arXiv subjects

Chih-Chun Chien

Publications and source records attributed to Chih-Chun Chien.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2024

Local geometry and quantum geometric tensor of mixed states

The quantum geometric tensor (QGT) is a fundamental concept for characterizing the local geometry of quantum states. After casting the geometry of pure quantum states and extracting the QGT, we generalize the geometry to mixed quantum states via the density matrix and its purification. The gauge-invariant QGT of mixed states is derived, whose real and imaginary parts are the Bures metric and the Uhlmann form, respectively. In contrast to the imaginary part of the pure-state QGT that is proportional to the Berry curvature, the Uhlmann form vanishes identically for ordinary physical processes. Moreover, there exists a Pythagorean-like equation that links different local distances and reflect the underlying fibration. The Bures metric of mixed states is shown to reduce to the corresponding Fubini-Study metric of the ground state as temperature approaches zero, establishing a correspondence despite the different underlying fibrations. We also present two examples with contrasting local geometries and discuss experimental implications.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Sj$\ddot{\text{o}}$qvist quantum geometric tensor of finite-temperature mixed states

The quantum geometric tensor (QGT) reveals local geometric properties and associated topological information of quantum states. Here a generalization of the QGT to mixed quantum states at finite temperatures based on the Sj$\ddot{\text{o}}$qvist distance is developed. The resulting Sj$\ddot{\text{o}}$qvist QGT is invariant under gauge transformations of individual spectrum levels of the density matrix. A Pythagorean-like relation connects the distances and gauge transformations, which clarifies the role of the parallel-transport condition. The real part of the QGT naturally decomposes into a sum of the Fisher-Rao metric and Fubini-Study metric, allowing a distinction between different contributions to the quantum distance. The imaginary part of the QGT is proportional to a weighted summation of the Berry curvatures, which leads to a geometric phase for mixed states under certain conditions. We present three examples of different dimensions to illustrate the temperature dependence of the QGT and a discussion on possible implications.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Interferometric Geometric Phases of $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric Quantum Mechanics

We present a generalization of the geometric phase to pure and thermal states in $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric quantum mechanics (PTQM) based on the approach of the interferometric geometric phase (IGP). The formalism first introduces the parallel-transport conditions of quantum states and reveals two geometric phases, $θ^1$ and $θ^2$, for pure states in PTQM according to the states under parallel-transport. Due to the non-Hermitian Hamiltonian in PTQM, $θ^1$ is complex and $θ^2$ is its real part. The imaginary part of $θ^1$ plays an important role when we generalize the IGP to thermal states in PTQM. The generalized IGP modifies the thermal distribution of a thermal state, thereby introducing effective temperatures. At certain critical points, the generalized IGP exhibits discrete jumps at finite temperatures, signaling a geometric phase transition. We demonstrate the finite-temperature geometric phase transition in PTQM by a two-level system and visualize its results.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Geometric phases of mixed quantum states: A comparative study of interferometric and Uhlmann phases

Two geometric phases of mixed quantum states, known as the interferometric phase and Uhlmann phase, are generalizations of the Berry phase of pure states. After reviewing the two geometric phases and examining their parallel-transport conditions, we specify a class of cyclic processes that are compatible with both conditions and therefore accumulate both phases through their definitions, respectively. Those processes then facilitate a fair comparison between the two phases. We present exact solutions of two-level and three-level systems to contrast the two phases. While the interferometric phase exhibits finite-temperature transitions only in the three-level system but not the two-level system, the Uhlmann phase shows finite-temperature transitions in both cases. Thus, using the two geometric phases as finite-temperature topological indicators demonstrates the rich physics of topology of mixed states.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Vortex structure and spectrum of atomic Fermi superfluid in a spherical bubble trap

The structures of multiply quantized vortices (MQVs) of an equal-population atomic Fermi superfluid in a rotating spherical bubble trap approximated as a thin shell are analyzed by solving the Bogoliubov-de Gennes (BdG) equation throughout the BCS-Bose Einstein condensation (BEC) crossover. Consistent with the Poincare-Hopf theorem, a pair of vortices emerge at the poles of the rotation axis in the presence of azimuthal symmetry, and the compact geometry provides confinement for the MQVs. While the single-vorticity vortex structure is similar to that in a planar geometry, higher-vorticity vortices exhibit interesting phenomena at the vortex center, such as a density peak due to accumulation of a normal Fermi gas and reversed circulation of current due to in-gap states carrying angular momentum, in the BCS regime but not the BEC regime because of the subtle relations between the order parameter and density. The energy spectrum shows the number of the in-gap state branches corresponds to the vorticity of a vortex, and an explanation based on a topological correspondence is provided.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2023

Localization of quantum walk with classical randomness: Comparison between manual methods and supervised machine learning

A transition of quantum walk induced by classical randomness changes the probability distribution of the walker from a two-peak structure to a single-peak one when the random parameter exceeds a critical value. We first establish the generality of the localization by showing its emergence in the presence of random rotation or translation. The transition point can be located manually by examining the probability distribution, momentum of inertia, and inverse participation ratio. As a comparison, we implement three supervised machine learning methods, the support vector machine (SVM), multi-layer perceptron neural network, and convolutional neural network with the same data and show they are able to identify the transition. While the SVM sometimes underestimate the exponents compared to the manual methods, the two neural-network methods show more deviation for the case with random translation due to the fluctuating probability distributions. Our work illustrates potentials and challenges facing machine learning of physical systems with mixed quantum and classical probabilities.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Winding real and order-parameter spaces via lump solitons of spinor BEC on sphere

The three condensate wavefunctions of a spinor BEC on a spherical shell can map the real space to the order-parameter space that also has a spherical geometry, giving rise to topological excitations called lump solitons. The homotopy of the mapping endows the lump solitons with quantized winding numbers counting the wrapping between the two spaces. We present several lump-soliton solutions to the nonlinear coupled equations minimizing the energy functional. The energies of the lump solitons with different winding numbers indicate coexistence of lumps with different winding numbers and a lack of advantage to break a higher-winding lump soliton into multiple lower-winding ones. Possible implications are discussed since the predictions are testable in cold-atom experiments.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2023

Proximity effect and spatial Kibble-Zurek mechanism in atomic Fermi gases with inhomogeneous pairing interactions

Introducing spatially tunable interactions to atomic Fermi gases makes it feasible to study two phenomena, the proximity effect and spatial Kibble-Zurek mechanism (KZM), in a unified platform. While the proximity effect of a superconductor adjacent to a normal metal corresponds to a step-function quench of the pairing interaction in real space, the spatial KZM is based on a linear drop of the interaction that can be modeled as a spatial quench. After formulating the Fermi gases with spatially varying pairing interactions by the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equation, we obtain the profiles of the pair wavefunction and its correlation function to study their penetration into the noninteracting region. For the step-function quench, both correlation lengths from the pair wavefunction and its correlation function follow the BCS coherence length and exhibit the same scaling behavior. In contrast, the scaling behavior of the two correlation lengths are different in the spatial quench, which then allows more refined analyses of the correlation lengths from different physical quantities. Moreover, adding a weakly interacting bosonic background does not change the scaling behavior. We also discuss relevant experimental techniques that may realize and verify the inhomogeneous phenomena.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2023

Particle and thermal transport through one dimensional topological systems via Lindblad formalism

We apply the Lindblad quantum master equation to two examples of one-dimensional topological systems, the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model and Kitaev chain, to study their particle and thermal transport. The steady-state properties are obtained by decomposing fermions into Majorana fermions and extracting their correlation functions. We focus on the particle and thermal currents flowing through the bulk when the system is driven by two reservoirs coupled to the two ends. The ratio of the currents of the SSH model from the topological and trivial regimes with the same bandwidth demonstrates suppression of transport due to the edge states, which couple to the reservoirs but do not participate in transport. A similar comparison cannot be performed for the Kitaev chain because the topological and trivial regimes have different bandwidths, and the edge states are less significant away from the transition. Therefore, the results contrast various topological properties in quantum transport.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2023

Atomic boson-fermion mixtures in 1D box potentials: Few-body and mean-field many-body analyses

We study binary atomic boson-fermion mixtures confined in one dimensional box potentials by few-body theory with contact interactions and mean-field many-body theory with density-density interactions. A variety of correlations and structures arise as the inter- and intra- species interactions are tuned. Both few-body and many-body results show that miscible phase and three-chunk phase separation are directly observable in the density profiles. Meanwhile, two-chunk phase separation can be inferred from the few-body correlations and many-body density profiles. We present phase diagrams of selected types of atomic mixtures to show where different structures survive. The few-body analysis demonstrates that two-body correlation functions can reveal information relevant to the results from many-body calculations or experiments. From the many-body density profiles in the phase-separation regime, we extract the healing lengths of each species and explain the scaling behavior by an energy-competition argument.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2022

Uhlmann phase of coherent states and the Uhlmann-Berry correspondence

We first compare the geometric frameworks behind the Uhlmann and Berry phases in a fiber-bundle language and then evaluate the Uhlmann phases of bosonic and fermionic coherent states. The Uhlmann phases of both coherent states are shown to carry geometric information and decrease smoothly with temperature. Importantly, the Uhlmann phases approach the corresponding Berry phases as temperature decreases. Together with previous examples in the literature, we propose a correspondence between the Uhlmann and Berry phases in the zero-temperature limit as a general property except some special cases and present a conditional proof of the correspondence.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Generalizations of Berry phase and differentiation of purified state and thermal vacuum of mixed states

Two representations of mixed states by state-vectors, known as purified state and thermal vacuum, have been realized on quantum computers. While the two representations look similar, they differ by a partial transposition in the ancilla space. While ordinary observables cannot discern the two representations, we generalize the Berry phase of pure quantum states to mixed states and construct two geometric phases that can reflect the partial transposition. By generalizing the adiabatic condition, we construct the thermal Berry phase, whose values from the two representations can be different, However, the thermal Berry phase may contain non-geometrical contributions. Alternatively, we generalize the parallel-transport condition to include the system and ancilla and show the dynamical phase is excluded under parallel transport. The geometrical phase accumulated in parallel transport is the generalized Berry phase, which may or may not differentiate a purified state from a thermal vacuum depending on the protocol. The generalizations of the Berry phase to mixed states may be realized and measured on quantum computers via the two representations to reveal the rich physics of finite-temperature quantum systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Metamorphic dynamical quantum phase transition in double-quench processes at finite temperatures

By deriving a general framework and analyzing concrete examples, we demonstrate a class of dynamical quantum phase transitions (DQPTs) in one-dimensional two-band systems going through double-quench processes. When this type of DQPT occurs, the Loschmidt amplitude vanishes and the rate function remains singular after the second quench, meaning the final state continually has no overlap with the initial state. This type of DQPT is named metamorphic DQPT to differentiate it from ordinary DQPTs that only exhibit zero Loschmidt amplitude and singular rate function at discrete time points. The metamorphic DQPTs occur at zero as well as finite temperatures. Our examples of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model and Kitaev chain illustrate the conditions and behavior of the metamorphic DQPT. Since ordinary DQPTs have been experimentally realized in many systems, similar setups with double quenches will demonstrate the metamorphic DQPT. Our findings thus provide additional controls of dynamical evolution of quantum systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Uhlmann holonomy against Lindblad dynamics of topological systems at finite temperatures

The Uhlmann phase, which reflects the holonomy as the purified state of a density matrix traverses a loop in the parameter space, has been used to characterize topological properties of several systems at finite temperatures. We test the Uhlmann holonomy against various system-environment couplings in quantum dynamics described by the Lindblad equations of three topological systems, including the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model, Kitaev chain, and Bernevig-Hughes-Zhang (BHZ) model. The Uhlmann phase is shown to remain quantized in all the examples if the initial state is topological and only certain types of the Lindblad jump operators are present. Topological protection at finite temperatures against environmental effects in quantum dynamics is therefore demonstrated albeit only for a restricted class of system-environment couplings.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

BCS-BEC crossover of atomic Fermi superfluid in a spherical bubble trap

We present a theory of a two-component atomic Fermi gas with tunable attractive contact interactions on a spherical shell going through the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) - Bose Einstein condensation (BEC) crossover, inspired by the realizations of spherical bubble traps for ultracold atoms in microgravity. The derivation follows the BCS-Leggett theory to obtain the gap and number equations. The BCS-BEC crossover can be induced by tuning the interaction, and the properly normalized gap and chemical potential exhibit universal behavior regardless of the planar or spherical geometry. Nevertheless, the spherical-shell geometry introduces another way of inducing the crossover by the curvature. The curvature-induced BCS-BEC crossover is made possible by fixing the particle number and interaction strength while shrinking the sphere, causing a reduction to the ratio of the pairing and kinetic energies and pushing the system towards the BCS limit. The saturation of the superfluid density further confirms the ground state is a Fermi superfluid.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2022

Custodial chiral symmetry in a Su-Schrieffer-Heeger electrical circuit with memory

Custodial symmetries are common in the Standard Model of particle physics. They arise when quantum corrections to a parameter are proportional to the parameter itself. Here, we show that a custodial symmetry of the chiral type is also present in a classical Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) electrical circuit with memory (memcircuit). In the absence of memory, the SSH circuit supports a symmetry-protected topological edge state. Memory induces nonlinearities that break chiral symmetry explicitly and spreads the state across the circuit. However, the resulting state is still protected against perturbations by the ensuing custodial chiral symmetry. These predictions can be verified experimentally and demonstrate the interplay between symmetry and memory.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Proxy ensemble geometric phase and proxy index of time-reversal invariant topological insulators at finite temperatures

The ensemble geometric phase (EGP) has been proposed as a topological indicator for finite-temperatures systems. The ensemble Wilson loop, or the transfer matrix, contains the crucial information in the EGP construction. We propose a proxy index and a proxy EGP directly from the transfer matrix and apply them to time-reversal invariant topological insulators exemplified by the Bernevig-Hughes-Zhang (BHZ) and Kane-Mele (KM) models. The quantized proxy index and proxy EGP smoothly generalize the ground-state topological index to finite temperatures. For the BHZ model, a comparison with another topological indicator, the Uhlmann phase, shows different transition behavior with temperature. For the KM model, the EGP have been generalized to the time-reversal EGP previously, but the proxy EGP does not require any splitting of the contributions. The proxy index and proxy EGP thus offer an efficient means for characterizing finite-temperature topological properties.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Topological classifications of quadratic bosonic excitations in closed and open systems with examples

The topological classifications of quadratic bosonic systems according to the symmetries of the dynamic matrices from the equations of motion of closed systems and the effective Hamiltonians from the Lindblad equations of open systems are analyzed. While the non-Hermitian dynamic matrix and effective Hamiltonian both lead to a ten-fold way table, the system-reservoir coupling may cause a system with or without coupling to a reservoir to fall into different classes. A 2D Chern insulator is shown to be insensitive to the different classifications. In contrast, we present a 1D bosonic Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model with chiral symmetry and a 2D bosonic topological insulator with time-reversal symmetry to show the corresponding open systems may fall into different classes.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗