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Achim Kempf

Publications and source records attributed to Achim Kempf.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources
arXiv2017

A robust generalization of the Legendre transform for QFT

Although perturbative quantum field theory is highly successful, it possesses a number of well-known analytic problems, from ultraviolet and infrared divergencies to the divergence of the perturbative expansion itself. As a consequence, it has been difficult, for example, to prove with full rigor that the Legendre transform of the quantum effective action is the generating functional of connected graphs. Here, we give a rigorous proof of this central fact. To this end, we show that the Legendre transform can be re-defined purely combinatorially and that it ultimately reduces to a simple homological relation, the Euler characteristic for tree graphs. This result suggests that, similarly, also the quantum field theoretic path integral, being a Fourier transform, may be reducible to an underlying purely algebraic structure.

hep-th↗
arXiv2017

Towards Spectral Geometry for Causal Sets

We show that the Feynman propagator (or the d'Alembertian) of a causal set contains the complete information about the causal set. Intuitively, this is because the Feynman propagator, being a correlator that decays with distance, provides a measure for the invariant distance between pairs of events. Further, we show that even the spectra alone (of the self-adjoint and anti-self-adjoint parts) of the propagator(s) and d'Alembertian already carry large amounts of geometric information about their causal set. This geometric information is basis independent and also gauge invariant in the sense that it is relabeling invariant (which is analogue to diffeomorphism invariance). We provide numerical evidence that the associated spectral distance between causal sets can serve as a measure for the geometric similarity between causal sets.

hep-th↗
arXiv2017

Correlation-Enhanced Algorithmic Cooling

We propose a method for increasing purity of interacting quantum systems that takes advantage of correlations present due to the internal interaction. In particular we show that by using the system's quantum correlations one can achieve cooling beyond established limits of previous conventional algorithmic cooling proposals which assume no interaction.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2016

New methods for creating superoscillations

Superoscillating functions, i.e., functions that locally oscillate at a rate faster than their highest Fourier component, are of interest for applications from fundamental physics to engineering. Here, we develop a new method which allows one to construct superoscillations of arbitrarily high frequency and arbitrarily long duration in a computationally efficient way. We also present a method for constructing non-singular Schrödinger potentials whose ground state is a superoscillating wave function.

math-ph↗
arXiv2016

Universal scheme for indirect quantum control

We consider a bipartite quantum object, composed of a quantum system and a quantum actuator which is periodically reset. We show that the reduced dynamics of the system approaches unitarity as the reset frequency of the actuator is increased. This phenomenon arises because quantum systems interacting for a short time can impact each other faster than they can become significantly entangled. In the high reset-frequency limit, the effective Hamiltonian describing the system's unitary evolution depends on the state to which the actuator is reset. This makes it possible to indirectly implement a continuous family of effective Hamiltonians on one part of a bipartite quantum object, thereby reducing the problem of indirect control (via a quantum actuator) to the well-studied one of direct quantum control.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2016

Towards Spectral Geometric Methods for Euclidean Quantum Gravity

The unification of general relativity with quantum theory will also require a coming together of the two quite different mathematical languages of general relativity and quantum theory, i.e., of differential geometry and functional analysis respectively. Of particular interest in this regard is the field of spectral geometry, which studies to which extent the shape of a Riemannian manifold is describable in terms of the spectra of differential operators defined on the manifold. Spectral geometry is hard because it is highly nonlinear, but linearized spectral geometry, i.e., the task to determine small shape changes from small spectral changes, is much more tractable, and may be iterated to approximate the full problem. Here, we generalize this approach, allowing, in particular, non-equal finite numbers of shape and spectral degrees of freedom. This allows us to study how well the shape degrees of freedom are encoded in the eigenvalues. We apply this strategy numerically to a class of planar domains and find that the reconstruction of small shape changes from small spectral changes is possible if enough eigenvalues are used. While isospectral non-isometric shapes are known to exist, we find evidence that generically shaped isospectral non-isometric shapes, if existing, are exceedingly rare.

math-ph↗
arXiv2016

Renormalized Unruh-DeWitt Particle Detector Models for Boson and Fermion Fields

Since quantum field theories do not possess proper position observables, Unruh-DeWitt detector models serve as a key theoretical tool for extracting localized spatio-temporal information from quantum fields. Most studies have been limited, however, to Unruh-DeWitt (UDW) detectors that are coupled linearly to a scalar bosonic field. Here, we investigate UDW detector models that probe fermionic as well as bosonic fields through both linear and quadratic couplings. In particular, we present a renormalization method that cures persistent divergencies of prior models. We then show how perturbative calculations with UDW detectors can be streamlined through the use of extended Feynman rules that include localized detector-field interactions.Our findings pave the way for the extension of previous studies of the Unruh and Hawking effects with UDW detectors, and provide new tools for studies in relativistic quantum information, for example, regarding relativistic quantum communication and studies of the entanglement structure of the fermionic vacuum.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2015

Scaling Properties of Superoscillations and the Extension to Periodic Signals

Superoscillatory wave forms, i.e., waves that locally oscillate faster than their highest Fourier component, possess unusual properties that make them of great interest from quantum mechanics to signal processing. However, the more pronounced the desired superoscillatory behavior is to be, the more difficult it becomes to produce, or even only calculate, such highly fine-tuned wave forms in practice. Here, we investigate how this sensitivity to preparation errors scales for a method for constructing superoscillatory functions which is optimal in the sense that it minimizes the energetic expense. We thereby also arrive at very accurate approximations of functions which are so highly superoscillatory that they cannot be calculated numerically. We then investigate to what extent the scaling and sensitivity results for superoscillatory functions on the real line extend to the experimentally important case of superoscillatory functions that are periodic.

math-ph↗
arXiv2015

Asymptotically Limitless Quantum Energy Teleportation via Qudit Probes

We propose a modified Quantum Energy Teleportation (QET) scheme that uses arbitrary-dimensional qudit probes and polynomially localized Hamiltonians. We find that with an appropriate scaling of parameters, the teleported energy scales with the teleportation distance more favourably than the non-local tails of the Hamiltonians. We show that by allowing the exchange of arbitrary amounts of information between agents and in a suitable limit, an arbitrarily large amount of energy can be teleported through a massless quantum field.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2015

Driving Quantum Systems with Superoscillations

Superoscillations, i.e., the phenomenon that a bandlimited function can temporary oscillate faster than its highest Fourier component, are being much discussed for their potential for `superresolution' beyond the diffraction limit. Here, we consider systems that are driven with a time dependence that is off-resonance for the system, in the Fourier sense. We show that superoscillating sources can temporarily induce resonance during the period when the source is behaving superoscillatory. This observation poses the question as to how the system `undoes' the `false resonance' after the full source has acted and its band limitation is apparent. We discuss several examples of systems which might be capable of distilling the temporary excitation through some non-harmonic effects, such as dissipation or dispersion at high frequencies, opening up the possibility of low frequency detection of `fast' microphysics through superoscillations. We conclude that, either superoscillations really can beat the bandlimit and achieve superresolution (`kinematic superresolution') or the superoscillating high frequency is absorbed and we gain dynamical access to the physics of high frequency processes with low frequency signals (`dynamical superresolution').

quant-ph↗
arXiv2015

Spacetime Curvature in terms of Scalar Field Propagators

We show how quantum fields can be used to measure the curvature of spacetime. In particular, we find that knowledge of the imprint that spacetime curvature leaves in the correlators of quantum fields suffices, in principle, to reconstruct the metric. We then consider the possibility that the quantum fields obey a natural ultraviolet cutoff, for example, at the Planck scale. We investigate how such a cutoff limits the spatial resolution with which curvature can be deduced from the properties of quantum fields. We find that the metric deduced from the quantum correlator exhibits a peculiar scaling behavior as the scale of the natural UV cutoff is approached.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2015

Locality and entanglement in bandlimited quantum field theory

We consider a model for a Planck scale ultraviolet cutoff which is based on Shannon sampling. Shannon sampling originated in information theory, where it expresses the equivalence of continuous and discrete representations of information. When applied to quantum field theory, Shannon sampling expresses a hard ultraviolet cutoff in the form of a bandlimitation. This introduces nonlocality at the cutoff scale in a way that is more subtle than a simple discretization of space: quantum fields can then be represented as either living on continuous space or, entirely equivalently, as living on any one lattice whose average spacing is sufficiently small. We explicitly calculate vacuum entanglement entropies in 1+1 dimension and we find a transition between logarithmic and linear scaling of the entropy, which is the expected 1+1 dimensional analog of the transition from an area to a volume law. We also use entanglement entropy and mutual information as measures to probe in detail the localizability of the field degrees of freedom. We find that, even though neither translation nor rotation invariance are broken, each field degree of freedom occupies an incompressible volume of space, indicating a finite information density.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2015

How to (Path-) Integrate by Differentiating

Recently, it was found that a new set of simple techniques allow one to conveniently express ordinary integrals through differentiation. These techniques add to the general toolbox for integration and integral transforms such as the Fourier and Laplace transforms. The new methods also yield new perturbative expansions when the integrals cannot be solved analytically. Here, we add new results, for example, on expressing the Laplace transform and its inverse in terms of derivatives. The new methods can be used to express path integrals in terms of functional differentiation, and they also suggest new perturbative expansions in quantum field theory.

math-ph↗
arXiv2015

Information transmission without energy exchange

We show that it is possible to use a massless field in the vacuum to communicate in such a way that the signal travels arbitrarily slower than the speed of light and such that no energy is transmitted from the sender to the receiver. Instead, the receiver has to supply a signal-dependent amount of work to switch his detector on and off. Because of that, this kind of communication without energy exchange may be called "Quantum Collect Calling". This type of communication is related to Casimir-like interactions and it is made possible by dimension ---and curvature--- dependent subtleties of Huygens' principle.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2014

New Dirac Delta function based methods with applications to perturbative expansions in quantum field theory

We derive new all-purpose methods that involve the Dirac Delta distribution. Some of the new methods use derivatives in the argument of the Dirac Delta. We highlight potential avenues for applications to quantum field theory and we also exhibit a connection to the problem of blurring/deblurring in signal processing. We find that blurring, which can be thought of as a result of multi-path evolution, is, in Euclidean quantum field theory without spontaneous symmetry breaking, the strong coupling dual of the usual small coupling expansion in terms of the sum over Feynman graphs.

math-ph↗
arXiv2014

Quantum Seismology

We propose a quantum mechanical method of detecting weak vibrational disturbances inspired by the protocol of entanglement farming. We consider a setup where pairs of atoms in their ground state are successively sent through an optical cavity. It is known that in this way it is possible to drive that cavity toward a stable fixed-point state. Here we study how that fixed-point state depends on the time interval between pairs of atoms and on the distance between the cavity's mirrors. Taking advantage of an extremely precise resonance effect, we find that there are special values of these parameters where the fixed-point state is highly sensitive to perturbations, even harmonic vibrations with frequencies several orders of magnitude below the cavity's natural frequency. We propose that this sensitivity may be useful for high precision metrology.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2014

Casimir forces on atoms in optical cavities

Casimir-type forces, such as those between two neutral conducting plates, or between a sphere, atom or molecule and a plate have been widely studied and are becoming of increasing significance, for example, in nanotechnology. A key challenge is to better understand, from a fundamental microscopic approach, why the Casimir force is in some circumstances attractive and in others repulsive. Here, we study the Casimir-Polder forces experienced by small quantum systems such as atoms or molecules in an optical cavity. In order to make the problem more tractable, we work in a 1+1 dimensional setting, we take into account only the ground state and first excited state of the atom and we model the electromagnetic field as a scalar field with Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions. This allows us to determine the conditions for the Casimir force to be attractive or repulsive for individual atoms, namely through the interplay of paramagnetic and diamagnetic vacuum effects. We also study the microscopic-macroscopic transition, finding that as the number of atoms in the cavity is increased, the atoms start to affect the Casimir force exerted on the cavity walls similarly to a dielectric medium.

quant-ph↗