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M. Donaire

Publications and source records attributed to M. Donaire.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

Ferroelectric transmon

Superconducting qubits are a leading platform for quantum computing. However, simultaneously achieving low noise sensitivity to suppress decoherence and sufficient anharmonicity to enable fast gate operations remains a central challenge. Here, we introduce the concept of the ferroelectric transmon (FEmon), in which the Josephson junction is shunted by a ferroelectric, or incipient ferroelectric, capacitor. We show, in particular, that the nonlinear ferroelectric response of the capacitor provides an additional degree of freedom for optimizing qubit anharmonicity while preserving operation in the charge-noise-insensitive regime.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2025

Optical response of a binary atomic system with incoherent gain

We study the optical response of a binary system of identical atoms in which one of them is excited by an incoherent pump. %We study the properties of photon scattering, absorption and emission, together with the time evolution of the atomic system. %This allows us to characterize and eventually manipulate the state of the system, paving the way for prospective applications in quantum information processing. Applying the diagrammatic formalism developed in Donaire [Phys. Rev. A104, 043704 (2021)], it is shown how scattering, absorption, stimulated emission, spontaneous emission and resonant energy transfer can be tailored by varying i) the interatomic distance, which governs the interference effects of the emitted radiation; and ii) the pump rate, which determines the population of the atomic levels. It is found that, for sufficiently strong pumping, the collective component of the extinction cross-section becomes negligible, regardless of the interatomic distance, as optical gains compensate for losses, and the total extinction cross-section is reduced to less than half of its value in the absence of pumping. In contrast, at weak pumping and short interatomic distances, interference effects lead to a significant suppression of the extinction cross-section relative to that of two noninteracting atoms.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2025

Acceleration of a polarized neutron by internal weak nuclear forces

It is proven that a polarized neutron gets accelerated by internal nuclear forces along the coherent rotation of its spin. The net force upon the neutron arises from the weak nuclear interactions between its quarks. It is the result of the simultaneous breaking of parity symmetry by the chiral interactions between the neutron's quarks, and of time-reversal symmetry along the inversion of their spins. The variation of the neutron's kinetic momentum is accompanied with the transfer of an equivalent momentum to the fields of the Z and W bosons that mediate the interactions, in the opposite direction. The effect is linear in Fermi's constant. Using the simplest hadron models, an upper bound of the order of meters per second is estimated for the velocity variation of the polarized neutron along the spin-flip process.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2025

Fractional-flux oscillations of Josephson critical currents in multi-gap superconductors: a test for unconventional superconductivity

Josephson-junction interferometry has played a pivotal role in uncovering unconventional superconductivity in the cuprates. Using a Ginzburg-Landau-like approach, we generalize previous results to the genuine multi-gap case. Thus, we show that fractional flux oscillations of the Josephson critical current can arise as a direct consequence of multi-gap superconductivity. These oscillations reveal key information about the underlying superconducting states, including the unconventional $s_\pm$-wave state. Thus, our findings suggest new phase-sensitive experiments to characterize the Cooper pairing of new emerging superconductors such as the nickelates.

cond-mat.supr-con↗
arXiv2021

Two-atom van-der-Waals forces with one atom excited: the identical atoms limit I

We compute the conservative van-der-Waals forces between two atoms, one of which is initially excited, in the limit of identical atoms. Starting with the perturbative calculation of the interaction between two dissimilar atoms, we show that a time-dependent approach in the weak-interaction approximation is essential in considering the identical atoms limit in the perturbative regime. In this limit we find that, at leading order, the van-der-Waals forces are fully-resonant and grow linearly in time, being different upon each atom. The resultant net force upon the two-atom system is related to the directionality of spontaneous emission, which results from the violation of parity symmetry. In contrast to the usual stationary van-der-Waals forces, the time-dependent conservative forces cannot be written as the gradients of the expectation values of the interaction potentials, but as the expectation values of the gradients of the interaction potentials only.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2020

Thermal Casimir effect with general boundary conditions

In this paper we study the system of a scalar quantum field confined between two plane, isotropic, and homogeneous parallel plates at thermal equilibrium. We represent the plates by the most general lossless and frequency-independent boundary conditions that satisfy the conditions of isotropy and homogeneity and are compatible with the unitarity of the quantum field theory. Under these conditions we compute the thermal correction to the quantum vacuum energy as a function of the temperature and the parameters encoding the boundary condition. The latter enables us to obtain similar results for the pressure between plates and the quantum thermal correction to the entropy. We find out that our system is thermodynamically stable for any boundary conditions, and we identify a critical temperature below which certain boundary conditions yield attractive, repulsive, and null Casimir forces.

hep-th↗
arXiv2017

Dipole-dipole interaction in cavity-QED: perturbative regime

We compute the interaction energies of a two-atom system placed in the middle of a perfectly reflecting planar cavity, in the perturbative regime. Explicit expressions are provided for the van der Waals potentials of two polarisable atomic dipoles as well as for the electrostatic potential of two induced dipoles. For the van der Waals potentials, several scenarios are considered, namely, a pair of atoms in their ground states, a pair of atoms both excited, and a pair of dissimilar atoms with one of them excited. In addition, the corresponding phase-shift of the two-atom wavefunction is calculated in each case. The effects of the two-dimensional confinement of the electromagnetic field by the cavity are analyzed in each scenario.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2016

Surface-modified Wannier-Stark states in a 1D optical lattice

We study the energy spectrum of atoms trapped in a vertical 1D optical lattice in close proximity to a reflective surface. We propose an effective model to describe the interaction between the atoms and the surface at any distance. Our model includes the long-range Casimir-Polder potential together with a short-range Lennard-Jones potential, which are considered non-perturbatively with respect to the optical lattice potential. We find an intricate energy spectrum which contains a pair of loosely-bound states localized close to the surface in addition to a surface-modified Wannier-Stark ladder at long distances. Atomic interferometry involving those loosely-bound atom-surface states is proposed to probe the adsorption dynamics of atoms on mirrors.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2016

Violation of the action-reaction principle in an asymmetrically excited system

Violation of the action-reaction principle is shown to occur in the van der Waals interaction between two atoms, one of which is excited. It is accompanied by the transfer of linear momentum to the electromagnetic vacuum. The vacuum momentum results from the asymmetric interference of the virtual photons scattered off each atom along the interatomic direction, which is in itself a manifestation of the optical theorem. This momentum, of equal strength and opposite direction to the momentum gained by the two-atom system, is ultimately released through directional spontaneous emission. A quantitative prediction of this phenomenon is made in a two-alkali atom system. It is conjectured that action-reaction violation takes place in any asymmetrically excited system.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2015

Casimir-Polder induced Rabi oscillations

We show that the Casimir-Polder interaction may induce coherent oscillations between degenerate atomic states. We illustrate this effect by computing the Casimir-Polder induced Rabi frequency on a $^{87}$Rb atom as it interacts with a reflecting surface. The atom oscillates between two Zeeman sublevels of its ground state undergoing a periodic exchange of angular momentum with the vacuum photons.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2013

A single-oscillator quantum model for magnetochiral birefringence

We derive an analytical expression for the magnetochiral birefringence of a dilute diamagnetic chiral molecular medium subjet to a constant magnetic field. We use the single-oscillator model of Condon et al. [1, 2] to describe the optical properties of the individual molecules. The result is a function of the refractive index and the rotatory power. This result is compared to experimental data.

physics.chem-ph↗
arXiv2011

Electromagnetic vacuum of complex media II: the Lamb shift and the total vacuum energy

We study the physical content of the electromagnetic vacuum energy of a random medium made of atomic electric dipoles. First, we evaluate the contribution of statistical fluctuations to the average total vacuum energy, which is made out of the integration of the variations of the Lamb shift with respect to the coupling constant. While the Lamb shift is a function of the electrical susceptibility only, the vacuum energy is generally not. Second, we make clear why the effective medium bulk energy does not account for the total vacuum energy of a molecular dielectric. Consequently, the Lamb shift does not derive from the effective medium bulk energy except at leading order in the molecular density. The local field factors provide natural cutoffs for the spectrum of the total vacuum energy at a wavelength of the order of the correlation length. Third, we investigate to what extent shifts in the spectrum of the dielectric constant may be attributed to the binding energy of a dielectric. In particular, in the continuum approximation we have found a relation between the electrostatic binding energy and the Lorentz-Lorenz shift. Nonetheless, we conclude that the knowledge of the spectrum of the refractive index is insufficient either to quantify the energy of radiative modes or to estimate the electrostatic binding energy of molecular clusters.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2011

Electromagnetic Vacuum of Complex Media: Dipole Emission vs. Light Propagation, Vacuum Energy, and Local Field Factors

We offer a unified approach to several phenomena related to the electromagnetic vacuum of a complex medium made of point electric dipoles. To this aim, we apply the linear response theory to the computation of the polarization field propagator and study the spectrum of vacuum fluctuations. The physical distinction among the local density of states which enter the spectra of light propagation, total dipole emission, coherent emission, total vacuum energy and Schwinger-bulk energy is made clear. Analytical expressions for the spectrum of dipole emission and for the vacuum energy are derived. Their respective relations with the spectrum of external light and with the Schwinger-bulk energy are found. The light spectrum and the Schwinger-bulk energy are determined by the Dyson propagator. The emission spectrum and the total vacuum energy are determined by the polarization propagator. An exact relationship of proportionality between both propagators is found in terms of local field factors. A study of the nature of stimulated emission from a single dipole is carried out. Regarding coherent emission, it contains two components. A direct one which is transferred radiatively and directly from the emitter into the medium and whose spectrum is that of external light. And an indirect one which is radiated by induced dipoles. The induction is mediated by one (and only one) local field factor. Regarding the vacuum energy, we find that in addition to the Schwinger-bulk energy the vacuum energy of an effective medium contains local field contributions proportional to the resonant frequency and to the spectral line-width.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2010

Radiative Corrections to the Off-Resonant Maxwell-Garnett Dielectric Constant and the Spectrum of Emission

We compute the dielectric constant of a Maxwell-Garnett (MG) dielectric renormalized by radiative corrections at off-resonance frequencies. To this aim, the self-energy of the dipole constituents of the dielectric is calculated following Ref.1. The spectrum of coherent emission is obtained in exact form for the MG model. Contrarily to the common assumption, its expression contains an only local field factor. Beyond the MG model, leading order corrections due to recurrent scattering are implemented. Several experiments are proposed to validate our results in both three and two dimensional samples.

physics.chem-ph↗
arXiv2009

The Quantum Vacuum of Complex Media. A Unified Approach to the Dielectric Constant, the Spontaneous Emission and the Zero-Temperature Electromagnetic Pressure

We study from a critical perspective several quantum-electrodynamic phenomena commonly related to vacuum electromagnetic (EM) fluctuations in complex media. We compute the resonance-shift, the spontaneous emission rate, the local density of states and the van-der-Waals-Casimir pressure in a dielectric medium using a microscopic diagrammatic approach. We find, in agreement with some recent works, that these effects cannot be attributed to variations on the energy of the EM vacuum but to variations of the dielectric self-energy. This energy is the result of the interaction of the bare polarizability of the dielectric constituents with the EM fluctuations of an actually polarized vacuum. We have found an exact expression for the spectrum of these fluctuations in a statistically homogeneous dielectric. Those fluctuations turn out to be different to the ones of normal radiative modes. It is the latter that carry the zero-point-energy (ZPE). Concerning spontaneous emission, we clarify the nature of the radiation and the origin of the so-called local field factors. Essential discrepancies are found with respect to previous works. We perform a detailed analysis of the phenomenon of radiative and non-radiative energy transfer. Analytical formulae are given for the decay rate of an interstitial impurity in a Maxwell-Garnett dielectric and for the decay rate of a substantial impurity sited in a large cavity. The construction of the effective dielectric constant is found to be a self-consistency problem. The van-der-Waals pressure in a complex medium is computed in terms of variations of the dielectric self-energy at zero-temperature. An additional radiative pressure appears associated to variations of the EM vacuum energy.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2009

Dipole emission and coherent transport in random media I

This is the first of a series of papers devoted to develop a microscopical approach to the dipole emission process and its relation to coherent transport in random media. In this Letter, we deduce general expressions for the decay rate of spontaneous emitters and the power emission of induced dipoles embedded in homogenous dielectric media. We derive formulae which apply generically to virtual cavities and, in the continuum approximation, to small real cavities.

physics.optics↗