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Daniel Braun

Publications and source records attributed to Daniel Braun.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources
arXiv2014

Precision measurements with photon-subtracted or photon-added Gaussian states

Photon-subtracted and photon-added Gaussian states are amongst the simplest non-Gaussian states that are experimentally available. It is generally believed that they are some of the best candidates to enhance sensitivity in parameter extraction. We derive here the quantum Cramér-Rao bound for such states and find that for large photon numbers photon-subtraction or -addition only leads to a small correction of the quantum Fisher information (QFI). On the other hand a divergence of the QFI appears for very small squeezing in the limit of vanishing photon number in the case of photon subtraction, implying an arbitrarily precise measurement with almost no light. However, at least for the standard and experimentally established preparation scheme, the decreasing success probability of the preparation in that limit exactly cancels the divergence, leading to finite sensitivity per square root of Hertz, when the duration of the preparation is taken into account.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2013

A heat bath can generate all classes of three-qubit entanglement

It is common knowledge that coupling to a heat bath, in general, tends to reduce the entanglement in a quantum system. In recent years, increasing interest has been devoted to the opposite situation where thermal or specifically tailored environments may stabilize or even generate entanglement. We prove the universality of this phenomenon for multipartite entanglement in the frame of an exactly solvable dephasing model. We show by evaluating analytical lower bounds for the appropriate entanglement measures that a common thermal environment can dynamically generate all entanglement classes of three qubits for almost any initial product state. For sufficiently weak dissipation this entanglement may persist up to arbitrarily large times.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2013

Precision Measurements of Temperature and Chemical Potential of Quantum Gases

We investigate the sensitivity with which the temperature and the chemical potential characterizing quantum gases can be measured. We calculate the corresponding quantum Fisher information matrices for both fermionic and bosonic gases. For the latter, particular attention is devoted to the situation close to the Bose-Einstein condensation transition, which we examine not only for the standard scenario in three dimensions, but also for generalized condensation in lower dimensions, where the bosons condense in a subspace of Hilbert space instead of a unique ground state, as well as condensation at fixed volume or fixed pressure. We show that Bose Einstein condensation can lead to sub-shot noise sensitivity for the measurement of the chemical potential. We also examine the influence of interactions on the sensitivity in three different models, and show that mean-field and contact interactions deteriorate the sensitivity but only slightly for experimentally accessible weak interactions.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2013

Quantum parameter estimation using general single-mode Gaussian states

We calculate the quantum Cramér--Rao bound for the sensitivity with which one or several parameters, encoded in a general single-mode Gaussian state, can be estimated. This includes in particular the interesting case of mixed Gaussian states. We apply the formula to the problems of estimating phase, purity, loss, amplitude, and squeezing. In the case of the simultaneous measurement of several parameters, we provide the full quantum Fisher information matrix. Our results unify previously known partial results, and constitute a complete solution to the problem of knowing the best possible sensitivity of measurements based on a single-mode Gaussian state.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2013

Coherently enhanced measurements in classical mechanics

We show that the recently discovered quantum-enhanced measurement protocol of coherent averaging that is capable of achieving Heisenberg-limited sensitivity without using entanglement, has a classical analogue. The classical protocol uses N harmonic oscillators coupled to a central oscillator and one measures the signal from the latter. We propose an application to the measurement of very weak interactions, and, in particular, a novel route to measuring the gravitational constant with enhanced precision.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2012

Ultimate quantum bounds on mass measurements with a nano-mechanical oscillator

Nano-mechanical resonators have a large potential as sensors of very small adsorbed masses, down to the atomic level and beyond. Here I establish the fundamental lower bound on the mass that can be measured with a nano-mechanical oscillator in a given quantum state based on the quantum Cramér--Rao bound, limited only by the laws of quantum mechanics, and identify the quantum states which will allow the largest sensitivity for a given maximum energy.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2012

Dynamically stabilized decoherence-free states in non-Markovian open fermionic systems

Decoherence-free subspaces (DFSs) provide a strategy for protecting the dynamics of an open system from decoherence induced by the system-environment interaction. So far, DFSs have been primarily studied in the framework of Markovian master equations. In this work, we study decoherence-free (DF) states in the general setting of a non-Markovian fermionic environment. We identify the DF states by diagonalizing the non-unitary evolution operator for a two-level fermionic system attached to an electron reservoir. By solving the exact master equation, we show that DF states can be stabilized dynamically.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2012

Quantum Data Fitting

We provide a new quantum algorithm that efficiently determines the quality of a least-squares fit over an exponentially large data set by building upon an algorithm for solving systems of linear equations efficiently (Harrow et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 103}, 150502 (2009)). In many cases, our algorithm can also efficiently find a concise function that approximates the data to be fitted and bound the approximation error. In cases where the input data is a pure quantum state, the algorithm can be used to provide an efficient parametric estimation of the quantum state and therefore can be applied as an alternative to full quantum state tomography given a fault tolerant quantum computer.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2011

Exciton dynamics and Quantumness of energy transfer in the Fenna-Matthews-Olson complex

We present numerically exact results for the quantum coherent energy transfer in the Fenna-Matthews-Olson molecular aggregate under realistic physiological conditions, including vibrational fluctuations of the protein and the pigments for an experimentally determined fluctuation spectrum. We find coherence times shorter than observed experimentally. Furthermore we determine the energy transfer current and quantify its "quantumness" as the distance of the density matrix to the classical pointer states for the energy current operator. Most importantly, we find that the energy transfer happens through a "Schrödinger-cat" like superposition of energy current pointer states.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2011

Ultimate sensitivity of precision measurements with Gaussian quantum light : a multi-modal approach

Multimode Gaussian quantum light, which includes multimode squeezed and multipartite quadrature entangled light, is a very general and powerful quantum resource with promising applications in quantum information processing and metrology. In this paper, we determine the ultimate sensitivity in the estimation of any parameter when the information about this parameter is encoded in such light, irrespective of the information extraction protocol used in the estimation and of the measured observable. In addition we show that an appropriate homodyne detection scheme allows us to reach this ultimate sensitivity. We show that, for a given set of available quantum resources, the most economical way to maximize the sensitivity is to put the most squeezed state available in a well-de ned light mode. This implies that it is not possible to take advantage of the existence of squeezed fluctuations in other modes, nor of quantum correlations and entanglement between diff erent modes.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2011

Parametrization of spin-1 classical states

We give an explicit parametrization of the set of mixed quantum states and of the set of mixed classical states for a spin--1. Classical states are defined as states with a positive Glauber-Sudarshan P-function. They are at the same time the separable symmetric states of two qubits. We explore the geometry of this set, and show that its boundary consists of a two-parameter family of ellipsoids. The boundary does not contain any facets, but includes straight-lines corresponding to mixtures of pure classical states.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2011

Sub-shot noise sensitivities without entanglement

It is commonly maintained that entanglement is necessary to beat the shot noise limit in the sensitivity with which certain parameters can be measured in interferometric experiments. Here we show that, with a fluctuating number of two-mode bosons, the shot-noise limit can be beaten by non-entangled bosonic states with all bosons in one mode. For a given finite maximum number of bosons, we calculate the optimal one- and two-mode bosonic states, and show that in the absence of losses, NOON states are the optimal two-mode bosonic states.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2011

Collectively enhanced quantum measurements at the Heisenberg limit

Quantum-enhanced measurements use quantum mechanical effects in order to enhance the sensitivity of the measurement of classical quantities, such as the length of an optical cavity. The major goal is to beat the standard quantum limit (SQL), i.e. a uncertainty of order 1/\sqrt{N}, where N is the number of quantum resources (e.g. the number of photons or atoms used), and to achieve a scaling 1/N, known as the Heisenberg limit. So far very few experiments have demonstrated an improvement over the SQL. The required quantum states are generally highly entangled, difficult to produce, and very prone to decoherence. Here we show that Heisenberg limited measurements can be achieved without the use of entangled states by coupling the quantum resources to a common environment which can be measured at least in part. The method is robust under decoherence, and in fact the parameter dependence of collective decoherence itself can be used to reach a 1/N scaling.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2011

Superradiance of cold atoms coupled to a superconducting circuit

We investigate superradiance of an ensemble of atoms coupled to an integrated superconducting LC-circuit. Particular attention is paid to the effect of inhomogeneous coupling constants. Combining perturbation theory in the inhomogeneity and numerical simulations we show that inhomogeneous coupling constants can significantly affect the superradiant relaxation process. Incomplete relaxation terminating in "dark states" can occur, from which the only escape is through individual spontaneous emission on a much longer time scale. The relaxation dynamics can be significantly accelerated or retarded, depending on the distribution of the coupling constants. On the technical side, we also generalize the previously known propagator of superradiance for identical couplings in the completely symmetric sector to the full exponentially large Hilbert space.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2010

Large effects of boundaries on spin amplification in spin chains

We investigate the effect of boundary conditions on spin amplification in spin chains. We show that the boundaries play a crucial role for the dynamics: A single additional coupling between the first and last spins can macroscopically modify the physical behavior compared to the open chain, even in the limit of infinitely long chains. We show that this effect can be understood in terms of a "bifurcation" in Hilbert space that can give access to different parts of Hilbert space with macroscopically different physical properties of the basis functions, depending on the boundary conditions. On the technical side, we introduce semiclassical methods whose precision increase with increasing chain length and allow us to analytically demonstrate the effects of the boundaries in the thermodynamic limit.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2010

Quantifying Quantumness and the Quest for Queens of Quantum

We introduce a measure of ''quantumness'' for any quantum state in a finite dimensional Hilbert space, based on the distance between the state and the convex set of classical states. The latter are defined as states that can be written as a convex sum of projectors onto coherent states. We derive general properties of this measure of non-classicality, and use it to identify for a given dimension of Hilbert space what are the "Queen of Quantum" states, i.e. the most non-classical quantum states. In three dimensions we obtain the Queen of Quantum state analytically and show that it is unique up to rotations. In up to 11-dimensional Hilbert spaces, we find the Queen of Quantum states numerically, and show that in terms of their Majorana representation they are highly symmetric bodies, which for dimensions 5 and 7 correspond to Platonic bodies.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2010

Parameter estimation with mixed quantum states

We consider quantum enhanced measurements with initially mixed states. We show very generally that for any linear propagation of the initial state that depends smoothly on the parameter to be estimated, the sensitivity is bound by the maximal sensitivity that can be achieved for any of the pure states from which the initial density matrix is mixed. This provides a very general proof that purely classical correlations cannot improve the sensitivity of parameter estimation schemes in quantum enhanced measurement schemes.

quant-ph↗