arXiv subjects

Kavan Modi

Publications and source records attributed to Kavan Modi.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

A non-equilibrium quantum Landauer principle

Using the operational framework of completely positive, trace preserving operations and thermodynamic fluctuation relations, we derive a lower bound for the heat exchange in a Landauer erasure process on a quantum system. Our bound comes from a non-phenomenological derivation of the Landauer principle which holds for generic non-equilibrium dynamics. Furthermore the bound depends on the non-unitality of dynamics, giving it a physical significance that differs from other derivations. We apply our framework to the model of a spin-1/2 system coupled to an interacting spin chain at finite temperature.

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arXiv2014

Correlations, operations and the second law of thermodynamics

Completely positive trace preserving maps are essential for the formulation of the second law of thermodynamics. The dynamics of quantum systems, correlated with their environments, are in general not described by such maps. We explore how this issue can be fixed by describing the classical analogue of this problem. We consider correlated probability distributions, whose subsequent system dynamics is ill-described by stochastic maps, and prescribe the correct way to describe the dynamics. We use this prescription to discuss the classical version of the second law, valid for correlated probability distributions.

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arXiv2014

Characterizing quantum dynamics with initial system-environment correlations

We fully characterize the reduced dynamics of an open quantum system initially correlated with its environment. Using a photonic qubit coupled to a simulated environment we tomographically reconstruct a superchannel---a generalised channel that treats preparation procedures as inputs---from measurement of the system alone, despite its coupling to the environment. We introduce novel quantitative measures for determining the strength of initial correlations, and to allow an experiment to be optimised in regards to its environment.

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arXiv2014

Role of correlations in the two-body-marginal problem

Quantum properties of correlations have a key role in disparate fields of physics, from quantum information processing, to quantum foundations, to strongly correlated systems. We tackle a specific aspect of the fundamental quantum marginal problem: we address the issue of deducing the global properties of correlations of tripartite quantum states based on the knowledge of their bipartite reductions, focusing on relating specific properties of bipartite correlations to global correlation properties. We prove that strictly classical bipartite correlations may still require global entanglement and that unentangled---albeit not strictly classical---reductions may require global genuine multipartite entanglement, rather than simple entanglement. On the other hand, for three qubits, the strict classicality of the bipartite reductions rules out the need for genuine multipartite entanglement. Our work sheds new light on the relation between local and global properties of quantum states, and on the interplay between classical and quantum properties of correlations.

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arXiv2014

Measuring the heat exchange of a quantum process

Very recently, interferometric methods have been proposed to measure the full statistics of work performed on a driven quantum system [Dorner et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 110 230601 (2013)] and [Mazzola et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 110 230602 (2013)]. The advantage of such schemes is that they replace the necessity to make projective measurements by performing phase estimation on an appropriately coupled ancilla qubit. These proposals are one possible route to the tangible experimental exploration of quantum thermodynamics, a subject which is the centre of much current attention due to the current control of mesoscopic quantum systems. In this Letter we demonstrate that a modification of the phase estimation protocols can be used in order to measure the heat distribution of a quantum process. In addition we demonstrate how our scheme may be implemented using ion trap technology. Our scheme should pave the way for the first experimental explorations of the Landauer principle and hence the intricate energy to information conversion in mesoscopic quantum systems.

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arXiv2014

Energetic fluctuations in an open quantum process

Relations similar to work and exchange fluctuations have been recently derived for open systems dynamically evolving in the presence of an ancilla. Extending these relations and constructing a non-equilibrium Helmholtz equation we derive a general expression for the energetic and entropic changes of an open quantum system undergoing a nontrivial evolution. The expressions depend only on the state of the system and the dynamical map generating the evolution. Furthermore our formalism makes no assumption on either the nature or dimension of the ancilla. Our results are expected to find application in understanding the energetics of complex quantum systems undergoing open dynamics.

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arXiv2013

A pedagogical overview of quantum discord

Recent measures of nonclassical correlations are motivated by different notions of classicality and operational means. Quantum discord has received a great deal of attention in studies involving quantum computation, metrology, dynamics, many-body physics, and thermodynamics. In this article I show how quantum discord is different from quantum entanglement from a pedagogical point of view. I begin with a pedagogical introduction to quantum entanglement and quantum discord, followed by a historical review of quantum discord. Next, I give a novel definition of quantum discord in terms of any classically extractable information, a approach that is fitting for the current avenues of research. Lastly, I put forth several arguments for why discord is an interesting quantity to study and why it is of interest to so many researchers in the community.

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arXiv2013

Quantum Computing with black-box Subroutines

Modern programming relies on our ability to treat preprogrammed functions as black boxes - we can invoke them as subroutines without knowing their physical implementation. Here we show it is generally impossible to execute an unknown quantum subroutine. This, as a special case, forbids applying black-box subroutines conditioned on an ancillary qubit. We explore how this limits many quantum algorithms - forcing their circuit implementation to be individually tailored to specific inputs and inducing failure if these inputs are not known in advance. We present a method to avoid this situation for certain computational problems. We apply this method to enhance existing quantum factoring algorithms; reducing their complexity, and the extent to which they need to be tailored to factor specific numbers. Thus, we highlight a natural property of classical information that fails in the advent of quantum logic; and simultaneously demonstrate how to mitigate its effects in practical situations.

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arXiv2013

Measuring quantumness via anticommutators

We introduce a method to witness the quantumness of a system. The method relies on the fact that the anticommutator of two classical states is always positive. We show that there is always a nonpositive anticommutator due to any two quantum states. We notice that interference depends on the trace of the anticommutator of two states and it is therefore more natural to detect quantumness by looking at anticommutators of states rather than their commutators.

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arXiv2013

Vanishing quantum discord is not necessary for completely-positive maps

The description of the dynamics of a system that may be correlated with its environment is only meaningful within the context of a specific framework. Different frameworks rely upon different assumptions about the initial system-environment state. We reexamine the connections between complete-positivity and quantum discord within two different sets of assumptions about the relevant family of initial states. We present an example of a system-environment state with non-vanishing quantum discord that leads to a completely-positive map. This invalidates an earlier claim on the necessity of vanishing quantum discord for completely-positive maps. In our final remarks we discuss the physical validity of each approach.

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arXiv2013

The relation between nonlocality and contextuality for a biphoton

We investigate the set of qutrit states in terms of symmetric states of two qubits that violate the minimal contextual inequality, namely the Klyachko-Can-Binicoglu-Shumovsky (KCBS) inequality. The physical system that provides a natural framework for this problem is a biphoton which consists of two photons in the same spatio-temporal mode and whose effective polarization behaves as a three-level quantum system. The relationship between the KCBS contextual inequality and the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) inequality is investigated. We find that every biphotonic state that is contextual with respect to KCBS is nonlocal as per the CHSH test when the two photons are apart, but the converse is not true.

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arXiv2012

Positivity in the presence of initial system-environment correlation

The constraints imposed by the initial system-environment correlation can lead to nonpositive Dynamical maps. We find the conditions for positivity and complete positivity of such dynamical maps by using the concept of an assignment map. Any initial system-environment correlations make the assignment map nonpositive, while the positivity of the dynamical map depends on the interplay between the assignment map and the system-environment coupling. We show how this interplay can reveal or hide the nonpositivity of the assignment map. We discuss the role of this interplay in Markovian models.

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arXiv2012

The classical-quantum boundary for correlations: discord and related measures

One of the best signatures of nonclassicality in a quantum system is the existence of correlations that have no classical counterpart. Different methods for quantifying the quantum and classical parts of correlations are amongst the more actively-studied topics of quantum information theory over the past decade. Entanglement is the most prominent of these correlations, but in many cases unentangled states exhibit nonclassical behavior too. Thus distinguishing quantum correlations other than entanglement provides a better division between the quantum and classical worlds, especially when considering mixed states. Here we review different notions of classical and quantum correlations quantified by quantum discord and other related measures. In the first half, we review the mathematical properties of the measures of quantum correlations, relate them to each other, and discuss the classical-quantum division that is common among them. In the second half, we show that the measures identify and quantify the deviation from classicality in various quantum-information-processing tasks, quantum thermodynamics, open-system dynamics, and many-body physics. We show that in many cases quantum correlations indicate an advantage of quantum methods over classical ones.

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arXiv2012

Operational approach to open dynamics and quantifying initial correlations

A central aim of physics is to describe the dynamics of physical systems. Schrodinger's equation does this for isolated quantum systems. Describing the time evolution of a quantum system that interacts with its environment, in its most general form, has proved to be difficult because the dynamics is dependent on the state of the environment and the correlations with it. For discrete processes, such as quantum gates or chemical reactions, quantum process tomography provides the complete description of the dynamics, provided that the initial states of the system and the environment are independent of each other. However, many physical systems are correlated with the environment at the beginning of the experiment. Here, we give a prescription of quantum process tomography that yields the complete description of the dynamics of the system even when the initial correlations are present. Surprisingly, our method also gives quantitative expressions for the initial correlation.

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arXiv2012

Coherent and incoherent contents of correlations

We examine bipartite and multipartite correlations within the construct of unitary orbits. We show that the set of product states is a very small subset of set of all possible states, while all unitary orbits contain classically correlated states. Using this we give meaning to degeneration of quantum correlations due to a unitary interactions, which we call coherent correlations. The remaining classical correlations are called incoherent correlations and quantified in terms of the distance of the joint probability distributions to its marginals. Finally, we look at how entanglement looks in this picture for the two-qubit case.

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arXiv2012

Operational Significance of Discord Consumption: Theory and Experiment

Coherent interactions that generate negligible entanglement can still exhibit unique quantum behaviour. This observation has motivated a search beyond entanglement for a complete description of all quantum correlations. Quantum discord is a promising candidate. Here, we demonstrate that under certain measurement constraints, discord between bipartite systems can be consumed to encode information that can only be accessed by coherent quantum interactions. The inability to access this information by any other means allows us to use discord to directly quantify this `quantum advantage'. We experimentally encode information within the discordant correlations of two separable Gaussian states. The amount of extra information recovered by coherent interaction is quantified and directly linked with the discord consumed during encoding. No entanglement exists at any point of this experiment. Thus we introduce and demonstrate an operational method to use discord as a physical resource.

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arXiv2012

Dynamical role of system-environment correlations in non-Markovian dynamics

We analyse the role played by system-environment correlations in the emergence of non-Markovian dynamics. By working within the framework developed in Breuer et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 210401 (2009), we unveil a fundamental connection between non-Markovian behaviour and dynamics of system-environment correlations. We derive an upper bound to the rate of change of the distinguishability between different states of the system that explicitly depends on the development and establishment of correlations between system and environment. We illustrate our results using a fully solvable spin-chain model, which allows us to gain insight on the mechanisms triggering non-Markovian evolution.

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arXiv2012

Criteria for measures of quantum correlations

Entanglement does not describe all quantum correlations and several authors have shown the need to go beyond entanglement when dealing with mixed states. Various different measures have sprung up in the literature, for a variety of reasons, to describe bipartite and multipartite quantum correlations; some are known under the collective name quantum discord. Yet, in the same sprit as the criteria for entanglement measures, there is no general mechanism that determines whether a measure of quantum and classical correlations is a proper measure of correlations. This is partially due to the fact that the answer is a bit muddy. In this article we attempt tackle this muddy topic by writing down several criteria for a "good" measure of correlations. We breakup our list into necessary, reasonable, and debatable conditions. We then proceed to prove several of these conditions for generalized measures of quantum correlations. However, not all conditions are met by all measures; we show this via several examples. The reasonable conditions are related to continuity of correlations, which has not been previously discussed. Continuity is an important quality if one wants to probe quantum correlations in the laboratory. We show that most types of quantum discord are continuous but none are continuous with respect to the measurement basis used for optimization.

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