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Florian Mintert

Publications and source records attributed to Florian Mintert.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
arXiv2019

Collective excitation profiles and the dynamics of photonic condensates

Photonic condensates are complex systems exhibiting phase transitions due to the interaction with their molecular environment. Given the macroscopic number of molecules that form a reservoir of excitations, numerical simulations are expensive, even for systems with few cavity modes. We present a systematic construction of molecular excitation profiles with a clear hierarchical ordering, such that only modes in the lowest order in the hierarchy directly affect the cavity photon dynamics. In addition to a substantial gain in computational efficiency for simulations of photon dynamics, the explicit spatial shape of the mode profiles offers a clear physical insight into the competition among the cavity modes for access to molecular excitations.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2019

Non-critical slowing down of photonic condensation

We investigate the response of a photonic gas interacting with a reservoir of pumped dye-molecules to quenches in the pump power. In addition to the expected dramatic critical slowing down of the equilibration time around phase transitions we find extremely slow equilibration even far away from phase transitions. This non-critical slowing down can be accounted for quantitatively by fierce competition among cavity modes for access to the molecular environment, and we provide a quantitative explanation for this non-critical slowing down.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2019

Quantum Simulation of the Dissipative Anderson Model

The interplay of Anderson localisation and decoherence results in intricate dynamics but is notoriously difficult to simulate on classical computers. We develop the framework for a quantum simulation of such an open quantum system making use of time-varying randomised gradients, and show that even an implementation with limited experimental resources results in accurate simulations.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2019

Non-stationary Statistics and Formation Jitter in Transient Photon Condensation

While equilibrium phase transitions are well described by a free-energy landscape, there are few tools to describe general features of their non-equilibrium counterparts. On the other hand, near-equilibrium free-energies are easily accessible but their full geometry is only explored in non-equilibrium, e.g. after a quench. In the particular case of a non-stationary system, however, the concepts of an order parameter and free energy become ill-defined, and a comprehensive understanding of non-stationary (transient) phase transitions is still lacking. Here, we probe transient non-equilibrium dynamics of an optically pumped, dye-filled microcavity which exhibits near-equilibrium Bose-Einstein condensation under steady-state conditions. By rapidly exciting a large number of dye molecules, we quench the system to a far-from-equilibrium state and, close to a critical excitation energy, find delayed condensation, interpreted as a transient equivalent of critical slowing down. We introduce the two-time, non-stationary, second-order correlation function as a powerful experimental tool for probing the statistical properties of the transient relaxation dynamics. In addition to number fluctuations near the critical excitation energy, we show that transient phase transitions exhibit a different form of diverging fluctuations, namely timing jitter in the growth of the order parameter. This jitter is seeded by the randomness associated with spontaneous emission, with its effect being amplified near the critical point. The general character of our results are then discussed based on the geometry of effective free-energy landscapes. We thus identify universal features, such as the formation timing jitter, for a larger set of systems undergoing transient phase transitions. Our results carry immediate implications to diverse systems, including micro- and nano-lasers and growth of colloidal nanoparticles.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗
arXiv2019

Engineered Nearest-Neighbour Interactions with Doubly Modulated Optical Lattices

Optical lattice systems provide exceptional platforms for quantum simulation of many-body systems. We focus on the doubly modulated Bose-Hubbard model driven by both time-dependent on-site energy and interaction, and predict the emergence of the nearest neighbour interaction and density-assisted tunnelling. By specifically designing a bi-chromatic driving pattern for a one dimensional lattice, we demonstrate that the doubly modulated fields can be tuned to realize desired quantum phases, e.g. the Mott insulator phase with selective defects, and density wave phase.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗
arXiv2019

Floquet Time Spirals and Stable Discrete Time Quasi-Crystals in Quasi-Periodically Driven Quantum Many-Body Systems

We analyse quasi-periodically driven quantum systems that can be mapped exactly to periodically driven ones and find Floquet Time Spirals in analogy with spatially incommensurate spiral magnetic states. Generalising the mechanism to many-body systems we discover that a form of discrete time-translation symmetry breaking can also occur in quasi-periodically driven systems. We construct a discrete time quasi-crystal stabilised by many-body localisation. Crucially, it persists also under perturbations that break the equivalence with periodic systems. As such it provides evidence of a stable quasi-periodically driven many-body quantum system which does not heat up to the featureless infinite temperature state.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗
arXiv2019

Accelerating adiabatic protocols for entangling two qubits in circuit QED

We introduce a method to speed up adiabatic protocols for creating entanglement between two qubits dispersively coupled to a transmission line, while keeping fidelities high and maintaining robustness to control errors. The method takes genuinely adiabatic sweeps, ranging from a simple Landau-Zener drive to boundary cancellation methods and local adiabatic drivings, and adds fast oscillations to speed up the protocol while canceling unwanted transitions. We compare our protocol with existing adiabatic methods in a state-of-the-art parameter range and show substantial gains. Numerical simulations emphasize that this strategy is efficient also beyond the rotating-wave approximation and that the method is robust against random static biases in the control parameters and with respect to damping and decoherence effects.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2018

A comparison of the Bravyi-Kitaev and Jordan-Wigner transformations for the quantum simulation of quantum chemistry

The ability to perform classically intractable electronic structure calculations is often cited as one of the principal applications of quantum computing. A great deal of theoretical algorithmic development has been performed in support of this goal. Most techniques require a scheme for mapping electronic states and operations to states of and operations upon qubits. The two most commonly used techniques for this are the Jordan-Wigner transformation and the Bravyi-Kitaev transformation. However, comparisons of these schemes have previously been limited to individual small molecules. In this paper we discuss resource implications for the use of the Bravyi-Kitaev mapping scheme, specifically with regard to the number of quantum gates required for simulation. We consider both small systems which may be simulatable on near-future quantum devices, and systems sufficiently large for classical simulation to be intractable. We use 86 molecular systems to demonstrate that the use of the Bravyi-Kitaev transformation is typically at least approximately as efficient as the canonical Jordan-Wigner transformation, and results in substantially reduced gate count estimates when performing limited circuit optimisations.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2018

Fast adiabatic evolution by oscillating initial Hamiltonians

We propose a method to produce fast transitionless dynamics for finite-dimensional quantum systems without requiring additional Hamiltonian components not included in the initial control setup, remaining close to the true adiabatic path at all times. The strategy is based on the introduction of an effective counterdiabatic scheme: a correcting Hamiltonian is constructed which approximatively cancels nonadiabatic effects, inducing an evolution tracking the adiabatic states closely. This can be absorbed into the initial Hamiltonian by adding a fast oscillation in the control parameters. We show that a consistent speedup can be achieved without requiring strong control Hamiltonians, using it both as a stand-alone shortcut-to-adiabaticity and as a weak correcting field. A number of examples are treated, dealing with quantum state transfer in avoided-crossing problems and entanglement creation.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2018

Deterministic preparation of highly non-classical macroscopic quantum states

We present a scheme to deterministically prepare non-classical quantum states of a massive mirror including highly non-Gaussian states exhibiting sizeable negativity of the Wigner function. This is achieved by exploiting the non-linear light-matter interaction in an optomechanical cavity by driving the system with optimally designed frequency patterns. Our scheme reveals to be resilient against mechanical and optical damping, as well as mechanical thermal noise and imperfections in the driving scheme. Our proposal thus opens a promising route for table-top experiments to explore and exploit macroscopic quantum phenomena.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2018

In situ upgrade of quantum simulators to universal computers

Quantum simulators, machines that can replicate the dynamics of quantum systems, are being built as useful devices and are seen as a stepping stone to universal quantum computers. A key difference between the two is that computers have the ability to perform the logic gates that make up algorithms. We propose a method for learning how to construct these gates efficiently by using the simulator to perform optimal control on itself. This bypasses two major problems of purely classical approaches to the control problem: the need to have an accurate model of the system, and a classical computer more powerful than the quantum one to carry out the required simulations. Strong evidence that the scheme scales polynomially in the number of qubits, for systems of up to 9 qubits with Ising interactions, is presented from numerical simulations carried out in different topologies. This suggests that this in situ approach is a practical way of upgrading quantum simulators to computers.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2018

High Fidelity Quantum Gates beyond spectral selection

Driving a certain transition without including undesired transitions is an ubiquitous problem in quantum control and the implementation of quantum information processing. This problem gets the more challenging the weaker the desired transition couples to the control field, and the denser the system's spectrum is. With the explicit example of a trapped ion we show how temporally shaped driving helps to increase the fidelity of a gate operation beyond the regular spectral selection of resonantly driven transitions. We chose the explicit example of side-band transitions, since those couple more weakly to a control field than carrier transitions. Driving a sideband transition without carrier excitation thus allows us to test the limits of frequently employed control tools, and we discuss their potential and limitations.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2018

Driven-dissipative, non-equilibrium Bose-Einstein condensation of just a few photons

Coherence is a defining feature of quantum condensates. These condensates are inherently multimode phenomena and in the macroscopic limit it becomes extremely difficult to resolve populations of individual modes and the coherence between them. In this work we demonstrate non-equilibrium Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of photons in a sculpted dye-filled microcavity, where threshold is found for $8\pm 2$ photons. With this nanocondensate we are able to measure occupancies and coherences of individual energy levels of the bosonic field. Coherence of individual modes generally increases with increasing photon number, but at the breakdown of thermal equilibrium we observe multimode-condensation phase transitions wherein coherence unexpectedly decreases with increasing population, suggesting that the photons show strong inter-mode phase or number correlations despite the absence of a direct nonlinearity. Experiments are well-matched to a detailed non-equilibrium model. We find that microlaser and Bose-Einstein statistics each describe complementary parts of our data and are limits of our model in appropriate regimes, which informs the debate on the differences between the two.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2017

Optimal control of non-Markovian dynamics in a single-mode cavity strongly coupled to an inhomogeneously broadened spin ensemble

Ensembles of quantum mechanical spins offer a promising platform for quantum memories, but proper functionality requires accurate control of unavoidable system imperfections. We present an efficient control scheme for a spin ensemble strongly coupled to a single-mode cavity based on a set of Volterra equations relying solely on weak classical control pulses. The viability of our approach is demonstrated in terms of explicit storage and readout sequences that will serve as a starting point towards the realization of more demanding full quantum mechanical optimal control schemes.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2017

Decondensation in non-equilibrium photonic condensates: when less is more

We investigate the steady state of a system of photons in a pumped dye-filled microcavity. By varying pump and thermalization the system can be tuned between Bose-Einstein condensation, multimode condensation, and lasing. We present a rich non-equilibrium phase diagram which exhibits transitions between these phases, including decondensation of individual modes under conditions that would typically favor condensation.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗
arXiv2017

From Quantum Optics to Quantum Technologies

Quantum optics is the study of the intrinsically quantum properties of light. During the second part of the 20th century experimental and theoretical progress developed together; nowadays quantum optics provides a testbed of many fundamental aspects of quantum mechanics such as coherence and quantum entanglement. Quantum optics helped trigger, both directly and indirectly, the birth of quantum technologies, whose aim is to harness non-classical quantum effects in applications from quantum key distribution to quantum computing. Quantum light remains at the heart of many of the most promising and potentially transformative quantum technologies. In this review, we celebrate the work of Sir Peter Knight and present an overview of the development of quantum optics and its impact on quantum technologies research. We describe the core theoretical tools developed to express and study the quantum properties of light, the key experimental approaches used to control, manipulate and measure such properties and their application in quantum simulation, and quantum computing.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2017

Performance of a quantum heat engine at strong reservoir coupling

We study a quantum heat engine at strong coupling between the system and the thermal reservoirs. Exploiting a collective coordinate mapping, we incorporate system-reservoir correlations into a consistent thermodynamic analysis, thus circumventing the usual restriction to weak coupling and vanishing correlations. We apply our formalism to the example of a quantum Otto cycle, demonstrating that the performance of the engine is diminished in the strong coupling regime with respect to its weakly coupled counterpart, producing a reduced net work output and operating at a lower energy conversion efficiency. We identify costs imposed by sudden decoupling of the system and reservoirs around the cycle as being primarily responsible for the diminished performance, and define an alternative operational procedure which can partially recover the work output and efficiency. More generally, the collective coordinate mapping holds considerable promise for wider studies of thermodynamic systems beyond weak reservoir coupling.

quant-ph↗