arXiv subjects

Franco Nori

Publications and source records attributed to Franco Nori.

At least 433 records · Page 24Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

Deterministic quantum nonlinear optics with single atoms and virtual photons

We show how analogues of a large number of well-known nonlinear-optics phenomena can be realized with one or more two-level atoms coupled to one or more resonator modes. Through higher-order processes, where virtual photons are created and annihilated, an effective deterministic coupling between two states of such a system can be created. In this way, analogues of three-wave mixing, four-wave mixing, higher-harmonic and -subharmonic generation (i.e., up- and downconversion), multiphoton absorption, parametric amplification, Raman and hyper-Raman scattering, the Kerr effect, and other nonlinear processes can be realized. The effective coupling becomes weaker the more intermediate transition steps are needed. However, given the recent experimental progress in ultrastrong light-matter coupling, especially in the field of circuit quantum electrodynamics, we estimate that many of these nonlinear-optics analogues can be realized with currently available technology.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2017

Magnetic field effects in electron systems with imperfect nesting

We analyze the effects of an applied magnetic field on the phase diagram of a weakly-correlated electron system with imperfect nesting. The Hamiltonian under study describes two bands: electron and hole ones. Both bands have spherical Fermi surfaces, whose radii are slightly mismatched due to doping. These types of models are often used in the analysis of magnetic states in chromium and its alloys, superconducting iron pnictides, AA-type bilayer graphene, borides, etc. At zero magnetic field, the uniform ground state of the system turns out to be unstable against electronic phase separation. The applied magnetic field affects the phase diagram in several ways. In particular, the Zeeman term stabilizes new antiferromagnetic phases. It also significantly shifts the boundaries of inhomogeneous (phase-separated) states. At sufficiently high fields, the Landau quantization gives rise to oscillations of the order parameters and of the Néel temperature as a function of the magnetic field.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2017

Single-electron gap in the spectrum of twisted bilayer graphene

We investigate the gap in the single-electron spectrum of twisted bilayer graphene. In a perfect infinite lattice of a twisted bilayer, the gap varies exponentially in response to weak changes of the twist angle. Such a large sensitivity makes theoretical predictions of the gap nearly impossible, since experimentally the twist angle is always known with finite accuracy. To address this issue, we numerically study finite clusters of twisted bilayer graphene. For finite systems, changing the twist angle causes a gradual crossover between gapless and gapped regimes. The crossover occurs when the finite-size quantization energy becomes comparable to the matrix elements responsible for the generation of the gap. We further argue that disorder scattering can induce similar crossover, in which the mean-free path plays the same role as the system size for the finite clusters. It is demonstrated that, to observe the gap experimentally, it is necessary to have a sample of suitable purity, and to possess the ability to tune the twist angle accurately.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Coherent phonon Rabi oscillations with a high frequency carbon nanotube phonon cavity

Phonon-cavity electromechanics allows the manipulation of mechanical oscillations similar to photon-cavity systems. Many advances on this subject have been achieved in various materials. In addition, the coherent phonon transfer (phonon Rabi oscillations) between the phonon cavity mode and another oscillation mode has attracted many interest in nano-science. Here we demonstrate coherent phonon transfer in a carbon nanotube phonon-cavity system with two mechanical modes exhibiting strong dynamical coupling. The gate-tunable phonon oscillation modes are manipulated and detected by extending the red-detuned pump idea of photonic cavity electromechanics. The first- and second-order coherent phonon transfers are observed with Rabi frequencies 591 kHz and 125 kHz, respectively. The frequency quality factor product fQ_m~2=10^12 Hz achieved here is larger thank k_B T_base/h, which may enable the future realization of Rabi oscillations in the quantum regime.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Temporal Steering in Four Dimensions with applications to coupled qubits and magnetoreception

Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) steering allows Alice to remotely prepare a state in some specific bases for Bob through her choice of measurements. The temporal analogue of EPR steering, temporal steering, also reveals the steerability of a single system between different times. Focusing on a four-dimensional system, here we investigate the dynamics of the temporal steering measures, the temporal steering robustness, using 5 mutually unbiased bases. As an example of an application, we use these measures to examine the temporal correlations in a radical pair model of magnetoreception. We find that, due to interactions with a static nuclear spin, the radical pair model exhibits strong non-Markovianity.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Multi-output microwave single-photon source using superconducting circuits with longitudinal and transverse couplings

Single-photon devices at microwave frequencies are important for applications in quantum information processing and communication in the microwave regime. In this work, we describe a proposal of a multi-output single-photon device. We consider two superconducting resonators coupled to a gap-tunable qubit via both its longitudinal and transverse degrees of freedom. Thus, this qubit-resonator coupling differs from the coupling in standard circuit quantum-electrodynamic systems described by the Jaynes-Cummings model. We demonstrate that an effective quadratic coupling between one of the normal modes and the qubit can be induced, and this induced second-order nonlinearity is much larger than that for conventional Kerr-type systems exhibiting photon blockade. Assuming that a coupled normal mode is resonantly driven, we observe that the output fields from the resonators exhibit strong sub-Poissonian photon-number statistics and photon antibunching. Contrary to previous studies on resonant photon blockade, the first-excited state of our device is a pure single-photon Fock state rather than a polariton state, i.e., a highly hybridized qubit-photon state. In addition, it is found that the optical state truncation caused by the strong qubit-induced nonlinearity can lead to an entanglement between the two resonators, even in their steady state under the Markov approximation.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Electric-field-induced interferometric resonance of a one-dimensional spin-orbit-coupled electron

We consider a one-dimensional spin-orbit-coupled nanowire quantum dot, driven by external electric and magnetic fields, and theoretically formulate an electric mechanism to interfere its electron orbits. Owing to the existence of spin-orbit coupling and a pulsed electric field, different spin-orbit states are shown to interfere with each other, generating intriguing interference-resonant patterns. We also reveal that an in-plane magnetic field does not affect the strength interval of any neighboring resonant peaks, but contributes a weak shift of each peak, which is sensitive to the direction of the magnetic field. We find that this proposed external-field-controlled scheme should be regarded as a new type of quantum-dot-based interferometry. Finally, this interferometry has an important application in precisely measuring relative experimental parameters, such as the Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit-coupling strengths, as well as the Lande-g factor.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Amplified opto-mechanical transduction of virtual radiation pressure

Here we describe how, utilizing a time-dependent opto-mechanical interaction, a mechanical probe can provide an amplified measurement of the virtual photons dressing the quantum ground state of an ultra strongly-coupled light-matter system. We calculate the thermal noise tolerated by this measurement scheme, and discuss a range of experimental setups in which it could be realized.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Edge Modes, Degeneracies, and Topological Numbers in Non-Hermitian Systems

We analyze chiral topological edge modes in a non-Hermitian variant of the 2D Dirac equation. Such modes appear at interfaces between media with different "masses" and/or signs of the "non-Hermitian charge". The existence of these edge modes is intimately related to exceptional points of the bulk Hamiltonians, i.e., degeneracies in the bulk spectra of the media. We find that the topological edge modes can be divided into three families ("Hermitian-like", "non-Hermitian", and "mixed"), these are characterized by two winding numbers, describing two distinct kinds of half-integer charges carried by the exceptional points. We show that all the above types of topological edge modes can be realized in honeycomb lattices of ring resonators with asymmetric or gain/loss couplings.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Experimental temporal quantum steering

Temporal steering is a form of temporal correlation between the initial and final state of a quantum system. It is a temporal analogue of the famous Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (spatial) steering. We demonstrate, by measuring the photon polarization, that temporal steering allows two parties to verify if they have been interacting with the same particle, even if they have no information about what happened with the particle in between the measurements. This is the first experimental study of temporal steering. We also performed experimental tests, based on the violation of temporal steering inequalities, of the security of two quantum key distribution protocols against individual attacks. Thus, these results can lead to applications for secure quantum communications and quantum engineering.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Superradiance with an ensemble of superconducting flux qubits

Superconducting flux qubits are a promising candidate for realizing quantum information processing and quantum simulations. Such devices behave like artificial atoms, with the advantage that one can easily tune the "atoms" internal properties. Here, by harnessing this flexibility, we propose a technique to minimize the inhomogeneous broadening of a large ensemble of flux qubits by tuning only the external flux. In addition, as an example of many-body physics in such an ensemble, we show how to observe superradiance, and its quadratic scaling with ensemble size, using a tailored microwave control pulse that takes advantage of the inhomogeneous broadening itself to excite only a sub-ensemble of the qubits. Our scheme opens up an approach to using superconducting circuits to explore the properties of quantum many-body systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Floquet spectrum and driven conductance in Dirac materials: Effects of Landau-Zener-Stückelberg-Majorana interferometry

Using the Landau-Zener-Stückelberg-Majorana-type (LZSM) semiclassical approach, we study both graphene and a thin film of a Weyl semimetal subjected to a strong AC electromagnetic field. The spectrum of quasi energies in the Weyl semimetal turns out to be similar to that of a graphene sheet. Earlier it has been predicted qualitatively that the transport properties of strongly-irradiated graphene oscillate as a function of the radiation intensity [S.V. Syzranov et al., Phys. Rev. B 88, 241112 (2013)]. Here we obtain rigorous quantitative results for a driven linear conductance of graphene and a thin film of a Weyl semimetal. The exact quantitative structure of oscillations exhibits two contributions. The first one is a manifestation of the Ramsauer-Townsend effect, while the second contribution is a consequence of the LZSM interference defining the spectrum of quasienergies.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Electronic properties of graphene-based bilayer systems

This article reviews the theoretical and experimental work related to the electronic properties of bilayer graphene systems. Three types of bilayer stackings are discussed: the AA, AB, and twisted bilayer graphene. This review covers single-electron properties, effects of static electric and magnetic fields, bilayer-based mesoscopic systems, spin-orbit coupling, dc transport and optical response, as well as spontaneous symmetry violation and other interaction effects. The selection of the material aims to introduce the reader to the most commonly studied topics of theoretical and experimental research in bilayer graphene.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Majorana fermion from Landau quantization in 2D topological superconductors

We study the generation of Majorana fermions in a two-dimensional topological superconductor placed in a transverse magnetic field B. A topological insulator/superconductor heterostructure and a two-dimensional p-wave superconductor are discussed. It is demonstrated that in these systems a single vortex creates two Majorana fermions, one hosted at the vortex core. The wave function of the second Majorana state is localized in the superconductor volume along a circle of radius $r^* \propto B^{-1}$ centered at the vortex core. In the case of many vortices, the sensitivity of $r^*$ to the magnetic field B may be used to control the coupling between the Majorana fermions. The latter property could be an asset for quantum computations.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Full reconstruction of a 14-qubit state within four hours

Full quantum state tomography (FQST) plays a unique role in the estimation of the state of a quantum system without \emph{a priori} knowledge or assumptions. Unfortunately, since FQST requires informationally (over)complete measurements, both the number of measurement bases and the computational complexity of data processing suffer an exponential growth with the size of the quantum system. A 14-qubit entangled state has already been experimentally prepared in an ion trap, and the data processing capability for FQST of a 14-qubit state seems to be far away from practical applications. In this paper, the computational capability of FQST is pushed forward to reconstruct a 14-qubit state with a run time of only 3.35 hours using the linear regression estimation (LRE) algorithm, even when informationally overcomplete Pauli measurements are employed. The computational complexity of the LRE algorithm is first reduced from $O(10^{19})$ to $O(10^{15})$ for a 14-qubit state, by dropping all the zero elements, and its computational efficiency is further sped up by fully exploiting the parallelism of the LRE algorithm with parallel Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) programming. Our result can play an important role in quantum information technologies with large quantum systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Controllable optical response by modifying the gain and loss of a mechanical resonator and cavity mode in an optomechanical system

We theoretically study a strongly-driven optomechanical system which consists of a passive optical cavity and an active mechanical resonator. When the optomechanical coupling strength is varied, phase transitions, which are similar those observed in $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric systems, are observed. We show that the optical transmission can be controlled by changing the gain of the mechanical resonator and loss of the optical cavity mode. Especially, we find that: (i) for balanced gain and loss, optical amplification and absorption can be tuned by changing the optomechanical coupling strength through a control field; (ii) for unbalanced gain and loss, even with a tiny mechanical gain, both optomechanically-induced transparency and anomalous dispersion can be observed around a critical point, which exhibits an ultra-long group delay. The time delay $τ$ can be optimized by regulating the optomechanical coupling strength through the control field and improved up to several orders of magnitude ($τ\sim2$ $\mathrm{ms}$) compared to that of conventional optomechanical systems ($τ\sim1$ $μ\mathrm{s}$). The presence of mechanical gain makes the group delay more robust to environmental perturbations. Our proposal provides a powerful platform to control light transport using a $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric-like optomechanical system.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2016

Spatio-Temporal Steering for Testing Nonclassical Correlations in Quantum Networks

We introduce the concept of spatio-temporal steering (STS), which reduces, in special cases, to Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering and the recently-introduced temporal steering. We describe two measures of this effect referred to as the STS weight and robustness. We suggest that these STS measures enable a new way to assess nonclassical correlations in an open quantum network, such as quantum transport through nano-structures or excitation transfer in a complex biological system. As one of our examples, we apply STS to check nonclassical correlations among sites in a photosynthetic pigment-protein complex in the Fenna-Matthews-Olson model.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Quantifying Non-Markovianity with Temporal Steering

Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) steering is a type of quantum correlation which allows one to remotely prepare, or steer, the state of a distant quantum system. While EPR steering can be thought of as a purely spatial correlation there does exist a temporal analogue, in the form of single-system temporal steering. However, a precise quantification of such temporal steering has been lacking. Here we show that it can be measured, via semidefinite programming, with a temporal steerable weight, in direct analogy to the recently proposed EPR steerable weight. We find a useful property of the temporal steerable weight in that it is a non-increasing function under completely-positive trace-preserving maps and can be used to define a sufficient and practical measure of strong non-Markovianity.

quant-ph↗