages, 4 eps figure

Adiabatic approximation in the second quantized formulation

Recently there have been some controversies about the criterion of the adiabatic approximation. It is shown that an approximate diagonalization of the effective Hamiltonian in the second quantized formulation gives rise to a reliable and unambiguous criterion of the adiabatic approximation. This is illustrated for the model of Marzlin and Sanders and a model related to the geometric phase which can be exactly diagonalized in the present sense.Comment: 16 page

Adiabatic Quantum Computation with a 1D projector Hamiltonian

Adiabatic quantum computation is based on the adiabatic evolution of quantum systems. We analyse a particular class of qauntum adiabatic evolutions where either the initial or final Hamiltonian is a one-dimensional projector Hamiltonian on the corresponding ground state. The minimum energy gap which governs the time required for a successful evolution is shown to be proportional to the overlap of the ground states of the initial and final Hamiltonians. We show that such evolutions exhibit a rapid crossover as the ground state changes abruptly near the transition point where the energy gap is minimum. Furthermore, a faster evolution can be obtained by performing a partial adiabatic evolution within a narrow interval around the transition point. These results generalize and quantify earlier works.Comment: revised versio

Adiabatic Rotation, Quantum Search and Preparation of Superposition States

We introduce the idea of using adiabatic rotation to generate superpositions of a large class of quantum states. For quantum computing this is an interesting alternative to the well-studied "straight line" adiabatic evolution. In ways that complement recent results, we show how to efficiently prepare three types of states: Kitaev's toric code state, the cluster state of the measurement-based computation model and the history state used in the adiabatic simulation of quantum circuit. We also show that the method, when adapted for quantum search, provides quadratic speedup as other optimal methods do with the advantages that the problem Hamiltonian is time-independent and that the energy gap above the ground state is strictly nondecreasing with time. Likewise the method can be used for optimization as an alternative to the usual adiabatic algorithm.Comment: Expanded to 6 pages; Accepted by Phys. Rev.

The Adiabatic Theorem for Quantum Systems with Spectral Degeneracy

By stating the adiabatic theorem of quantum mechanics in a clear and rigorous way, we establish a necessary condition and a sufficient condition for its validity, where the latter is obtained employing our recently developed adiabatic perturbation theory. Also, we simplify further the sufficient condition into a useful and simple practical test at the expenses of its mathematical rigor. We present results for the most general case of quantum systems, i.e., those with degenerate energy spectra. These conditions are of upmost importance to assess the validity of practical implementations of non-Abelian braiding and adiabatic quantum computation. To illustrate the degenerate adiabatic approximation, and the necessary and sufficient conditions for its validity, we analyze in depth an exactly solvable time-dependent degenerate problem.Comment: 4 pages, no figures, RevTex4-1; v2: published versio

Adiabatic Product Expansion

The time-evolution operator for an explicitly time-dependent Hamiltonian is expressed as the product of a sequence of unitary operators. These are obtained by successive time-dependent unitary transformations of the Hilbert space followed by the adiabatic approximation at each step. The resulting adiabatic product expansion yields a generalization of the quantum adiabatic approximation. Furthermore, it leads to an infinite class of exactly solvable models.Comment: uuencoded LaTeX file, 8 page

Relativistic Comparison Theorems

Comparison theorems are established for the Dirac and Klein--Gordon equations. We suppose that V^{(1)}(r) and V^{(2)}(r) are two real attractive central potentials in d dimensions that support discrete Dirac eigenvalues E^{(1)}_{k_d\nu} and E^{(2)}_{k_d\nu}. We prove that if V^{(1)}(r) \leq V^{(2)}(r), then each of the corresponding discrete eigenvalue pairs is ordered E^{(1)}_{k_d\nu} \leq E^{(2)}_{k_d\nu}. This result generalizes an earlier more restrictive theorem that required the wave functions to be node free. For the the Klein--Gordon equation, similar reasoning also leads to a comparison theorem provided in this case that the potentials are negative and the eigenvalues are positive.Comment: 6 page

Quantum adiabatic optimization and combinatorial landscapes

In this paper we analyze the performance of the Quantum Adiabatic Evolution algorithm on a variant of Satisfiability problem for an ensemble of random graphs parametrized by the ratio of clauses to variables, $\gamma=M/N$. We introduce a set of macroscopic parameters (landscapes) and put forward an ansatz of universality for random bit flips. We then formulate the problem of finding the smallest eigenvalue and the excitation gap as a statistical mechanics problem. We use the so-called annealing approximation with a refinement that a finite set of macroscopic variables (versus only energy) is used, and are able to show the existence of a dynamic threshold $\gamma=\gamma_d$ starting with some value of K -- the number of variables in each clause. Beyond dynamic threshold, the algorithm should take exponentially long time to find a solution. We compare the results for extended and simplified sets of landscapes and provide numerical evidence in support of our universality ansatz. We have been able to map the ensemble of random graphs onto another ensemble with fluctuations significantly reduced. This enabled us to obtain tight upper bounds on satisfiability transition and to recompute the dynamical transition using the extended set of landscapes.Comment: 41 pages, 10 figures; added a paragraph on paper's organization to the introduction, fixed reference

Adiabatic Perturbation Theory and Geometric Phases for Degenerate Systems

We introduce an adiabatic perturbation theory for quantum systems with degenerate energy spectra. This perturbative series enables one to rigorously establish conditions for the validity of the adiabatic theorem of quantum mechanics for degenerate systems. The same formalism can be used to find non-adiabatic corrections to the non-Abelian Wilczek-Zee geometric phase. These corrections are relevant to assess the validity of the practical implementation of the concept of fractional exchange statistics. We illustrate the formalism by exactly solving a time-dependent problem and comparing its solution to the perturbative one.Comment: 5 pages, no figures, RevTex4; v2: published versio

Adiabatic quantum state transfer in non-uniform triple-quantum-dot system

We introduce an adiabatic quantum state transfer scheme in a non-uniform coupled triple-quantum-dot system. By adiabatically varying the external gate voltage applied on the sender and receiver, the electron can be transferred between them with high fidelity. By numerically solving the master equation for a system with always-on interaction, it is indicated that the transfer fidelity depends on the ration between the peak voltage and the maximum coupling constants. The effect of coupling mismatch on the transfer fidelity is also investigated and it is shown that there is a relatively large tolerance range to permit high fidelity quantum state transfer.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure