arXiv subjects

Arghavan Safavi-Naini

Publications and source records attributed to Arghavan Safavi-Naini.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Sub-Doppler cooling of trapped ions using optical tweezers

We propose a sub-Doppler cooling scheme for trapped-ion crystals in Paul traps. The combination of a hollow tweezer and microwave drive creates an effective two-level system which is cooled through attractive Sisyphus cooling. For ${}^{171}\rm{Yb}^+$ ions, we numerically identify optimal parameters for one- and two-ion crystals, and investigate the cooling rate in ion crystals with up to three ions. Our cooling scheme utilizes a single ion addressed with a tweezer to achieve sub-Doppler cooling of the $N$ axial motional modes perpendicular to the tweezer propagation direction, does not rely on the Lamb-Dicke regime and uses off-resonant light. We reach $1/e$ cooling times for the center of mass mode of $τ_{\rm com}<2$ ms, and a steady-state excitation number of $\bar{n}_{\rm{com}}\approx 0.7$. Our scheme is well-suited as an intermediate stage between Doppler cooling and ground-state sideband cooling, and can be readily realized in trapped-ion platforms.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2026

Mediating gates between polar molecules using microwave-dressed Rydberg atoms

We propose a scheme for mediating many simultaneous, fast entangling gates between pairs of polar molecules using Rydberg atoms. By using microwave drives, the dipolar interactions between Rydberg atoms are nullified. Using the freedom left in the microwave dressing parameters, the Rydberg van der Waals interactions are minimized and the Rydberg-molecule interaction is tuned into resonance, allowing for the mediation of a modified iSWAP gate between molecules. In the example of mediating gates between $\rm{{}^{23}Na {}^{133}Cs}$ molecules with $\rm {}^{133}Cs$ atoms, the gate is more than two orders of magnitude faster than an equivalent direct molecule-molecule gate. We model the decay of the dressed Rydberg states and the motion of the atom and molecules and obtain a leading-order estimate of the resulting gate infidelities. Finally, we show that by detecting the state of the Rydberg atom after a gate, a subset of gate errors can be converted into erasure errors and mitigated by post-selection or quantum error-correction.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Optimal Displacement Sensing with Spin-Dependent Squeezed States

Displacement sensing is a fundamental task in metrology. However, the development of quantum-enhanced sensors that fully utilize the available degrees of freedom in many-body quantum systems remains an outstanding challenge. We propose many-body displacement sensing schemes that use spin-dependent squeezed (SDS) states -- hybrid spin-boson states whose bosonic squeezed quadrature is conditioned on an auxiliary spin. We prove that SDS states are \emph{optimal}, i.e. their quantum Cramér-Rao bound saturates the Heisenberg limit. We propose explicit measurement sequences that can be readily implemented in systems such as trapped ions. We also introduce a scalable state-preparation protocol and numerically demonstrate the preparation of $8.7$~dB of spin-dependent squeezing $15$ times faster than the standard approach using second-order sidebands in trapped ions. The potential applications of our sensing protocols range from measuring single-photon scattering to searches for dark matter.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Universal dynamics from a single-particle dark state

Open quantum systems can host dark or subradiant states whose decay is highly suppressed. While these states have been extensively studied in the few-excitation regime, their impact on the many-body dynamics remains largely unexplored. Here, we study a spin chain subject to correlated dissipation on neighboring sites, which admits a single-particle dark state at zero momentum. We show that the single-particle dark state qualitatively alters the many-body dynamics at long times, and identify its distinct universal behavior. While the zero-momentum mode is dark at the single-particle level, it decays slowly as $1/\log t$ as it becomes dressed by other modes through a dissipation-induced nonlinearity. We demonstrate that the momentum distribution takes a universal scaling form in $k\sqrt{t}$, and the total density decays as $1/\sqrt{t}\log t$. Our results further elucidate the origin of the conflicting results in recent works. Finally, we corroborate the analytics with matrix product state simulations and show that the same universal behavior persists for soft-core interactions, underscoring the universality of the emergent dynamics.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2026

Permutation-invariant codes: a numerical study and qudit constructions

We investigate Permutation-Invariant (PI) quantum error-correcting codes encoding a logical qudit of dimension $\mathrm{d}_\mathrm{L}$ in PI states using physical qudits of dimension $\mathrm{d}_\mathrm{P}$. We extend the Knill--Laflamme (KL) conditions for $d-1$ deletion errors from qubits to qudits and investigate numerically both qubit ($\mathrm{d}_\mathrm{L} = \mathrm{d}_\mathrm{P} = 2$) and qudit ($\mathrm{d}_\mathrm{L} > 2$ or $\mathrm{d}_\mathrm{P} > 2$) PI codes. We analyze the scaling of the block length $n$ in terms of the code distance $d$, and compare to existing families of PI codes due to Ouyang, Aydin--Alekseyev--Barg (AAB) and Pollatsek--Ruskai (PR). Our three main findings are: (i) We conjecture that qubit PI codes correcting up to $d-1$ deletion errors have block length $n(d) \geq (3d^2 + 1) / 4$, which implies an upper bound $d \leq \sqrt{12n-3}/3$ on their code distance, and that PR codes can saturate this bound. (ii) For qudit PI codes encoding a single qudit we numerically observe that increasing $\mathrm{d}_\mathrm{P}$ results in $n$ monotonically decreasing and approaching the quantum Singleton bound $n(d) \geq 2d-1$. (iii) We propose a semi-analytic extension of the qubit AAB construction to qudits that finds explicit solutions by solving a linear program. Our results therefore provide key insights into lower bounds on the block length scaling of both qubit and qudit PI codes, and demonstrate the benefit of increased physical local dimension in the context of PI codes.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Quantum simulation of the Dicke model in a two-dimensional ion crystal: chaos, quantum thermalization, and revivals

Quantum many-body systems driven far from equilibrium can exhibit chaos, entanglement, and non-classical correlations, yet directly observing these phenomena in large, closed quantum systems remains challenging. Here we realize the Dicke model -- a fundamental description of light-matter interactions -- in a two-dimensional crystal of approximately 100 trapped ions. The ions' internal state is optically coupled to the center of mass vibrational mode via an optical spin-dependent force, enabling unitary many-body dynamics beyond the mean-field and few-body limits. In the integrable regime, where the phonons can be adiabatically eliminated, we observe a dynamical phase transition between ferromagnetic to paramagnetic spin phases. In contrast, when the spins and phonons are strongly coupled, we observe clear signatures of non-integrable chaotic dynamics, including erratic phase-space trajectories and the exponential growth of excitations and entanglement quantified by the one-body Rényi entropy. By quenching from an unstable fixed point in the near-integrable regime, quantum noise can generate correlated spin-phonon excitations. Our numerical calculations, in clear agreement with experiment, reveal the generation of two-mode spin-phonon squeezing, 2.6 dB below the standard quantum limit (4.6 dB relative to the initial thermal state), followed by generalized vacuum Rabi collapses and revivals. Our results establish large ion crystals as scalable analog quantum simulators of non-equilibrium light-matter dynamics and provide a controlled platform for experimental studies of information scrambling and entanglement in closed many-body systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Multilevel Electromagnetically Induced Transparency Cooling

Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) cooling is a well-established method for preparing trapped ion systems in their motional ground state. However, isolating a three-level system, as required for EIT cooling, is often challenging or impractical. Nonetheless, multilevel systems can inherently host dark states. In this work, we extend the EIT cooling framework to such multilevel systems. We develop a formalism to accurately determine the cooling rate in the weak sideband coupling regime and provide an approximate estimate for cooling rates beyond this regime, without the need for explicit simulation of the motional degree of freedom. We clarify the connection between the cooling rate and the absorption spectrum, offering a pathway for efficient near-ground-state cooling of ions with complex electronic structures.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2025

Confinement-induced resonances for the creation of quasi-one-dimensional ultra cold gases of alkali--alkaline-earth dimers

We theoretically investigate the role of confinement-induced resonances (CIRs) in low-dimensional ultracold atomic mixtures for the formation of weakly bound dimers. To this end, we examine the scattering properties of a binary atomic mixture confined by a quasi-one-dimensional (quasi-1D) potential. In this regime, the interspecies two-body interaction is modeled as an effective 1D zero-range pseudopotential, with a coupling strength $g_\mathrm{1D}$ derived as a function of the three-dimensional scattering length $a$. This framework enables the study of CIRs in harmonically confined systems, with particular attention to the case of mismatched transverse trapping frequencies for the two atomic species. Finally, we consider the Bose-Fermi mixture of $^{87}$Rb and $^{87}$Sr, and identify values of the experimentally accessible parameters for which CIRs can be exploited to create weakly bound molecules.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2025

Emergent Universal Drag Law in a Model of Superflow

Despite the fundamentally different dissipation mechanisms, many laws and phenomena of classical turbulence equivalently manifest in quantum turbulence. The Reynolds law of dynamical similarity states that two objects of same geometry across different length scales are hydrodynamically equivalent under the same Reynolds number, leading to a universal drag coefficient law. In this work we confirm the existence of a universal drag law in a superfluid wake, facilitated by the nucleation of quantized vortices. We numerically study superfluid flow across a range of Reynolds numbers for the paradigmatic classical hard-wall and the Gaussian obstacle, popular in experimental quantum hydrodynamics. In addition, we provide a feasible method for measuring superfluid drag forces in an experimental environment using control volumes.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2025

Global Variational Quantum Circuits for Arbitrary Symmetric State Preparation

Quantum states that are symmetric under particle exchange play a crucial role in fields such as quantum metrology and quantum error correction. We use a variational circuit composed of global one-axis twisting and global rotations to efficiently prepare arbitrary symmetric states, i.e. any superposition of Dicke states. The circuit does not require local addressability or ancilla qubits and thus can be readily implemented in a variety of experimental platforms including trapped-ion quantum simulators and cavity QED systems. We provide analytic and numerical evidence that any $N$-qubit symmetric state can be prepared in $2N/3$ steps. We demonstrate the utility of our protocol by preparing (i) metrologically useful $N$-qubit Dicke states of up to $N = 300$ qubits in $\mathcal{O}(1)$ gate steps with theoretical infidelities $1-\mathcal{F} < 10^{-3}$, (ii) the $N = 9$ Ruskai codewords in $P = 4$ gate steps with $1-\mathcal{F} < 10^{-4}$, and (iii) the $N = 13$ Gross codewords in $P = 7$ gate steps with $1-\mathcal{F} < 10^{-4}$. Focusing on trapped-ion platforms, for the $N = 9$ Ruskai and $N = 13$ Gross codewords we estimate that the protocol achieves fidelities $\gtrsim 95\%$ in the presence of typical experimental noise levels, thus providing a pathway to the preparation of a wide range of useful highly-entangled quantum states.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Ultracold collisions of a neutral atom with a trapped ion in 1D

We present a fully quantum mechanical description of a free $^6$Li atom scattering from a trapped $^{171}$Yb$^+$ ion in one dimension. By reformulating the system in polar coordinates and employing the adiabatic representation, we extract a set of coupled adiabatic potentials representing the atom interacting with the ion in different trap states. In an approach similar to quantum defect theory (QDT), we leverage the vast difference in energy scale between the interaction, the trap, and the scattering energy to encapsulate the short-range atom-ion scattering behavior in a single phase parameter. The presence of trapped $({}^{171}\text{Yb}^6\text{Li})^+$ molecular-ion states leads to a series of roughly evenly spaced resonances in the scattering cross section. The predicted distribution of resonances at low collision energies is at odds with the expectation of quantum chaos and the Bohigas-Giannoni-Schmit (BGS) conjecture.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2025

Vibrationally coupled Rydberg atom-ion molecules

We study the occurrence of Rydberg atom-ion molecules (RAIMs) in a hybrid atom-ion system with an ion crystal trapped in a Paul trap coupled to Rydberg atoms on its either ends. To assess the feasibility of such a system, we perform a detailed Floquet analysis of the effect of the Paul trap's rf potential on the RAIMs and provide a qualitative analysis of the survival probability based on scaling laws. We conclude that the RAIM survives for sufficiently weak and low frequency traps. We then use this hybrid system and propose a scheme to utilise the common motional modes of the ion crystal to suppress (blockade) or enhance (anti-blockade) the probability of forming two RAIMs at the ends of the chain, replacing the typical blockade radius by the length of the ion crystal.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Phonon-mediated quantum gates in trapped ions coupled to an ultracold atomic gas

We study the dynamics of phonon-mediated qubit-qubit interactions between trapped ions in the presence of an ultracold atomic gas. By deriving and solving a master equation to describe the combined system, we show that the presence of the atoms causes the quantum gate quality to reduce because of motional decoherence. On the other hand, we calculate that the gas may be used to keep the ion crystal cold in the presence of external heating due to electric field noise. We show that tuning the atom-ion scattering length allows one to tune the cooling rate of the ions and would make it possible to temporarily reduce the effects of the gas during a quantum gate while keeping the ions cold over long timescales. In this way, the trapped ion quantum computer may be buffer gas cooled. The system may also be used for quantum-enhanced measurements of the atom-ion interactions or properties of the atomic bath.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Open quantum dynamics with variational non-Gaussian states and the truncated Wigner approximation

We present a framework for simulating the open dynamics of spin-boson systems by combining variational non-Gaussian states with a quantum trajectories approach. We apply this method to a generic spin-boson Hamiltonian that has both Tavis-Cummings and Holstein type couplings, and which has broad applications to a variety of quantum simulation platforms, polaritonic physics, and quantum chemistry. Additionally, we discuss how the recently developed truncated Wigner approximation for open quantum systems can be applied to the same Hamiltonian. We benchmark the performance of both methods and identify the regimes where each method is best suited to. Finally we discuss strategies to improve each technique.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Entanglement, information and non-equilibrium phase transitions in long-range open quantum Ising chains

Non-equilibrium phase transitions of open quantum systems generically exhibit diverging classical but not quantum correlations. Still entanglement -- characterizing the latter correlations -- can be sensitive to the phase transition. Furthermore, mutual information, bounding the total correlations, should exhibit critical scaling at the transition. In this work, we study these quantities in the steady state of open quantum Ising chains with power-law interactions (with the exponent $0\le α\le 3$) where spins are subject to spontaneous emission. The bulk of this paper is dedicated to a detailed analytical as well as numerical analysis of the infinite-range model ($α=0$), a model that is closely related to the paradigmatic open Dicke model. Our main findings are that the entanglement, while being finite, peaks, exhibits a kink and takes a universal value at the transition, while the mutual information exhibits critical scaling not only at the transition but well into the ordered phase, underscoring a hidden criticality that is not captured by (two-point) correlations. We consider three distinct entanglement measures: logarithmic negativity; quantum Fisher information; and, spin squeezing. Specifically, we show that the collective spin operator that maximizes the quantum Fisher information can be identified with the \textit{gapless} mode of the phase transition, while the squeezed direction is that of the \textit{gapped} mode. Finally, we investigate power-law interacting models using matrix product states where we find comparable bounds on squeezing even when no phase transition is expected (for larger $α$), thus the connection to the phase transition does not appear to hold for shorter-range interactions.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2023

Fast quantum state preparation and bath dynamics using non-Gaussian variational ansatz and quantum optimal control

We combine quantum optimal control with a variational ansatz based on non-Gaussian states for fast, non-adiabatic preparation of quantum many-body states. We demonstrate this on the example of the spin-boson model, and use a multi-polaron ansatz to prepare near-critical ground states. For one mode, we achieve a reduction in infidelity of up to $\approx 60$ ($\approx 20$) times compared to linear (optimised local adiabatic) ramps respectively; for many modes we achieve a reduction in infidelity of up to $\approx 5$ times compared to non-adiabatic linear ramps. Further, we show that the typical control quantity, the leakage from the variational manifold, provides only a loose bound on the state's fidelity. Instead, in analogy to the bond dimension of matrix product states, we suggest a controlled convergence criterion based on the number of polarons. Finally, motivated by the possibility of realizations in trapped ions, we study the dynamics of a system with bath properties going beyond the paradigm of (sub/super) Ohmic couplings. We apply the ansatz to the study of the out-of-time-order-correlator (OTOC) of the bath modes in a non-perturbative regime. The scrambling time is found to be a robust feature only weakly dependent on the details of the coupling between the bath and the spin.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

The Effect of Micromotion and Local Stress in Quantum simulation with Trapped Ions in Optical Tweezers

The ability to program and control interactions provides the key to implementing large-scale quantum simulation and computation in trapped ion systems. Adding optical tweezers, which can tune the phonon spectrum and thus modify the phonon-mediated spin-spin interaction, was recently proposed as a way of programming quantum simulators for a broader range of spin models [Arias Espinoza et al., Phys. Rev. A {\bf 103}, 052437]. In this work we study the robustness of our findings in the presence of experimental imperfections: micromotion, local stress, and intensity noise. We show that the effects of micromotion can be easily circumvented when designing and optimizing tweezer patterns to generate a target interaction. Furthermore, while local stress, whereby the tweezers apply small forces on individual ions, may appear to enable further tuning of the spin-spin interactions, any additional flexibility is negligible. We conclude that optical tweezers are a useful method for controlling interactions in trapped ion quantum simulators in the presence of micromotion and imperfections in the tweezer alignment, but require intensity stabilization on the sub-percent level.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Engineering spin-spin interactions with optical tweezers in trapped ions

We propose a new method for generating programmable interactions in one- and two-dimensional trapped-ion quantum simulators. Here we consider the use of optical tweezers to engineer the sound-wave spectrum of trapped ion crystals. We show that this approach allows us to tune the interactions and connectivity of the ion qubits beyond the power-law interactions accessible in current setups. We demonstrate the experimental feasibility of our proposal using realistic tweezer settings and experimentally relevant trap parameters to generate the optimal tweezer patterns to create target spin-spin interaction patterns in both one- and two-dimensional crystals. Our approach will advance quantum simulation in trapped-ion platforms as it allows them to realize a broader family of quantum spin Hamiltonians.

quant-ph↗