arXiv subjects

Alexey V. Gorshkov

Publications and source records attributed to Alexey V. Gorshkov.

At least 163 records · Page 9Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Heisenberg-Scaling Measurement Protocol for Analytic Functions with Quantum Sensor Networks

We generalize past work on quantum sensor networks to show that, for $d$ input parameters, entanglement can yield a factor $\mathcal O(d)$ improvement in mean squared error when estimating an analytic function of these parameters. We show that the protocol is optimal for qubit sensors, and conjecture an optimal protocol for photons passing through interferometers. Our protocol is also applicable to continuous variable measurements, such as one quadrature of a field operator. We outline a few potential applications, including calibration of laser operations in trapped ion quantum computing.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Symmetry breaking and error correction in open quantum systems

Symmetry-breaking transitions are a well-understood phenomenon of closed quantum systems in quantum optics, condensed matter, and high energy physics. However, symmetry breaking in open systems is less thoroughly understood, in part due to the richer steady-state and symmetry structure that such systems possess. For the prototypical open system---a Lindbladian---a unitary symmetry can be imposed in a "weak" or a "strong" way. We characterize the possible $\mathbb{Z}_n$ symmetry breaking transitions for both cases. In the case of $\mathbb{Z}_2$, a weak-symmetry-broken phase guarantees at most a classical bit steady-state structure, while a strong-symmetry-broken phase admits a partially-protected steady-state qubit. Viewing photonic cat qubits through the lens of strong-symmetry breaking, we show how to dynamically recover the logical information after any gap-preserving strong-symmetric error; such recovery becomes perfect exponentially quickly in the number of photons. Our study forges a connection between driven-dissipative phase transitions and error correction.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Quantum Computer Systems for Scientific Discovery

The great promise of quantum computers comes with the dual challenges of building them and finding their useful applications. We argue that these two challenges should be considered together, by co-designing full-stack quantum computer systems along with their applications in order to hasten their development and potential for scientific discovery. In this context, we identify scientific and community needs, opportunities, a sampling of a few use case studies, and significant challenges for the development of quantum computers for science over the next 2--10 years. This document is written by a community of university, national laboratory, and industrial researchers in the field of Quantum Information Science and Technology, and is based on a summary from a U.S. National Science Foundation workshop on Quantum Computing held on October 21--22, 2019 in Alexandria, VA.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Real-time dynamics of string breaking in quantum spin chains

String breaking is a central dynamical process in theories featuring confinement, where a string connecting two charges decays at the expense of the creation of new particle-antiparticle pairs. Here, we show that this process can also be observed in quantum Ising chains where domain walls get confined either by a symmetry-breaking field or by long-range interactions. We find that string breaking occurs, in general, as a two-stage process: First, the initial charges remain essentially static and stable. The connecting string, however, can become a dynamical object. We develop an effective description of this motion, which we find is strongly constrained. In the second stage, which can be severely delayed due to these dynamical constraints, the string finally breaks. We observe that the associated time scale can depend crucially on the initial separation between domain walls and can grow by orders of magnitude by changing the distance by just a few lattice sites. We discuss how our results generalize to one-dimensional confining gauge theories and how they can be made accessible in quantum simulator experiments such as Rydberg atoms or trapped ions.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2020

Realizing and Probing Baryonic Excitations in Rydberg Atom Arrays

We propose a realization of mesonic and baryonic quasiparticle excitations in Rydberg atom arrays with programmable interactions. Recent experiments have shown that such systems possess a $\mathbb{Z}_3$-ordered crystalline phase whose low-energy quasiparticles are defects in the crystalline order. By engineering a $\mathbb{Z}_3$-translational-symmetry breaking field on top of the Rydberg-blockaded Hamiltonian, we show that different types of defects experience confinement, and as a consequence form mesonic or baryonic quasiparticle excitations. We illustrate the formation of these quasiparticles by studying a quantum chiral clock model related to the Rydberg Hamiltonian. We then propose an experimental protocol involving out-of-equilibrium dynamics to directly probe the spectrum of the confined excitations. We show that the confined quasiparticle spectrum can limit quantum information spreading in this system. This proposal is readily applicable to current Rydberg experiments, and the method can be easily generalized to more complex confined excitations (e.g. `tetraquarks', `pentaquarks') in phases with $\mathbb{Z}_q$ order for $q>3$.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2020

Implementing a Fast Unbounded Quantum Fanout Gate Using Power-Law Interactions

The standard circuit model for quantum computation presumes the ability to directly perform gates between arbitrary pairs of qubits, which is unlikely to be practical for large-scale experiments. Power-law interactions with strength decaying as $1/r^α$ in the distance $r$ provide an experimentally realizable resource for information processing, whilst still retaining long-range connectivity. We leverage the power of these interactions to implement a fast quantum fanout gate with an arbitrary number of targets. Our implementation allows the quantum Fourier transform (QFT) and Shor's algorithm to be performed on a $D$-dimensional lattice in time logarithmic in the number of qubits for interactions with $α\le D$. As a corollary, we show that power-law systems with $α\le D$ are difficult to simulate classically even for short times, under a standard assumption that factoring is classically intractable. Complementarily, we develop a new technique to give a general lower bound, linear in the size of the system, on the time required to implement the QFT and the fanout gate in systems that are constrained by a linear light cone. This allows us to prove an asymptotically tighter lower bound for long-range systems than is possible with previously available techniques.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Critical Theory for the Breakdown of Photon Blockade

Photon blockade is the result of the interplay between the quantized nature of light and strong optical nonlinearities, whereby strong photon-photon repulsion prevents a quantum optical system from absorbing multiple photons. We theoretically study a single atom coupled to the light field, described by the resonantly driven Jaynes--Cummings model, in which case the photon blockade breaks down in a second order phase transition at a critical drive strength. We show that this transition is associated to the spontaneous breaking of an anti-unitary PT-symmetry. Within a semiclassical approximation we calculate the expectation values of observables in the steady state. We then move beyond the semiclassical approximation and approach the critical point from the disordered (blockaded) phase by reducing the Lindblad quantum master equation to a classical rate equation that we solve. The width of the steady-state distribution in Fock space is found to diverge as we approach the critical point with a simple power-law, allowing us to calculate the critical scaling of steady state observables without invoking mean-field theory. We propose a simple physical toy model for biased diffusion in the space of occupation numbers, which captures the universal properties of the steady state. We list several experimental platforms where this phenomenon may be observed.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Asymmetric blockade and multi-qubit gates via dipole-dipole interactions

Due to their strong and tunable interactions, Rydberg atoms can be used to realize fast two-qubit entangling gates. We propose a generalization of a generic two-qubit Rydberg-blockade gate to multi-qubit Rydberg-blockade gates which involve both many control qubits and many target qubits simultaneously. This is achieved by using strong microwave fields to dress nearby Rydberg states, leading to asymmetric blockade in which control-target interactions are much stronger than control-control and target-target interactions. The implementation of these multi-qubit gates can drastically simplify both quantum algorithms and state preparation. To illustrate this, we show that a 25-atom GHZ state can be created using only three gates with an error of 7.8%.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Complexity phase diagram for interacting and long-range bosonic Hamiltonians

We classify phases of a bosonic lattice model based on the computational complexity of classically simulating the system. We show that the system transitions from being classically simulable to classically hard to simulate as it evolves in time, extending previous results to include on-site number-conserving interactions and long-range hopping. Specifically, we construct a "complexity phase diagram" with "easy" and "hard" phases, and derive analytic bounds on the location of the phase boundary with respect to the evolution time and the degree of locality. We find that the location of the phase transition is intimately related to upper bounds on the spread of quantum correlations and protocols to transfer quantum information. Remarkably, although the location of the transition point is unchanged by on-site interactions, the nature of the transition point changes dramatically. Specifically, we find that there are two kinds of transitions, sharp and coarse, broadly corresponding to interacting and noninteracting bosons, respectively. Our work motivates future studies of complexity in many-body systems and its interplay with the associated physical phenomena.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Hilbert-Space Fragmentation from Strict Confinement

We study one-dimensional spin-1/2 models in which strict confinement of Ising domain walls leads to the fragmentation of Hilbert space into exponentially many disconnected subspaces. Whereas most previous works emphasize dipole moment conservation as an essential ingredient for such fragmentation, we instead require two commuting U(1) conserved quantities associated with the total domain-wall number and the total magnetization. The latter arises naturally from the confinement of domain walls. Remarkably, while some connected components of the Hilbert space thermalize, others are integrable by Bethe ansatz. We further demonstrate how this Hilbert-space fragmentation pattern arises perturbatively in the confining limit of $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge theory coupled to fermionic matter, leading to a hierarchy of time scales for motion of the fermions. This model can be realized experimentally in two complementary settings.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2020

Classical Models of Entanglement in Monitored Random Circuits

The evolution of entanglement entropy in quantum circuits composed of Haar-random gates and projective measurements shows versatile behavior, with connections to phase transitions and complexity theory. We reformulate the problem in terms of a classical Markov process for the dynamics of bipartition purities and establish a probabilistic cellular-automaton algorithm to compute entanglement entropy in monitored random circuits on arbitrary graphs. In one dimension, we further relate the evolution of the entropy to a simple classical spin model that naturally generalizes a two-dimensional lattice percolation problem. We also establish a Markov model for the evolution of the zeroth Rényi entropy and demonstrate that, in one dimension and in the limit of large local dimension, it coincides with the corresponding second-Rényi-entropy model. Finally, we extend the Markovian description to a more general setting that incorporates continuous-time dynamics, defined by stochastic Hamiltonians and weak local measurements continuously monitoring the system.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2020

Nearly optimal time-independent reversal of a spin chain

We propose a time-independent Hamiltonian protocol for the reversal of qubit ordering in a chain of $N$ spins. Our protocol has an easily implementable nearest-neighbor, transverse-field Ising model Hamiltonian with time-independent, non-uniform couplings. Under appropriate normalization, we implement this state reversal three times faster than a naive approach using SWAP gates, in time comparable to a protocol of Raussendorf [Phys. Rev. A 72, 052301 (2005)] that requires dynamical control. We also prove lower bounds on state reversal by using results on the entanglement capacity of Hamiltonians and show that we are within a factor $1.502(1+1/N)$ of the shortest time possible. Our lower bound holds for all nearest-neighbor qubit protocols with arbitrary finite ancilla spaces and local operations and classical communication. Finally, we extend our protocol to an infinite family of nearest-neighbor, time-independent Hamiltonian protocols for state reversal. This includes chains with nearly uniform coupling that may be especially feasible for experimental implementation.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

On-demand indistinguishable single photons from an efficient and pure source based on a Rydberg ensemble

Single photons coupled to atomic systems have shown to be a promising platform for developing quantum technologies. Yet a bright on-demand, highly pure and highly indistinguishable single-photon source compatible with atomic platforms is lacking. In this work, we demonstrate such a source based on a strongly interacting Rydberg system. The large optical nonlinearities in a blockaded Rydberg ensemble convert coherent light into a single-collective excitation that can be coherently retrieved as a quantum field. We observe a single-transverse-mode efficiency up to 0.18(2), $g^{(2)}=2.0(1.5)\times10^{-4}$, and indistinguishability of 0.982(7), making this system promising for scalable quantum information applications. Accounting for losses, we infer a generation probability up to 0.40(4). Furthermore, we investigate the effects of contaminant Rydberg excitations on the source efficiency. Finally, we introduce metrics to benchmark the performance of on-demand single-photon sources.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Non-equilibrium fixed points of coupled Ising models

Driven-dissipative systems are expected to give rise to non-equilibrium phenomena that are absent in their equilibrium counterparts. However, phase transitions in these systems generically exhibit an effectively classical equilibrium behavior in spite of their non-equilibrium origin. In this paper, we show that multicritical points in such systems lead to a rich and genuinely non-equilibrium behavior. Specifically, we investigate a driven-dissipative model of interacting bosons that possesses two distinct phase transitions: one from a high- to a low-density phase---reminiscent of a liquid-gas transition---and another to an antiferromagnetic phase. Each phase transition is described by the Ising universality class characterized by an (emergent or microscopic) $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry. They, however, coalesce at a multicritical point, giving rise to a non-equilibrium model of coupled Ising-like order parameters described by a $\mathbb{Z}_2 \times \mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry. Using a dynamical renormalization-group approach, we show that a pair of non-equilibrium fixed points (NEFPs) emerge that govern the long-distance critical behavior of the system. We elucidate various exotic features of these NEFPs. In particular, we show that a generic continuous scale invariance at criticality is reduced to a discrete scale invariance. This further results in complex-valued critical exponents and spiraling phase boundaries, and it is also accompanied by a complex Liouvillian gap even close to the phase transition. As direct evidence of the non-equilibrium nature of the NEFPs, we show that the fluctuation-dissipation relation is violated at all scales, leading to an effective temperature that becomes "hotter" and "hotter" at longer and longer wavelengths. Finally, we argue that this non-equilibrium behavior can be observed in cavity arrays with cross-Kerr nonlinearities.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2019

Destructive Error Interference in Product-Formula Lattice Simulation

Quantum computers can efficiently simulate the dynamics of quantum systems. In this paper, we study the cost of digitally simulating the dynamics of several physically relevant systems using the first-order product formula algorithm. We show that the errors from different Trotterization steps in the algorithm can interfere destructively, yielding a much smaller error than previously estimated. In particular, we prove that the total error in simulating a nearest-neighbor interacting system of $n$ sites for time $t$ using the first-order product formula with $r$ time slices is $O({nt}/{r}+{nt^3}/{r^2})$ when $nt^2/r$ is less than a small constant. Given an error tolerance $ε$, the error bound yields an estimate of $\max\{O({n^2t}/ε),O({n^2 t^{3/2}}/{ε^{1/2}})\}$ for the total gate count of the simulation. The estimate is tighter than previous bounds and matches the empirical performance observed in Childs et al. [PNAS 115, 9456-9461 (2018)]. We also provide numerical evidence for potential improvements and conjecture an even tighter estimate for the gate count.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2019

Circuit Complexity across a Topological Phase Transition

We use Nielsen's geometric approach to quantify the circuit complexity in a one-dimensional Kitaev chain across a topological phase transition. We find that the circuit complexities of both the ground states and non-equilibrium steady states of the Kitaev model exhibit non-analytical behaviors at the critical points, and thus can be used to detect both {\it equilibrium} and {\it dynamical} topological phase transitions. Moreover, we show that the locality property of the real-space optimal Hamiltonian connecting two different ground states depends crucially on whether the two states belong to the same or different phases. This provides a concrete example of classifying different gapped phases using Nielsen's circuit complexity. We further generalize our results to a Kitaev chain with long-range pairing, and discuss generalizations to higher dimensions. Our result opens up a new avenue for using circuit complexity as a novel tool to understand quantum many-body systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2019

Locality and Heating in Periodically Driven, Power-law Interacting Systems

We study the heating time in periodically driven $D$-dimensional systems with interactions that decay with the distance $r$ as a power-law $1/r^α$. Using linear response theory, we show that the heating time is exponentially long as a function of the drive frequency for $α>D$. For systems that may not obey linear response theory, we use a more general Magnus-like expansion to show the existence of quasi-conserved observables, which imply exponentially long heating time, for $α>2D$. We also generalize a number of recent state-of-the-art Lieb-Robinson bounds for power-law systems from two-body interactions to $k$-body interactions and thereby obtain a longer heating time than previously established in the literature. Additionally, we conjecture that the gap between the results from the linear response theory and the Magnus-like expansion does not have physical implications, but is, rather, due to the lack of tight Lieb-Robinson bounds for power-law interactions. We show that the gap vanishes in the presence of a hypothetical, tight bound.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2019

On the nature of the non-equilibrium phase transition in the non-Markovian driven Dicke model

The Dicke model famously exhibits a phase transition to a superradiant phase with a macroscopic population of photons and is realized in multiple settings in open quantum systems. In this work, we study a variant of the Dicke model where the cavity mode is lossy due to the coupling to a Markovian environment while the atomic mode is coupled to a colored bath. We analytically investigate this model by inspecting its low-frequency behavior via the Schwinger-Keldysh field theory and carefully examine the nature of the corresponding superradiant phase transition. Integrating out the fast modes, we can identify a simple effective theory allowing us to derive analytical expressions for various critical exponents, including those, such as the dynamical critical exponent, that have not been previously considered. We find excellent agreement with previous numerical results when the non-Markovian bath is at zero temperature; however, contrary to these studies, our low-frequency approach reveals that the same exponents govern the critical behavior when the colored bath is at finite temperature unless the chemical potential is zero. Furthermore, we show that the superradiant phase transition is classical in nature, while it is genuinely non-equilibrium. We derive a fractional Langevin equation and conjecture the associated fractional Fokker-Planck equation that capture the system's long-time memory as well as its non-equilibrium behavior. Finally, we consider finite-size effects at the phase transition and identify the finite-size scaling exponents, unlocking a rich behavior in both statics and dynamics of the photonic and atomic observables.

quant-ph↗