arXiv subjects

Hannes Pichler

Publications and source records attributed to Hannes Pichler.

88 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

Photonic Band Structure of Two-dimensional Atomic Lattices

Two-dimensional atomic arrays exhibit a number of intriguing quantum optical phenomena, including subradiance, nearly perfect reflection of radiation and long-lived topological edge states. Studies of emission and scattering of photons in such lattices require complete treatment of the radiation pattern from individual atoms, including long-range interactions. We describe a systematic approach to perform the calculations of collective energy shifts and decay rates in the presence of such long-range interactions for arbitrary two-dimensional atomic lattices. As applications of our method, we investigate the topological properties of atomic lattices both in free-space and near plasmonic surfaces.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2017

Topological Quantum Optics in Two-Dimensional Atomic Arrays

We demonstrate that two-dimensional atomic emitter arrays with subwavelength spacing constitute topologically protected quantum optical systems where the photon propagation is robust against large imperfections while losses associated with free space emission are strongly suppressed. Breaking time-reversal symmetry with a magnetic field results in gapped photonic bands with non-trivial Chern numbers and topologically protected, long-lived edge states. Due to the inherent nonlinearity of constituent emitters, such systems provide a platform for exploring quantum optical analogues of interacting topological systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2017

Quantum State Transfer via Noisy Photonic and Phononic Waveguides

We describe a quantum state transfer protocol, where a quantum state of photons stored in a first cavity can be faithfully transferred to a second distant cavity via an infinite 1D waveguide, while being immune to arbitrary noise (e.g. thermal noise) injected into the waveguide. We extend the model and protocol to a cavity QED setup, where atomic ensembles, or single atoms representing quantum memory, are coupled to a cavity mode. We present a detailed study of sensitivity to imperfections, and develop a quantum error correction protocol to account for random losses (or additions) of photons in the waveguide. Our numerical analysis is enabled by Matrix Product State techniques to simulate the complete quantum circuit, which we generalize to include thermal input fields. Our discussion applies both to photonic and phononic quantum networks.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2017

Photonic tensor networks produced by a single quantum emitter

We propose and analyze a protocol to generate two dimensional tensor network states using a single quantum system that sequentially interacts with a 1D string of qubits. This is accomplished by using parts of the string itself as a quantum queue memory. As a physical implementation, we consider a single atom or atom like system coupled to a 1D waveguide with a distant mirror, where guided photons represent the qubits while the mirror allows the implementation of the queue memory. We identify the class of many-body quantum states that can be produced using this approach. These include universal resources for measurement based quantum computation and states associated with topologically ordered phases. We discuss an explicit protocol to deterministically create a 2D cluster state in a quantum nanophotonic experiment, that allows for a realization of a quantum computer using a single atom coupled to light.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Measurement Protocol for the Entanglement Spectrum of Cold Atoms

Entanglement, and, in particular the entanglement spectrum, plays a major role in characterizing many-body quantum systems. While there has been a surge of theoretical works on the subject, no experimental measurement has been performed to date because of the lack of an implementable measurement scheme. Here, we propose a measurement protocol to access the entanglement spectrum of many-body states in experiments with cold atoms in optical lattices. Our scheme effectively performs a Ramsey spectroscopy of the entanglement Hamiltonian and is based on the ability to produce several copies of the state under investigation together with the possibility to perform a global swap gate between two copies conditioned on the state of an auxiliary qubit. We show how the required conditional swap gate can be implemented with cold atoms, either by using Rydberg interactions or coupling the atoms to a cavity mode. We illustrate these ideas on a simple (extended) Bose-Hubbard model where such a measurement protocol reveals topological features of the Haldane phase.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2016

Chiral quantum optics with V-level atoms and coherent quantum feedback

We study the dissipative dynamics of an atom in a V-level configuration driven by lasers and coupled to a semi-infinite waveguide. The coupling to the waveguide is chiral, in that each transition interacts only with the modes propagating in a given direction, and this direction is opposite for the two transitions. The waveguide is terminated by a mirror which coherently feeds the photon stream emitted by one transition back to the atom. First, we are interested in the dynamics of the atom in the Markovian limit where the time-delay in the feedback is negligible. Specifically, we study the conditions under which the atom evolves towards a pure "dark" stationary state, where the photons emitted by both transitions interfere destructively thanks to the coherent feedback, and the overall emission vanishes. This is a single-atom analog of the quantum dimer, where a pair of laser-driven two-level atoms is coupled to a unidirectional waveguide and dissipates towards a pure entangled dark state. Our setup should be feasible with current state-of-the-art experiments. Second, we extend our study to non-Markovian regimes and investigate the effect of the feedback retardation on the steady-state.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Chiral Quantum Optics

At the most fundamental level, the interaction between light and matter is manifested by the emission and absorption of single photons by single quantum emitters. Controlling light--matter interaction is the basis for diverse applications ranging from light technology to quantum--information processing. Many of these applications are nowadays based on photonic nanostructures strongly benefitting from their scalability and integrability. The confinement of light in such nanostructures imposes an inherent link between the local polarization and propagation direction of light. This leads to {\em chiral light--matter interaction}, i.e., the emission and absorption of photons depend on the propagation direction and local polarization of light as well as the polarization of the emitter transition. The burgeoning research field of {\em chiral quantum optics} offers fundamentally new functionalities and applications both for single emitters and ensembles thereof. For instance, a chiral light--matter interface enables the realization of integrated non--reciprocal single--photon devices and deterministic spin--photon interfaces. Moreover, engineering directional photonic reservoirs opens new avenues for constructing complex quantum circuits and networks, which may be applied to simulate a new class of quantum many--body systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Non-Markovian Dynamics in Chiral Quantum Networks with Spins and Photons

We study the dynamics of chiral quantum networks consisting of nodes coupled by unidirectional or asymmetric bidirectional quantum channels. In contrast to familiar photonic networks where driven two-level atoms exchange photons via 1D photonic nanostructures, we propose and study a setup where interactions between the atoms are mediated by spin excitations (magnons) in 1D $XX$ spin chains representing spin waveguides. While Markovian quantum network theory eliminates quantum channels as structureless reservoirs in a Born-Markov approximation to obtain a master equation for the nodes, we are interested in non-Markovian dynamics. This arises from the nonlinear character of the dispersion with band-edge effects, and from finite spin propagation velocities leading to time delays in interactions. To account for the non-Markovian dynamics we treat the quantum degrees of freedom of the nodes and connecting channels as a composite spin system with the surrounding of the quantum network as a Markovian bath, allowing for an efficient solution with time-dependent density matrix renormalization group techniques. We illustrate our approach showing non-Markovian effects in the driven-dissipative formation of quantum dimers, and we present examples for quantum information protocols involving quantum state transfer with engineered elements as basic building blocks of quantum spintronic circuits.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2015

Quantum Hall Physics with Cold Atoms in Cylindrical Optical Lattices

We propose and study various realizations of a Hofstadter-Hubbard model on a cylinder geometry with fermionic cold atoms in optical lattices. The cylindrical optical lattice is created by copropagating Laguerre-Gauss beams, i.e.~light beams carrying orbital angular momentum. By strong focusing of the light beams we create a real space optical lattice in the form of rings, which are offset in energy. A second set of Laguerre-Gauss beams then induces a Raman-hopping between these rings, imprinting phases corresponding to a synthetic magnetic field (artificial gauge field). In addition, by rotating the lattice potential, we achieve a slowly varying flux through the hole of the cylinder, which allows us to probe the Hall response of the system as a realization of Laughlin's thought experiment. We study how in the presence of interactions fractional quantum Hall physics could be observed in this setup.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2015

Photonic Quantum Circuits with Time Delays

We study the dynamics of photonic quantum circuits consisting of nodes coupled by quantum channels. We are interested in the regime where time delay in communication between the nodes is significant. This includes the problem of quantum feedback, where a quantum signal is fed back on a system with a time delay. We develop a matrix product state approach to solve the Quantum Stochastic Schrödinger Equation with time delays, which accounts in an efficient way for the entanglement of nodes with the stream of emitted photons in the waveguide, and thus the non-Markovian character of the dynamics. We illustrate this approach with two paradigmatic quantum optical examples: two coherently driven distant atoms coupled to a photonic waveguide with a time delay, and a driven atom coupled to its own output field with a time delay as an instance of a quantum feedback problem.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2015

Quantum Optics of Chiral Spin Networks

We study the driven-dissipative dynamics of a network of spin-1/2 systems coupled to one or more chiral 1D bosonic waveguides within the framework of a Markovian master equation. We determine how the interplay between a coherent drive and collective decay processes can lead to the formation of pure multipartite entangled steady states. The key ingredient for the emergence of these many-body dark states is an asymmetric coupling of the spins to left and right propagating guided modes. Such systems are motived by experimental possibilities with internal states of atoms coupled to optical fibers, or motional states of trapped atoms coupled to a spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensate. We discuss the characterization of the emerging multipartite entanglement in this system in terms of the Fisher information.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Quantum Spin Dimers from Chiral Dissipation in Cold-Atom Chains

We consider the non-equilibrium dynamics of a driven dissipative spin chain with chiral coupling to a 1D bosonic bath, and its atomic implementation with a two-species mixture of cold quantum gases. The reservoir is represented by a spin-orbit coupled 1D quasi-condensate of atoms in a magnetized phase, while the spins are identified with motional states of a separate species of atoms in an optical lattice. The chirality of reservoir excitations allows the spins to couple differently to left and right moving modes, which in our atomic setup can be tuned from bidirectional to purely unidirectional. Remarkably, this leads to a pure steady state in which pairs of neighboring spins form dimers that decouple from the remainder of the chain. Our results also apply to current experiments with two-level emitters coupled to photonic waveguides.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2013

Thermal vs. Entanglement Entropy: A Measurement Protocol for Fermionic Atoms with a Quantum Gas Microscope

We show how to measure the order-two Renyi entropy of many-body states of spinful fermionic atoms in an optical lattice in equilibrium and non-equilibrium situations. The proposed scheme relies on the possibility to produce and couple two copies of the state under investigation, and to measure the occupation number in a site- and spin-resolved manner, e.g. with a quantum gas microscope. Such a protocol opens the possibility to measure entanglement and test a number of theoretical predictions, such as area laws and their corrections. As an illustration we discuss the interplay between thermal and entanglement entropy for a one dimensional Fermi-Hubbard model at finite temperature, and its possible measurement in an experiment using the present scheme.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

An entropy perspective on the thermal crossover in a fermionic Hubbard chain

We study the Renyi entropy in the finite temperature crossover regime of a Hubbard chain using quantum Monte Carlo. The ground state entropy has characteristic features such as a logarithmic divergence with block size and $2\kF$ oscillations that are a hallmark of its Luttinger liquid nature. The interplay between the (extensive) thermal entropy and the ground state features is studied and we analyze the temperature induced decay of the amplitude of the oscillations as well as the scaling of the purity. Furthermore, we show how the spin and charge velocities can be extracted from the temperature dependence of the Renyi entropy, bridging our findings to recent experimental proposals on how to implement the measurement of Renyi entropies in cold atom system. Studying the Renyi mutual information, we also demonstrate how constraints such as particle number conservation can induce persistent correlations visible in the mutual information even at high temperature.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2013

Heating dynamics of bosonic atoms in a noisy optical lattice

We analyze the heating of interacting bosonic atoms in an optical lattice due to intensity fluctuations of the lasers forming the lattice. We focus in particular on fluctuations at low frequencies below the band gap frequency, such that the dynamics is restricted to the lowest band. We derive stochastic equations of motion, and analyze the effects on different many-body states, characterizing heating processes in both strongly and weakly interacting regimes. In the limit where the noise spectrum is flat at low frequencies, we can derive an effective Master equation describing the dynamics. We compute heating rates and changes to characteristic correlation functions both in the perturbation theory limit, and using a full time-dependent calculation of the stochastic many-body dynamics in 1D based on time-dependent density-matrix-renormalization-group methods.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2012

Dressed, noise- or disorder- resilient optical lattices

External noise is inherent in any quantum system, and can have especially strong effects for systems exhibiting sensitive many-body phenomena. We show how a dressed lattice scheme can provide control over certain types of noise for atomic quantum gases in the lowest band of an optical lattice, removing the effects of lattice amplitude noise to first order for particular choices of the dressing field parameters. We investigate the non-equilibrium many-body dynamics for bosons and fermions induced by noise away from this parameter regime, and also show how the same technique can be used to reduce spatial disorder in projected lattice potentials.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗