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Eduardo Martin-Martinez

Publications and source records attributed to Eduardo Martin-Martinez.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

Causality issues of particle detector models in QFT and Quantum Optics

We analyze the constraints that causality imposes on some of the particle detector models employed in quantum field theory in general, and in particular on those used in quantum optics (or superconducting circuits) to model atoms interacting with light. Namely, we show that disallowing faster-than-light communication can impose severe constraints on the applicability of particle detector models in three different common scenarios: 1) when the detectors are spatially smeared, 2) when a UV cutoff is introduced in the theory and 3) under one of the most typical approximations made in quantum optics: the rotating-wave approximation. We identify in which scenarios the models' causal behaviour can be cured and in which it cannot.

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Anti-Unruh Phenomena

We find that a uniformly accelerated particle detector coupled to the vacuum can cool down as its acceleration increases, due to relativistic effects. We show that in (1+1)-dimensions, a detector coupled to the scalar field vacuum for finite timescales (but long enough to satisfy the KMS condition) has a KMS temperature that decreases with acceleration, in certain regimes. This contrasts with the heating that one would expect from the Unruh effect.

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(1+1)D Calculation provides evidence that quantum entanglement survives a firewall

We analyze how pre-existing entanglement between two Unruh-DeWitt particle detectors evolves when one of the detectors falls through a Rindler firewall in (1+1)-dimensional Minkowski space. The firewall effect is minor and does not wash out the detector-detector entanglement, in some regimes even preserving the entanglement better than Minkowski vacuum. The absence of cataclysmic events should continue to hold for young black hole firewalls. A firewall's prospective ability to resolve the information paradox must hence hinge on its detailed gravitational structure, presently poorly understood.

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Spacetime structure and vacuum entanglement

We study the role that both vacuum fluctuations and vacuum entanglement of a scalar field play in identifying the spacetime topology, which is not prescribed from first principles---neither in general relativity or quantum gravity. We analyze how the entanglement and observable correlations acquired between two particle detectors are sensitive to the spatial topology of spacetime. We examine the detector's time evolution to all orders in perturbation theory and then study the phenomenon of vacuum entanglement harvesting in Minkowski spacetime and two flat topologically distinct spacetimes constructed from identifications of the Minkowski space. We show that, for instance, if the spatial topology induces a preferred direction, this direction may be inferred from the dependence of correlations between the two detectors on their orientation. We therefore show that vacuum fluctuations and vacuum entanglement harvesting makes it, in principle, possible to distinguish spacetimes with identical local geometry that differ only in their topology.

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Violation of the strong Huygen's principle and timelike signals from the early Universe

We analyze the implications of the violations of the strong Huygens principle in the transmission of information from the early universe to the current era via massless fields. We show that much more information reaches us through timelike channels (not mediated by real photons) than it is carried by rays of light, which are usually regarded as the only carriers of information.

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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.

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The Quantum Echo of the Early Universe

We show that the fluctuations of quantum fields as seen by late comoving observers are significantly influenced by the history of the early Universe, and therefore they transmit information about the nature of spacetime in timescales when quantum gravitational effects were non-negligible. We discuss how this may be observable even nowadays, and thus used to build falsifiability tests of quantum gravity theories.

gr-qc↗

Measuring motion through relativistic quantum effects

We show that the relativistic signatures on the transition probability of atoms moving through optical cavities are very sensitive to their spatial trajectory. This allows for the use of internal atomic degrees of freedom to measure small time-dependent perturbations in the proper acceleration of an atomic probe, or in the relative alignment of a beam of atoms and a cavity.

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Quantum gates via relativistic remote control

We harness general relativistic effects to gain quantum control on a stationary qubit in an optical cavity by controlling the non-inertial motion of a different probe atom. Furthermore, we show that by considering relativistic trajectories of the probe, we enhance the efficiency of the quantum control. We explore the possible use of these relativistic techniques to build universal quantum gates.

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Mode invisibility as a quantum non-demolition measurement of coherent light

We exploit geometric properties of quantum states of light in optical cavities to carry out quantum non-demolition measurements. We generalize the 'mode invisibility' method to obtain information about the Wigner function of a squeezed coherent state in a non-destructive way. We also simplify the application of this non-demolition technique to measure single-photon and few-photon states.

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Unruh-DeWitt detector response along static and circular geodesic trajectories for Schwarzschild-AdS black holes

We present novel methods to numerically address the problem of characterizing the response of particle detectors in curved spacetimes. These methods allow for the integration of the Wightman function, at least in principle, in rather general backgrounds. In particular we will use this tool to further understand the nature of conformal massless scalar Hawking radiation from a Schwarzschild black hole in anti-de Sitter space. We do that by studying an Unruh-DeWitt detector at rest above the horizon and in circular geodesic orbit. The method allows us to see that the response rate shows peaks at certain characteristic frequencies, which correspond to the quasinormal modes (QNMs) of the space-time. It is in principle possible to apply these techniques to more complicated and interesting physical scenarios, e.g. geodesic infall or multiple detector entanglement evolution, or the study of the behaviour of quantum correlations in spacetimes with black hole horizons.

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Entanglement in curved spacetimes and cosmology

We review recent results regarding entanglement in quantum fields in cosmological spacetimes and related phenomena in flat spacetime such as the Unruh effect. We being with a summary of important results about field entanglement and the mathematics of Bogoliubov transformations that is very often used to describe it. We then discuss the Unruh-DeWitt detector model, which is a useful model of a generic local particle detector. This detector model has been successfully used as a tool to obtain many important results. In this context we discuss two specific types of these detectors: a qubit and a harmonic oscillator. The latter has recently been shown to have important applications when one wants to probe nonperturbative physics of detectors interacting with quantum fields. We then detail several recent advances in the study and application of these ideas, including echoes of the early universe, entanglement harvesting, and a nascent proposal for quantum seismology.

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Particle detectors and the zero mode of a quantum field

We study the impact of the zero-mode of a quantum field on the evolution of a particle detector. For a massless scalar field in a periodic cavity, we show that the impact of the zero mode on the Unruh-DeWitt detector and its derivative-coupling generalisation is necessarily nonvanishing but can be made negligible in some limits, including those commonly occurring in non-relativistic quantum optics. For the derivative-coupling detector this can be accomplished by just tuning the zero mode's initial state, but the standard Unruh-DeWitt detector requires a more subtle and careful tuning. Applications include an inertial detector with arbitrary velocity, where we demonstrate the regularity of the ultrarelativistic limit, and a detector with uniform acceleration.

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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.

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Quantum Thermometry

In this review article we revisit and spell out the details of previous work on how Berry phase can be used to construct a precision quantum thermometer. An important advantage of such a scheme is that there is no need for the thermometer to acquire thermal equilibrium with the sample. This reduces measurement times and avoids precision limitations. We also review how such methods can be used to detect the Unruh effect.

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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.

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Quantum signalling in cavity QED

We consider quantum signalling between two-level quantum systems in a cavity, in the pertubative regime of the earliest possible arrival times of the signal. We present two main results: First we find that, perhaps surprisingly, the analogue of amplitude modulated signalling (Alice using her energy eigenstates |g>, |e>, as in the Fermi problem) is generally sub-optimal for communication. Namely, e.g., phase modulated signalling (Alice using, e.g., |+>,|e>-states) overcomes the quantum noise already at a lower order in perturbation theory. Second, we study the effect of mode truncations that are commonly used in cavity QED on the modelling of the communication between two-level atoms. We show that, on general grounds, namely for causality to be preserved, the UV cutoff must scale at least polynomially with the desired accuracy of the predictions.

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