arXiv subjects

Nelly Huei Ying Ng

Publications and source records attributed to Nelly Huei Ying Ng.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2021

Bounding the resources for thermalizing many-body localized systems

Understanding under which conditions physical systems thermalize is a long-standing question in many-body physics. While generic quantum systems thermalize, there are known instances where thermalization is hindered, for example in many-body localized (MBL) systems. Here we introduce a class of stochastic collision models coupling a many-body system out of thermal equilibrium to an external heat bath. We derive upper and lower bounds on the size of the bath required to thermalize the system via such models, under certain assumptions on the Hamiltonian. We use these bounds, expressed in terms of the max-relative entropy, to characterize the robustness of MBL systems against externally-induced thermalization. Our bounds are derived within the framework of resource theories using the convex split lemma, a recent tool developed in quantum information. We apply our results to the disordered Heisenberg chain, and numerically study the robustness of its MBL phase in terms of the required bath size.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2017

Smoothed generalized free energies for thermodynamics

In the study of thermodynamics for nanoscale quantum systems, a family of quantities known as generalized free energies have been derived as necessary and sufficient conditions that govern state transitions. These free energies become important especially in the regime where the system of interest consists of only a few (quantum) particles. In this work, we introduce a new family of smoothed generalized free energies, by constructing explicit smoothing procedures that maximize/minimize the free energies over an $ \varepsilon$-ball of quantum states. In contrast to previously known smoothed free energies, these quantities now allow us to make an operational statement for approximate thermodynamic state transitions. We show that these newly defined smoothed quantities converge to the standard free energy in the thermodynamic limit.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Surpassing the Carnot Efficiency by extracting imperfect work

A suitable way of quantifying work for microscopic quantum systems has been constantly debated in the field of quantum thermodynamics. One natural approach is to measure the average increase in energy of an ancillary system, called the battery, after a work extraction protocol. The quality of energy extracted is usually argued to be good by quantifying higher moments of the energy distribution, or by restricting the amount of entropy to be low. This limits the amount of heat contribution to the energy extracted, but does not completely prevent it. We show that the definition of "work" is crucial. If one allows for a definition of work that tolerates a non-negligible entropy increase in the battery, then a small scale heat engine can possibly exceed the Carnot efficiency. This can be achieved even when one of the heat baths is finite in size.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

The second laws of quantum thermodynamics

The second law of thermodynamics tells us which state transformations are so statistically unlikely that they are effectively forbidden. Its original formulation, due to Clausius, states that "Heat can never pass from a colder to a warmer body without some other change, connected therewith, occurring at the same time". The second law applies to systems composed of many particles interacting; however, we are seeing that one can make sense of thermodynamics in the regime where we only have a small number of particles interacting with a heat bath. Is there a second law of thermodynamics in this regime? Here, we find that for processes which are cyclic or very close to cyclic, the second law for microscopic systems takes on a very different form than it does at the macroscopic scale, imposing not just one constraint on what state transformations are possible, but an entire family of constraints. In particular, we find a family of free energies which generalise the traditional one, and show that they can never increase. We further find that there are three regimes which determine which family of second laws govern state transitions, depending on how cyclic the process is. In one regime one can cause an apparent violation of the usual second law, through a process of embezzling work from a large system which remains arbitrarily close to its original state. These second laws are not only relevant for small systems, but also apply to individual macroscopic systems interacting via long-range interactions, which only satisfy the ordinary second law on average. By making precise the definition of thermal operations, the laws of thermodynamics take on a simple form with the first law defining the class of thermal operations, the zeroeth law emerging as a unique condition ensuring the theory is nontrivial, and the remaining laws being a monotonicity property of our generalised free energies.

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arXiv2014

An Experimental Implementation of Oblivious Transfer in the Noisy Storage Model

Cryptography's importance in our everyday lives continues to grow in our increasingly digital world. Oblivious transfer (OT) has long been a fundamental and important cryptographic primitive since it is known that general two-party cryptographic tasks can be built from this basic building block. Here we show the experimental implementation of a 1-2 random oblivious transfer (ROT) protocol by performing measurements on polarization-entangled photon pairs in a modified entangled quantum key distribution system, followed by all of the necessary classical post-processing including one-way error correction. We successfully exchange a 1,366 bits ROT string in ~3 min and include a full security analysis under the noisy storage model, accounting for all experimental error rates and finite size effects. This demonstrates the feasibility of using today's quantum technologies to implement secure two-party protocols.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Experimental implementation of bit commitment in the noisy-storage model

Fundamental primitives such as bit commitment and oblivious transfer serve as building blocks for many other two-party protocols. Hence, the secure implementation of such primitives are important in modern cryptography. In this work, we present a bit commitment protocol which is secure as long as the attacker's quantum memory device is imperfect. The latter assumption is known as the noisy-storage model. We experimentally executed this protocol by performing measurements on polarization-entangled photon pairs. Our work includes a full security analysis, accounting for all experimental error rates and finite size effects. This demonstrates the feasibility of two-party protocols in this model using real-world quantum devices. Finally, we provide a general analysis of our bit commitment protocol for a range of experimental parameters.

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arXiv2014

A min-entropy uncertainty relation for finite size cryptography

Apart from their foundational significance, entropic uncertainty relations play a central role in proving the security of quantum cryptographic protocols. Of particular interest are thereby relations in terms of the smooth min-entropy for BB84 and six-state encodings. Previously, strong uncertainty relations were obtained which are valid in the limit of large block lengths. Here, we prove a new uncertainty relation in terms of the smooth min-entropy that is only marginally less strong, but has the crucial property that it can be applied to rather small block lengths. This paves the way for a practical implementation of many cryptographic protocols. As part of our proof we show tight uncertainty relations for a family of Renyi entropies that may be of independent interest.

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arXiv2014

Limits to catalysis in quantum thermodynamics

Quantum thermodynamics is a research field that aims at fleshing out the ultimate limits of thermodynamic processes in the deep quantum regime. A complete picture of quantum thermodynamics allows for catalysts, i.e., systems facilitating state transformations while remaining essentially intact in their state, very much reminding of catalysts in chemical reactions. In this work, we present a comprehensive analysis of the power and limitation of such thermal catalysis. Specifically, we provide a family of optimal catalysts that can be returned with minimal trace distance error after facilitating a state transformation process. To incorporate the genuine physical role of a catalyst, we identify very significant restrictions on arbitrary state transformations under dimension or mean energy bounds, using methods of convex relaxations. We discuss the implication of these findings on possible thermodynamic state transformations in the quantum regime.

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