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Klaus Mølmer

Publications and source records attributed to Klaus Mølmer.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Symmetry-resolved parent Hamiltonians for entangled bosonic cat resources

Schrödinger cat states, formed from superpositions of well-separated coherent states, are promising resources for bosonic quantum information. We construct parent Hamiltonians for entangled multimode cat states by separating the selection of local coherent-state branches from the correlations and symmetries that determine their global superposition. GHZ-, cluster-, and W-type cat states illustrate three distinct mechanisms for this construction. In the limit of well-separated branches, the resulting oscillator Hamiltonians reduce to familiar qubit parent models based on correlations, stabilizers, and exchange symmetry. The same constraint structure also provides a common basis for coherent preparation, dissipative stabilization, and state certification.

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Measurement-induced dynamics and emergent symmetries of particles moving in a one-dimensional lattice

Continuous measurements simultaneously reveal and modify the dynamics of a quantum system. In this work we consider the tunneling motion of particles between the sites of a one-dimensional lattice. We investigate how weak continuous probing of the occupation of a single lattice site induces entanglement and selects definite values for system properties such as wave function parity and permutation symmetry. Our simulations show how continuous measurement can steer systems of two and three particles, with no prior permutation symmetry, into stable bosonic, fermionic and parastatistical symmetry sectors.

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Achieving the Quantum Limits with Twin-Field Sensors

Continuous measurements play a fundamental role in quantum experiments, yet understanding and extracting the maximal possible information in a continuous probe signal remains a significant challenge. In this work, we show that for a wide class of sensors, the quantum Fisher information bound can be saturated through a combined measurement of signals from the original sensor and a suitable system copy. We elucidate the physical mechanism of such a twin-field sensor (TFS) and study its performance across diverse implementations, ranging from two-level atoms to a hybrid quantum Rabi model. In all of these cases, we find that simple photon counting or homodyne detection saturates the theoretical quantum limit. We further prove that the TFS achieves the quantum limits for the joint sensing of pairs of parameters as quantified by the quantum Fisher information matrix.

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Input-Output Analysis of Quantum Dot SUPER Excitation

The Swing-UP of the quantum EmitteR population (SUPER) two-color pulsed excitation scheme allows for robust and close to 100\% excitation of a two-level quantum emitter using only red detuned light. We analyze the underlying counterintuitive dynamics using a full quantum input-output description of the in- and outgoing light pulses for the case of two coherent free-space input pulses at realistic photon numbers. At the microscopic level, the SUPER mechanism exhibits its nonlinear three-photon Raman-type character, leading to a net photon-number change of $-2$ in one mode and $+1$ in the other, as was first guessed from cavity-enhanced model descriptions at low photon numbers. We confirm that in free space, a sufficiently high pulse photon number, much larger than one, is required to achieve high-fidelity inversion. To treat the large coherent-state amplitudes (photon numbers) relevant for SUPER, we extend the quantum input-output formalism to include a cumulant expansion approach. With an interaction-picture formulation, the few exchanged photons that govern the nontrivial dynamics enable direct full-quantum calculations in truncated Hilbert spaces, including treatments in a displacement frame and for initial Fock-state pulses.

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Active Optical Frequency Measurements with Superradiance Prolonged by a Modulated Magnetic Field

Superradiant emission from long-lived excited states of an atomic ensemble confined in an optical cavity constitutes a practical source of light with narrow linewidth. In the pulsed regime, however, superradiance implies rapid emission and a broadening of the spectrum. Recent experiments have demonstrated constructive and destructive interference of superradiant emission by different strontium atomic transitions. In this article, we show that by modulating the atomic transition frequencies with a magnetic field, it is possible to control the release of the atomic excitation energy as a prolonged pulse or a train of superradiant pulses. By simulations, we show that heterodyne detection of the prolonged superradiance shows extremely sharp spectral features, which leads to significantly reduced frequency uncertainty and fluctuation.

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Efficient Description of Parametric Amplification of Quantum Pulses

A single quantum pulse undergoing parametric amplification feeds into at most two pulses in the output. In this work, we present an efficient, analytical method for finding the quantum state of these output modes. Our method applies the amplification to the vacuum rather than to the input state, and subsequently applies a transformed version of the operator that creates the input state from vacuum. Given the input and output pulse mode functions, the method is analytical, and therefore computationally very efficient, and it can be readily generalized to multiple non-vacuum input modes. We exemplify the method by computing the output quantum states resulting from the input of a coherent, a Schrödinger cat, and a single photon input quantum state. We further employ the method to obtain the quantum state in one of the two output modes heralded upon detection of vacuum in the other, least populated, mode.

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Blockade-induced exchange primitives for scalable neutral-atom QPU

Many quantum hardware platforms natively support either phase or exchange operations, yet converting between these two forms of control typically incurs substantial overhead. Rydberg-blockade neutral-atom arrays are highly developed for phase control, while controlled exchange is usually obtained only through depth-intensive decompositions. Here, controlled exchange is realized as a native, blockade-programmed phenomenon in a collective excited manifold. Target atoms are engineered such that two competing exchange pathways between |01> and |10> destructively interfere, while a single collective four-photon channel mediated by a symmetric Rydberg excitation remains resonant and drives a direct SWAP, with all other qubit configurations undergoing an identity action. Exchange conditionality follows from blockade: exciting a control atom to a Rydberg state shifts and blocks the target collective resonance, suppressing exchange, whereas leaving the control in the ground manifold enables exchange in a single step. Anisotropic control-target interactions give rise to selective blockade, enabling coherent programmability of exchange among specific target pairs. This yields a family of controlled-SWAP primitives with process fidelities above 99% and an order-of-magnitude reduction in circuit depth and Rydberg-state exposure time compared with decomposed implementations. The same principle generalizes to multi-control and multiplexed controlled-exchange operations, providing compact hardware-level primitives for conditional information routing in extended neutral-atom arrays. More broadly, engineering interaction-tuned near-degeneracies in collective manifolds offers a route to programmable non-diagonal multiqubit operations across quantum platforms.

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The entangling power of non-entangling channels

There are processes that cannot generate entanglement but may, nevertheless, amplify entanglement already present in a system. Here, we show that a non-entangling operation can increase the Schmidt number of a quantum state only if it can generate entanglement with some non-zero probability. This is in stark contrast to the case where the parties of a quantum network are only able to control their joint state by local operations and classical communication (LOCC). There, being able to apply operations probabilistically (stochastic LOCC) does not increase the Schmidt number. Our findings show that certain non-entangling operations become entangling when selecting on specific measurement outcomes. This naturally leads us to the class of stochastically non-entangling maps, being those that cannot generate entanglement even probabilistically. Intrigued by this finding, we devise a Schmidt number for quantum channels that quantifies whether a channel can generate entanglement probabilistically. Moreover, we show that a channel is non-entangling if and only if its dual map is witness-preserving -- it takes entanglement witnesses to witnesses. Based on this finding, we derive Bell-like inequalities whose violation signals that a process generates entanglement.

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Lieb-Mattis states for robust entangled differential phase sensing

We explore a two-node, entanglement-enhanced sensor network for differential phase sensing that exploits decoherence-free subspaces to suppress common-mode noise, a primary limitation of many state-of-the-art quantum sensors. We identify a class of entangled states that, while not strictly optimal, achieve the same asymptotic sensitivity scaling as optimal states and can be prepared efficiently from initially unentangled atomic ensembles. Importantly, the preparation time decreases with increasing system size. This makes the states compatible with realistic noise processes in present-day quantum sensors that operate with large particle numbers but lack full error correction. We illustrate these ideas using two cavity-mediated preparation protocols: (i) coherent, unitary entanglement generation analogous to bosonic two-mode squeezing, yielding Heisenberg scaling; and (ii) dissipative preparation via collective emission into a shared cavity mode, providing a square-root improvement beyond the standard quantum limit. Numerical simulations show that both approaches remain effective at experimentally realistic cavity cooperativities, establishing a practical path toward scalable, quantum-enhanced differential phase sensing.

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High fidelity photon-photon gates by scattering off a two-level quantum emitter

We present a scheme for implementing a high-fidelity non-linear phase shift on a photonic state. The scheme is based on repeated scattering off a two-level quantum emitter embedded in a chiral or one-sided waveguide. The waveguide is equipped with elements inducing second-order dispersion and temporal phase shifts, which effectively form a harmonic trap and confine the photon pulses to a Gaussian shape. The same quantum emitter can be used for each scattering, and thus, only one quantum emitter is needed in this scheme. To illustrate the application of our scheme for photonic quantum computing and quantum communication, we analyze the implementation of a control-Z gate and a deterministic Bell-state analyzer for photonic qubits. Through numerical optimization, we show that we can reach a control-Z gate fidelity of $\mathcal{F} \sim 99.2\%$ ($\mathcal{F} \sim 96\%$) and a success probability of $P_s \sim 99.6 \%$ ($P_s\sim 98 \%$) for a Bell-state measurement with $N=17$ ($N=5$) scatterings.

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Censorship of quantum resources against catalytic account sharing

In quantum censorship, an agency oversees quantum communication in a public-domain network. The agency restricts the users communication to the free states of a quantum resource theory (QRT). Despite quantum correlations being fragile, any realistic censorship leaves behind some quantumness, raising concerns that censorship may be overcome through revival or distillation of quantum resources. Here, we introduce censorship protocols that do not require a perfect erasure of a quantum resource, but rather deem censorship successful if users are unable to restore the original quantum state using free operations. We investigate under which conditions censorship is secure, and when it might fail. Moreover, we address the issue of account sharing in quantum networks, wherein independent parties assist in transmitting quantum resources to censored users. This connects resource censorship to timely topics such as quantum catalysis and resource-assisted communication. Censorship protocols offer a novel perspective on quantum network security, that differs fundamentally from existing approaches such as quantum and post-quantum cryptography.

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Stochastic Mean-field Theory for Conditional Spin Squeezing by Homodyne Probing of Atom-Cavity Photon Dressed States

Projective measurements of collective observables can be employed to herald the preparation of entangled states of quantum systems, and the resulting conditional dynamics is usually handled by stochastic master equation (SME) for small systems, and by an approximate Gaussian-state formalism for large systems. In this work, we present an alternative technique by developing a stochastic variant of cumulant mean-field theory, benchmark it against an exact stochastic collective density matrix approach by the simulations of hundreds of identical two-level atoms. More importantly, we demonstrate its full power by studying the conditional spin squeezing of thousands of three-level atoms coupled strongly with an optical cavity subject to individual decay and dephasing, and by simulating the experimental protocol to reveal formation and detection of the spin squeezed state. The proposed technique might be further extended to study more exotic quantum-measurement effects of large quantum systems, such as deterministic spin squeezing with quantum feedback, spin squeezing of optical clock transitions, and retrodictive spin squeezing by posterior measurements, and so on.

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Adiabatic preparation of many-body quantum states: getting the beginning and ending right

We present numerical calculations, and simulations performed on a Rydberg atom quantum simulator, of the adiabatic evolution of many-body quantum systems around a quantum phase transition. We demonstrate that the end-to-end transfer error, for a given process duration and dissipative losses, can be suppressed by adopting smooth initial and final scheduling functions for the Hamiltonian. We consider a one-dimensional mixed-field Ising model, as well as a chain of Rydberg atoms, and compare numerical calculations and experimental results for the end-to-end transfer error with different schedule functions. We show, in particular, that if the time dependent Hamiltonian is $n$ times differentiable with vanishing $1^{st}$ to $n^{th}$ order derivatives in the beginning and in the end, the infidelity with respect to the final adiabatic eigenstate scales as $1/T^{n+1}$ when evolving for time $T$.

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Optimal Control for Rydberg multi-qubit operations

Quantum computing algorithms can be decomposed into a universal set of elementary one- and two-qubit gates. Different physical implementations of quantum computing, however, employ interactions that permit direct conditional dynamics on multiple qubits in a single step. In this work, we leverage quantum optimal control techniques to design single continuous laser pulses that implement multi-qubit controlled-phase, -NOT and -swap (Fredkin) gates on Rydberg atom quantum processors. The identification of robust multi-qubit operations leads to reduced operation time and less decoherence, and the control field provides continuous protection of the atoms from environmental noise. Notably, we find that the controlled-swap (Fredkin) gate, implemented using this approach achieves 99.74\% fidelity while accounting for imperfections such as spontaneous emission, laser fluctuations, and Doppler dephasing.

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Cooperative squeezing of internal and collective spins in an atomic ensemble

Creating highly spin-squeezed states for quantum metrology surpassing the standard quantum limit is a topic of great interest. Spin squeezing has been achieved by either entangling different atoms in an ensemble, or by controlling the multilevel internal spin state of an atom. Here, we experimentally demonstrate combined internal and collective spin squeezing in a hot atomic ensemble with $\sim 10^{11}$ rubidium atoms. By synergistically combining these two types of squeezing and carefully aligning their squeezing quadratures, we have achieved a metrologically relevant spin squeezing of $-6.21\pm0.84$ dB, significantly outperforming the results obtained by utilizing either type of squeezing alone. Our approach provides a new perspective on fully harnessing the degrees of freedom inherent in quantum states of an atomic ensemble.

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Environment-Assisted Generation of Non-Gaussian Wavepacket Quantum States

Generating non-Gaussian states and converting them into traveling wavepackets is crucial yet challenging for scalable, fault-tolerant quantum computing. We present a hardware-efficient approach that simultaneously achieves both tasks by combining an engineered nonlinear dissipation with a linear transmission loss from a superconducting circuit to a waveguide. This combination of dissipative channels leverages low-order interactions to induce a high-order nonlinearity, enabling deterministic emission of a wide range of non-Gaussian, error-correctable states, such as Schrödinger cat states, GKP states, and pair-cat states. We identify experimental superconducting circuit platforms and realistic parameter regimes for our proposal.

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Retrodiction of measurement outcomes on a single quantum system reveals entanglement with its environment

The density matrix yields probabilistic information about the outcome of measurements on a quantum system, but it does not distinguish between classical randomness in the preparation of the system and entanglement with its environment. Here, we show that retrodiction, employing both prior and posterior knowledge, gives rise to conditional probabilities for measurements on a single system, that can witness if it is part of a larger composite system. The degree of certainty with which one can retrodict the outcomes of multiple measurements on a system can witness both the existence and the quantitative nature of its entanglement with the environment.

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Supercoherence: Harnessing Long-Range Interactions to Preserve Collective Coherence in Disordered Systems

Artificial quantum systems with synthetic dimensions enable exploring novel quantum phenomena difficult to create in conventional materials. These synthetic degrees of freedom increase the system's dimensionality without altering its physical structure, accessing higher-dimensional physics in lower-dimensional setups. However, synthetic quantum systems often suffer from intrinsic disorder, causing rapid decoherence that limits scalability, a major obstacle in quantum information science. Here, we show that introducing just a few long-range interactions can mitigate decoherence, creating persistent collective coherence in highly symmetric collective excited states. We term this universal phenomenon "supercoherence" and show its exceptional robustness against disorder up to a dynamical phase transition at critical interaction strength and disorder. Supercoherence stabilizes not only coherence but also all other quantum properties of the states, challenging traditional views on the inevitability of decoherence in disordered interacting quantum systems and suggesting new opportunities for quantum memory and information processing.

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