arXiv subjects

K. Birgitta Whaley

Publications and source records attributed to K. Birgitta Whaley.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

arXiv2013

Design principles and fundamental trade-offs in biomimetic light harvesting

Recent developments in synthetic and supramolecular chemistry have created opportunities to design organic systems with tailored nanoscale structure for various technological applications. A key application area is the capture of light energy and its conversion into electrochemical or chemical forms for photovoltaic or sensing applications. In this work we consider cylindrical assemblies of chromophores that model structures produced by several supramolecular techniques. Our study is especially guided by the versatile structures produced by virus-templated assembly. We use a multi-objective optimization framework to determine design principles and limitations in light harvesting performance for such assemblies, both in the presence and absence of disorder. We identify a fundamental trade-off in cylindrical assemblies that is encountered when attempting to maximize both efficiency of energy transfer and absorption bandwidth. We also rationalize the optimal design strategies and provide explanations for why various structures provide optimal performance. Most importantly, we find that the optimal design strategies depend on the amount of energetic and structural disorder in the system. The aim of these studies is to develop a program of quantum-informed rational design for construction of organic assemblies that have the same degree of tailored nanoscale structure as biological photosynthetic light harvesting complexes, and also have the potential to reproduce their remarkable light harvesting performance.

physics.bio-ph↗

arXiv2013

Entanglement Entropy at Generalized Rokhsar-Kivelson Points of Quantum Dimer Models

We study the $n=2$ R\' enyi entanglement entropy of the triangular quantum dimer model via Monte Carlo sampling of Rokhsar-Kivelson(RK)-like ground state wavefunctions. Using the construction proposed by Kitaev and Preskill [Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 110404 (2006)] and an adaptation of the Monte Carlo algorithm described by Hastings \emph{et al.} [Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 157201 (2010)], we compute the topological entanglement entropy (TEE) at the RK point $γ= (1.001 \pm 0.003) \ln 2$ confirming earlier results. Additionally, we compute the TEE of the ground state of a generalized RK-like Hamiltonian and demonstrate the universality of TEE over a wide range of parameter values within a topologically ordered phase approaching a quantum phase transition. For systems sizes that are accessible numerically, we find that the quantization of TEE depends sensitively on correlations. We characterize corner contributions to the entanglement entropy and show that these are well described by shifts proportional to the number and types of corners in the bipartition.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2013

Quantum dynamics of local phase differences between reservoirs of driven interacting bosons separated by simple aperture arrays

We present a derivation of the effective action for the relative phase of driven, aperture-coupled reservoirs of weakly-interacting condensed bosons from a (3+1)-D microscopic model with local U(1) gauge symmetry. We show that inclusion of local chemical potential and driving velocity fields as a gauge field allows derivation of the hydrodynamic equations of motion for the driven macroscopic phase differences across simple aperture arrays. For a single aperture, the current-phase equation for driven flow contains sinusoidal, linear, and current-bias contributions. We compute the renormalization group (RG) beta function of the periodic potential in the effective action for small tunneling amplitudes and use this to analyze the temperature dependence of the low-energy current-phase relation, with application to the transition from linear to sinusoidal current-phase behavior observed in experiments by Hoskinson et al. \cite{packard} for liquid $^{4}$He driven through nanoaperture arrays. Extension of the microscopic theory to a two-aperture array shows that interference between the microscopic tunneling contributions for individual apertures leads to an effective coupling between apertures which amplifies the Josephson oscillations in the array. The resulting multi-aperture current-phase equations are found to be equivalent to a set of equations for coupled pendula, with microscopically derived couplings.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

Entanglement creation in cold molecular gases using strong laser pulses

While many-particle entanglement can be found in natural solids and strongly interacting atomic and molecular gases, generating highly entangled states between weakly interacting particles in a controlled and scalable way presents a significant challenge. We describe here a one-step method to generate entanglement in a dilute gas of cold polar molecules. For molecules in optical traps separated by a few micrometers, we show that maximally entangled states can be created using the strong off-resonant pulses that are routinely used in molecular alignment experiments. We show that the resulting alignment-mediated entanglement can be detected by measuring laser-induced fluorescence with single-site resolution and that signatures of this molecular entanglement also appear in the microwave absorption spectra of the molecular ensemble. We analyze the robustness of these entangled molecular states with respect to intensity fluctuations of the trapping laser and discuss possible applications of the system for quantum information processing.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2012

Robust control pulses design for electron shuttling in solid state devices

In this paper we study robust pulse design for electron shuttling in solid state devices. This is crucial for many practical applications of coherent quantum mechanical systems. Our objective is to design control pulses that can transport an electron along a chain of donors, and also make this process robust to parameter uncertainties. We formulate it as a set of optimal control problems on the special unitary group SU(n), and derive explicit expressions for the gradients of the aggregate transfer fidelity. Numerical results for a donor chain of ionized phosphorus atoms in bulk silicon demonstrate the efficacy of our algorithm.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2012

Spatial propagation of excitonic coherence enables ratcheted energy transfer

Experimental evidence shows that a variety of photosynthetic systems can preserve quantum beats in the process of electronic energy transfer, even at room temperature. However, whether this quantum coherence arises in vivo and whether it has any biological function have remained unclear. Here we present a theoretical model that suggests that the creation and recreation of coherence under natural conditions is ubiquitous. Our model allows us to theoretically demonstrate a mechanism for a ratchet effect enabled by quantum coherence, in a design inspired by an energy transfer pathway in the Fenna-Matthews-Olson complex of the green sulfur bacteria. This suggests a possible biological role for coherent oscillations in spatially directing energy transfer. Our results emphasize the importance of analyzing long-range energy transfer in terms of transfer between inter-complex coupling (ICC) states rather than between site or exciton states.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2012

Finite temperature quantum simulation of stabilizer Hamiltonians

We present a scheme for robust finite temperature quantum simulation of stabilizer Hamiltonians. The scheme is designed for realization in a physical system consisting of a finite set of neutral atoms trapped in an addressable optical lattice that are controllable via 1- and 2-body operations together with dissipative 1-body operations such as optical pumping. We show that these minimal physical constraints suffice for design of a quantum simulation scheme for any stabilizer Hamiltonian at either finite or zero temperature. We demonstrate the approach with application to the abelian and non-abelian toric codes.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2011

Hamiltonian tomography of dissipative systems under limited access: A biomimetic case study

The identification of parameters in the Hamiltonian that describes complex many-body quantum systems is generally a very hard task. Recent attention has focused on such problems of Hamiltonian tomography for networks constructed with two-level systems. For open quantum systems, the fact that injected signals are likely to decay before they accumulate sufficient information for parameter estimation poses additional challenges. In this paper, we consider use of the gateway approach to Hamiltonian tomography \cite{Burgarth2009,Burgarth2009a} to complex quantum systems with a limited set of state preparation and measurement probes. We classify graph properties of networks for which the Hamiltonian may be estimated under equivalent conditions on state preparation and measurement. We then examine the extent to which the gateway approach may be applied to estimation of Hamiltonian parameters for network graphs with non-trivial topologies mimicking biomolecular systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2011

Qubits as spectrometers of dephasing noise

We present a procedure for direct characterization of the dephasing noise acting on a single qubit by making repeated measurements of the qubit coherence under suitably chosen sequences of controls. We show that this allows a numerical reconstruction of the short time noise correlation function and that it can be combined with a series of measurements under free evolution to allow a characterization of the noise correlation function over many orders of magnitude range in timescale. We also make an analysis of the robustness and reliability of the estimated correlation functions. Application to a simple model of two uncorrelated noise fluctuators using decoupling pulse sequences shows that the approach provides a useful route for experimental characterization of dephasing noise and its statistical properties in a variety of condensed phase and atomic systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2011

Environmental correlation effects on excitation energy transfer in photosynthetic light harvesting

Several recent studies of energy transfer in photosynthetic light harvesting complexes have revealed a subtle interplay between coherent and decoherent dynamic contributions to the overall transfer efficiency in these open quantum systems. In this work we systematically investigate the impact of temporal and spatial correlations in environmental fluctuations on excitation transport in the Fenna-Matthews-Olson photosynthetic complex. We demonstrate that the exact nature of the correlations can have a large impact on the efficiency of light harvesting. In particular, we find that (i) spatial correlations can enhance coherences in the site basis while at the same time slowing transport, and (ii) the overall efficiency of transport is optimized at a finite temporal correlation that produces maximum overlap between the environmental power spectrum and the excitonic energy differences, which in turn results in enhanced driving of transitions between excitonic states.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2010

Quantum entanglement phenomena in photosynthetic light harvesting complexes

We review recent theoretical calculations of quantum entanglement in photosynthetic light harvesting complexes. These works establish, for the first time, a manifestation of this characteristically quantum mechanical phenomenon in biologically functional structures. We begin by summarizing calculations on model biomolecular systems that aim to reveal non-trivial characteristics of quantum entanglement in non-equilibrium biological environments. We then discuss and compare several calculations performed recently of excitonic dynamics in the Fenna-Matthews-Olson light harvesting complex and of the entanglement present in this widely studied pigment-protein structure. We point out the commonalities between the derived results and also identify and explain the differences. We also discuss recent work that examines entanglement in the structurally more intricate light harvesting complex II (LHCII). During this overview, we take the opportunity to clarify several subtle issues relating to entanglement in such biomolecular systems, including the role of entanglement in biological function, the complexity of dynamical modeling that is required to capture the salient features of entanglement in such biomolecular systems, and the relationship between entanglement and other quantum mechanical features that are observed and predicted in light harvesting complexes. Finally, we suggest possible extensions of the current work and also review the options for experimental confirmation of the predicted entanglement phenomena in light harvesting complexes.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2010

Quantum entanglement in photosynthetic light harvesting complexes

Light harvesting components of photosynthetic organisms are complex, coupled, many-body quantum systems, in which electronic coherence has recently been shown to survive for relatively long time scales despite the decohering effects of their environments. Within this context, we analyze entanglement in multi-chromophoric light harvesting complexes, and establish methods for quantification of entanglement by presenting necessary and sufficient conditions for entanglement and by deriving a measure of global entanglement. These methods are then applied to the Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) protein to extract the initial state and temperature dependencies of entanglement. We show that while FMO in natural conditions largely contains bipartite entanglement between dimerized chromophores, a small amount of long-range and multipartite entanglement exists even at physiological temperatures. This constitutes the first rigorous quantification of entanglement in a biological system. Finally, we discuss the practical utilization of entanglement in densely packed molecular aggregates such as light harvesting complexes.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2010

Fighting dephasing noise with robust optimal control

We address the experimentally relevant problem of robust mitigation of dephasing noise acting on a qubit. We first present an extension of a method for representing $1/ω^α$ noise developed by Kuopanportti et al. to the efficient representation of arbitrary Markovian noise. We then add qubit control pulses to enable the design of numerically optimized, two-dimensional control functions with bounded amplitude, that are capable of decoupling the qubit from the dephasing effects of a broad variety of Markovian noise spectral densities during arbitrary one qubit quantum operations. We illustrate the method with development of numerically optimized control pulse sequences that minimize decoherence due to a combination of $1/ω$ and constant offset noise sources. Comparison with the performance of standard dynamical decoupling protocols shows that the numerically optimized pulse sequences are considerably more robust with respect to the noise offset, rendering them attractive for application to situations where homogeneous dephasing noise sources are accompanied by some extent of heterogeneous dephasing. Application to the mitigation of dephasing noise on spin qubits in silicon indicates that high fidelity single qubit gates are possible with current pulse generation technology.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2010

Limits of quantum speedup in photosynthetic light harvesting

It has been suggested that excitation transport in photosynthetic light harvesting complexes features speedups analogous to those found in quantum algorithms. Here we compare the dynamics in these light harvesting systems to the dynamics of quantum walks, in order to elucidate the limits of such quantum speedups. For the Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) complex of green sulfur bacteria, we show that while there is indeed speedup at short times, this is short lived (70 fs) despite longer lived (ps) quantum coherence. Remarkably, this time scale is independent of the details of the decoherence model. More generally, we show that the distinguishing features of light-harvesting complexes not only limit the extent of quantum speedup but also reduce rates of diffusive transport. These results suggest that quantum coherent effects in biological systems are optimized for efficiency or robustness rather than the more elusive goal of quantum speedup.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2009

Microscopic model of critical current noise in Josephson-junction qubits: Subgap resonances and Andreev bound states

We propose a microscopic model of critical current noise in Josephson-junctions based on individual trapping-centers in the tunnel barrier hybridized with electrons in the superconducting leads. We calculate the noise exactly in the limit of no on-site Coulomb repulsion. Our result reveals a noise spectrum that is dramatically different from the usual Lorentzian assumed in simple models. We show that the noise is dominated by sharp subgap resonances associated to the formation of pairs of Andreev bound states, thus providing a possible explanation for the spurious two-level systems (microresonators) observed in Josephson junction qubits [R.W. Simmonds et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 077003 (2004)]. Another implication of our model is that each trapping-center will contribute a sharp dielectric resonance only in the superconducting phase, providing an effective way to validate our results experimentally. We derive an effective Hamiltonian for a qubit interacting with Andreev bound states, establishing a direct connection between phenomenological models and the microscopic parameters of a Fermionic bath.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2009

Optimal quantum multi-parameter estimation and application to dipole- and exchange-coupled qubits

We consider the problem of quantum multi-parameter estimation with experimental constraints and formulate the solution in terms of a convex optimization. Specifically, we outline an efficient method to identify the optimal strategy for estimating multiple unknown parameters of a quantum process and apply this method to a realistic example. The example is two electron spin qubits coupled through the dipole and exchange interactions with unknown coupling parameters -- explicitly, the position vector relating the two qubits and the magnitude of the exchange interaction are unknown. This coupling Hamiltonian generates a unitary evolution which, when combined with arbitrary single-qubit operations, produces a universal set of quantum gates. However, the unknown parameters must be known precisely to generate high-fidelity gates. We use the Cramér-Rao bound on the variance of a point estimator to construct the optimal series of experiments to estimate these free parameters, and present a complete analysis of the optimal experimental configuration. Our method of transforming the constrained optimal parameter estimation problem into a convex optimization is powerful and widely applicable to other systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2009

Quantum non-demolition measurements of single donor spins in semiconductors

We propose a technique for measuring the state of a single donor electron spin using a field-effect transistor induced two-dimensional electron gas and electrically detected magnetic resonance techniques. The scheme is facilitated by hyperfine coupling to the donor nucleus. We analyze the potential sensitivity and outline experimental requirements. Our measurement provides a single-shot, projective, and quantum non-demolition measurement of an electron-encoded qubit state.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2008

New lower bounds on the non-zero capacity of Pauli Channels

We study encodings that give the best known thresholds for the non-zero capacity of quantum channels, i.e., the upper bound for correctable noise, using an entropic approach to calculation of the threshold values. Our results show that Pauli noise is correctable up to the hashing bound. For a depolarizing channel, this approach allows one to achieve a non-zero capacity for a fidelity (probability of no error) of f=0.80870.

quant-ph↗