arXiv subjects

John A. Vaccaro

Publications and source records attributed to John A. Vaccaro.

11 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2004

Entanglement of identical particles and reference phase uncertainty

We have recently introduced a measure of the bipartite entanglement of identical particles, E_P, based on the principle that entanglement should be accessible for use as a resource in quantum information processing. We show here that particle entanglement is limited by the lack of a reference phase shared by the two parties, and that the entanglement is constrained to reference-phase invariant subspaces. The super-additivity of E_P results from the fact that this constraint is weaker for combined systems. A shared reference phase can only be established by transferring particles between the parties, that is, with additional nonlocal resources. We show how this nonlocal operation can increase the particle entanglement.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2003

Ferreting out the Fluffy Bunnies: Entanglement constrained by Generalized superselection rules

Entanglement is a resource central to quantum information (QI). In particular, entanglement shared between two distant parties allows them to do certain tasks that would otherwise be impossible. In this context, we study the effect on the available entanglement of physical restrictions on the local operations that can be performed by the two parties. We enforce these physical restrictions by generalized superselection rules (SSRs), which we define to be associated with a given group of physical transformations. Specifically the generalized SSR is that the local operations must be covariant with respect to that group. Then we operationally define the entanglement constrained by a SSR, and show that it may be far below that expected on the basis of a naive (or ``fluffy bunny'') calculation. We consider two examples. The first is a particle number SSR. Using this we show that for a two-mode BEC (with Alice owning mode $A$ and Bob mode $B$), the useful entanglement shared by Alice and Bob is identically zero. The second, a SSR associated with the symmetric group, is applicable to ensemble QI processing such as in liquid-NMR. We prove that even for an ensemble comprising many pairs of qubits, with each pair described by a pure Bell state, the entanglement per pair constrained by this SSR goes to zero for a large ensemble.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2003

The entanglement of indistinguishable particles shared between two parties

Using an operational definition we quantify the entanglement, $E_P$, between two parties who share an arbitrary pure state of $N$ indistinguishable particles. We show that $E_P \leq E_M$, where $E_M$ is the bipartite entanglement calculated from the mode-occupation representation. Unlike $E_M$, $E_P$ is {\em super-additive}. For example, $E_P =0$ for any single-particle state, but the state $\ket{1}\ket{1}$, where both modes are split between the two parties, has $E_P = 1/2$. We discuss how this relates to quantum correlations between particles, for both fermions and bosons.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2001

Atom lasers, coherent states, and coherence: I. physically realizable ensembles of pure states

A laser, be it an optical laser or an atom laser, is an open quantum system that produces a coherent beam of bosons. Far above threshold, the stationary state $ρ_{ss}$ of the laser mode is a mixture of coherent field states with random phase, or, equivalently, a Poissonian mixture of number states. This paper answers the question: can descriptions such as these, of $ρ_{ss}$ as a stationary ensemble of pure states, be physically realized? An ensemble of pure states for a particular system can be physically realized if, without changing the dynamics of the system, an experimenter can (in principle) know at any time that the system is in one of the pure-state members of the ensemble. Such knowledge can be obtained by monitoring the baths to which the system is coupled, provided that coupling is describable by a Markovian master equation. Using a family of master equations for the (atom) laser, we solve for the physically realizable (PR) ensembles. We find that for any finite self-energy $χ$ of the bosons in the laser mode, the coherent state ensemble is not PR; the closest one can come to it is an ensemble of squeezed states. This is particularly relevant for atom lasers, where the self-energy arising from elastic collisions is expected to be large. By contrast, the number state ensemble is always PR. As $χ$ increases, the states in the PR ensemble closest to the coherent state ensemble become increasingly squeezed. Nevertheless, there are values of $χ$ for which states with well-defined coherent amplitudes are PR, even though the atom laser is not coherent (in the sense of having a Bose-degenerate output). We discuss the physical significance of this anomaly in terms of conditional coherence (conditional Bose degeneracy).

quant-ph↗

arXiv2001

Atom Lasers, Coherent States, and Coherence:II. Maximally Robust Ensembles of Pure States

As discussed in Wiseman and Vaccaro [quant-ph/9906125], the stationary state of an optical or atom laser far above threshold is a mixture of coherent field states with random phase, or, equivalently, a Poissonian mixture of number states. We are interested in which, if either, of these descriptions of $ρ_{ss}$, is more natural. In the preceding paper we concentrated upon whether descriptions such as these are physically realizable (PR). In this paper we investigate another relevant aspect of these ensembles, their robustness. A robust ensemble is one for which the pure states that comprise it survive relatively unchanged for a long time under the system evolution. We determine numerically the most robust ensembles as a function of the parameters in the laser model: the self-energy $χ$ of the bosons in the laser mode, and the excess phase noise $ν$. We find that these most robust ensembles are PR ensembles, or similar to PR ensembles, for all values of these parameters. In the ideal laser limit ($ν=χ=0$), the most robust states are coherent states. As the phase noise $ν$ or phase dispersion $χ$ is increased, the most robust states become increasingly amplitude-squeezed. We find scaling laws for these states. As the phase diffusion or dispersion becomes so large that the laser output is no longer quantum coherent, the most robust states become so squeezed that they cease to have a well-defined coherent amplitude. That is, the quantum coherence of the laser output is manifest in the most robust PR states having a well-defined coherent amplitude. This lends support to the idea that robust PR ensembles are the most natural description of the state of the laser mode. It also has interesting implications for atom lasers in particular, for which phase dispersion due to self-interactions is expected to be large.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2001

Inequivalence of pure state ensembles for open quantum systems: the preferred ensembles are those that are physically realizable

An open quantum system in steady state $\hatρ_{ss}$ can be represented by a weighted ensemble of pure states $\hatρ_{ss}=\sum_{k}\wp_{k}\ket{ψ_k} \bra{ψ_k}$ in infinitely many ways. A physically realizable (PR) ensemble is one for which some continuous measurement of the environment will collapse the system into a pure state $\ket{ψ(t)}$, stochastically evolving such that the proportion of time for which $\ket{ψ(t)} = \ket{ψ_{k}}$ equals $\wp_{k}$. Some, but not all, ensembles are PR. This constitutes the preferred ensemble fact, with the PR ensembles being the preferred ensembles. We present the necessary and sufficient conditions for a given ensemble to be PR, and illustrate the method by showing that the coherent state ensemble is not PR for an atom laser.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2001

A class of symmetric controlled quantum operations

Certain quantum gates, such as the controlled-NOT gate, are symmetric in terms of the operation of the control system upon the target system and vice versa. However, no operational criteria yet exist for establishing whether or not a given quantum gate is symmetrical in this sense. We consider a restricted, yet broad, class of two-party controlled gate operations for which the gate transforms a reference state of the target into one of an orthogonal set of states. We show that for this class of gates it is possible to establish a simple necessary and sufficient condition for the gate operation to be symmetric.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2000

Excited stationary states of trapped Bose-Einstein condensates

We investigate the excited stationary states of Bose-Einstein condensates trapped in harmonic potentials. We derive simple analytical approximations of the first few eigenstates of the associated time-independent one-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equation and their energies. Our results are excited state generalizations of the Thomas-Fermi approximation of the ground state.

cond-mat↗

arXiv2000

Prospects for photon blockade in four level systems in the N configuration with more than one atom

We show that for appropriate choices of parameters it is possible to achieve photon blockade in idealised one, two and three atom systems. We also include realistic parameter ranges for rubidium as the atomic species. Our results circumvent the doubts cast by recent discussion in the literature (Grangier et al Phys. Rev Lett. 81, 2833 (1998), Imamoglu et al Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 2836 (1998)) on the possibility of photon blockade in multi-atom systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv1998

Mean-density Bogoliubov description of inhomogeneous Bose-condensed gases

A mean-density description of spatially-inhomogeneous Bose-condensed gases based on Bogoliubov's method is introduced. The description assumes only a large mean atomic density and so remains valid when the mean field collapses due to phase diffusion. A spread in the number of particles in the condensate is shown to lead to an anomalous coupling between the condensate and excited modes. This coupling is due to the dependence of the condensate spatial wavefunction on particle number and it could, in principle, be used for reducing particle fluctuations in the condensate.

quant-ph↗

arXiv1995

Reconstructing the density operator via simple projectors

We describe the representation of arbitrary density operators in terms of expectation values of simple projection operators. Two representations are presented which yield non--recursive schemes for experimentally determining the density operator of any quantum system. We suggest a possible experimental implementation in quantum optics.

quant-ph↗