arXiv subjects

Paola Verrucchi

Publications and source records attributed to Paola Verrucchi.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

Quantum correlations between distant qubits conveyed by large-$S$ spin chains

We consider two distant spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ particles (or qubits) and a number of interacting objects, all with the same value $S\gg1$ of their respective spin, distributed on a one-dimensional lattice (or large-$S$ spin chain). The quantum states of the chain are constructed by linearly combining tensor products of single-spin coherent states, whose evolution is determined accordingly, i.e., via classical-like equations of motions. We show that the quantum superposition of the above product states resulting from a local interaction between the first qubit and one spin of the chain evolves so that the second qubit, after having itself interacted with another spin of the chain, can be entangled with the first qubit. Obtaining such outcome does not imply imposing constraints on the length of the chain or the distance between the qubits, which demonstrates the possibility of generating quantum correlations at a distance by means of a macroscopic system, as far as local interactions with just a few of its components are feasible.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Quantum dynamics of a macroscopic magnet operating as environment of a mechanical oscillator

We study the dynamics of a bipartite quantum system in a way such that its formal description keeps holding even if one of its parts becomes macroscopic: the problem is related with the analysis of the quantum-to-classical crossover, but our approach implies that the whole system stays genuinely quantum. Aim of the work is to understand 1) if, 2) to what extent, and possibly 3) how, the evolution of a macroscopic environment testifies to the coupling with its microscopic quantum companion. To this purpose we consider a magnetic environment made of a large number of spin-1/2 particles, coupled with a quantum mechanical oscillator, possibly in the presence of an external magnetic field. We take the value of the total environmental-spin S constant and large, which allows us to consider the environment as one single macroscopic system, and further deal with the hurdles of the spin-algebra via approximations that are valid in the large-S limit. We find an insightful expression for the propagator of the whole system, where we identify an effective "back-action" term, i.e. an operator acting on the magnetic environment only, and yet missing in the absence of the quantum principal system. This operator emerges as a time-dependent magnetic anisotropy whose character, whether uniaxial or planar, also depends on the detuning between the level-splitting in the spectrum of the free magnetic system, induced by the possible presence of the external field, and the frequency of the oscillator. The time-dependence of the anisotropy is analysed, and its effects on the dynamics of the magnet, as well as its relation with the entangling evolution of the overall system, are discussed.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2015

Open Quantum Systems and Quantum Algorithms

The model of open quantum systems is adopted to describe the non-local dynamical behaviour of qubits processed by entangling gates. The analysis gets to the conclusion that a distinction between evaluation steps and task-oriented computing steps is justified only within classical computation. In fact, the use of entangling gates permits to reduce two steps (evaluation and calculation) to a single computational one, and this determines an effective computational speed-up. The application of the open quantum systems model suggests that the reduction to one-computational step is strongly related to the existence of Universal Dynamical Maps describing the evolution of component systems of two-qubits gates. As the description in terms of Universal Dynamical Map is possible only in the presence of a separable initial state, it turns out that the internal reduced dynamics with respect to entangling gates is neither unitary nor Markovian. The fact imposes a holistic vision on the structure of the algorithm, where the entangling gates shall remain indivisible unities, or black boxes, in order to preserve computational speed as well as reversibility. This fact suggests to adopt a perspective on computation which is completely non-classical: the whole algorithm turns out not to be the sequence of its temporal parts.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2015

Getting through to a qubit by magnetic solitons

We propose a method for acting on the spin state of a spin-1/2 localized particle, or `qubit', by means of a magnetic signal effectively generated by the nearby transit of a magnetic soliton, there conveyed through a transmission line. We first introduce the specific magnetic soliton of which we will make use, and briefly review the properties that make it apt to represent a signal. We then show that a Heisenberg spin chain can serve as transmission line, and propose a method for injecting a soliton into the chain by acting just on one of its ends. We finally demonstrate that the resulting magnetic pulse can indeed cause, just passing by the spin-1/2 localized particle embodying the qubit, a permanent change in its spin state, thus realizing the possibility of getting through to a single, localized qubit, and manipulate its state. A thorough analysis of how the overall dynamical system operates depending on the setting of its parameters demonstrates that fine tuning is not necessary as it exists an extended region in the parameters space that corresponds to an effective functioning. Moreover, we show that possible noise on the transmission line does not invalidate the scheme.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

Parametric description of the quantum measurement process

We present a description of the measurement process based on the parametric representation with environmental coherent states. This representation is specifically tailored for studying quantum systems whose environment needs being considered through the quantum-to-classical cross-over. Focusing upon projective measures, and exploiting the connection between large-$N$ quantum theories and the classical limit of related ones, we manage to push our description beyond the pre-measurement step. This allows us to show that the outcome production follows from a global-symmetry breaking, entailing the observed system's state reduction, and that the statistical nature of the process is brought about, together with the Born's rule, by the macroscopic character of the measuring apparatus.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2015

Getting information via a quantum measurement: the role of decoherence

In this work we investigate the relation between quantum measurements and decoherence, in order to formally express the necessity of the latter for obtaining an informative output from the former. To this aim, referring to the Von Neumann scheme for ideal quantum measurements, we first look for the minimal structure that the interaction between principal system and measurement apparatus must have for properly describing the process, beyond the quantum measurement limit, and then analyze the dynamical evolution induced by one such interaction. The analysis is developed by means of a recently introduced method for studying open quantum systems, namely the parametric representation with environmental coherent states, that allows us to determine a necessary condition that the quantum state of the apparatus must fullfil in order to give information on the observable being measured. We find that this condition strictly implies decoherence in the principal system, with respect to the eigenstates of the hermitian operator that represents the measured observable, thus establishing that there cannot be information flux from a quantum system towards a readable analyser unless decoherence occurs. The relevance of dynamical entanglement generation is highlighted, and consequences of the possible macroscopic structure of the measurement apparatus are also commented upon.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2013

Parametric representation of open quantum systems and crossover from quantum to classical environment

We propose an approach to the study of open quantum systems based on a parametric representation of the principal system. The representation is obtained introducing generalized coherent states for the environment, and is such that the evolution from a fully quantum environment to a classical one can be inherently followed. The method is applied to the specific case where the principal system is a central qubit and the environment is a surrounding ring of interacting spins, with the overall Hamiltonian being that of the $s=1/2$ Heisenberg star with frustration. In this case the quantum character of the environment, embodied by the total spin $S$ of the ring, can be physically varied by acting on the ratio between the couplings entering the Hamiltonian, and formally followed by increasing $S$. We find that when the star is in any of its eigenstates, the qubit behaves as if it were under the effect of an external magnetic field, whose direction in real space is set by the variables defining the environmental coherent states, and is hence broadened according to their quantum probability distribution. When the quantum character of the environment is reduced, such distribution becomes narrower, finally collapsing into a Dirac-$δ$ as $S\to\infty$. The entanglement between the central qubit and its environment remains well defined even in this limit, where it comes across as the binary entropy of the $2π$-normalized Berry phase characterizing the dynamics of a qubit in an adiabatically precessing magnetic field.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2011

Initializing an unmodulated spin chain to operate as a high quality quantum data-bus

We study the quality of state and entanglement transmission through quantum channels described by spin chains varying both the system parameters and the initial state of the channel. We consider a vast class of one-dimensional many-body models which contains some of the most relevant experimental realizations of quantum data-buses. In particular, we consider spin-1/2 XY and XXZ model with open boundary conditions. Our results show a significant difference between free-fermionic (non-interacting) systems (XY) and interacting ones (XXZ), where in the former case initialization can be exploited for improving the entanglement distribution, while in the latter case it also determines the quality of state transmission. In fact, we find that in non interacting systems the exchange with fermions in the initial state of the chain always has a destructive effect, and we prove that it can be completely removed in the isotropic XX model by initializing the chain in a ferromagnetic state. On the other hand, in interacting systems constructive effects can arise by scattering between hopping fermions and a proper initialization procedure. Remarkably our results are the first example in which state and entanglement transmission show maxima at different points as the interactions and initializations of spin chain channels are varied.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2011

Long quantum channels for high-quality entanglement transfer

High-quality quantum-state and entanglement transfer can be achieved in an unmodulated spin bus operating in the ballistic regime, which occurs when the endpoint qubits A and B are coupled to the chain by an exchange interaction $j_0$ comparable with the intrachain exchange. Indeed, the transition amplitude characterizing the transfer quality exhibits a maximum for a finite optimal value $j_0^{opt}(N)$, where $N$ is the channel length. We show that $j_0^{opt}(N)$ scales as $N^{-1/6}$ for large $N$ and that it ensures a high-quality entanglement transfer even in the limit of arbitrarily long channels, almost independently of the channel initialization. For instance, the average quantum-state transmission fidelity exceeds 90% for any chain length. We emphasize that, taking the reverse point of view, should $j_0$ be experimentally constrained, high-quality transfer can still be obtained by adjusting the channel length to its optimal value.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2011

Non-Perturbative Entangling Gates between Distant Qubits using Uniform Cold Atom Chains

We propose a new fast scalable method for achieving a two-qubit entangling gate between arbitrary distant qubits in a network by exploiting dispersionless propagation in uniform chains. This is achieved dynamically by switching on a strong interaction between the qubits and a bus formed by a non-engineered chain of interacting qubits. The quality of the gate scales very efficiently with qubit separations. Surprisingly, a sudden switching of the coupling is not necessary and our gate mechanism is not altered by a possibly gradual switching. The bus is also naturally reset to its initial state making the complex resetting procedure unnecessary after each application of the gate. Moreover, we propose a possible experimental realization in cold atoms trapped in optical lattices and near field Fresnel trapping potentials, which are both accessible to current technology.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2010

Optimal dynamics for quantum-state and entanglement transfer through homogeneous quantum wires

It is shown that effective quantum-state and entanglement transfer can be obtained by inducing a coherent dynamics in quantum wires with homogeneous intrawire interactions. This goal is accomplished by tuning the coupling between the wire endpoints and the two qubits there attached, to an optimal value. A general procedure to determine such value is devised, and scaling laws between the optimal coupling and the length of the wire are found. The procedure is implemented in the case of a wire consisting of a spin-1/2 XY chain: results for the time dependence of the quantities which characterize quantum-state and entanglement transfer are found of extremely good quality and almost independent of the wire length. The present approach does not require `ad hoc' engineering of the intrawire interactions nor a specific initial pulse shaping, and can be applied to a vast class of quantum channels.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2009

When finite-size corrections vanish: The S=1/2 XXZ model and the Razumov-Stroganov state

We study the one-dimensional $S=1/2$ XXZ model on a finite lattice at zero temperature, varying the exchange anisotropy $Δ$ and the number of sites $N$ of the lattice. Special emphasis is given to the model with $Δ=1/2$ and $N$ odd, whose ground state, the so-called Razumov-Stroganov state, has a peculiar structure and no finite-size corrections to the energy per site. We find that such model corresponds to a special point on the $Δ$-axis which separates the region where adding spin-pairs increases the energy per site from that where the longer the chain the lower the energy. Entanglement properties do not hold surprises for $Δ=1/2$ and $N$ odd. Finite-size corrections to the energy per site non trivially vanish also in the ferromagnetic $Δ\to -1^+$ isotropic limit, which is consequently addressed; in this case, peculiar features of some entanglement properties, due to the finite length of the chain and related with the change in the symmetry of the Hamiltonian, are evidenced and discussed. In both the above models the absence of finite-size corrections to the energy per site is related to a peculiar structure of the ground state, which has permitted us to provide new exact analytic expressions for some correlation functions.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2008

Staggered magnetization and entanglement enhancement by magnetic impurities in $S=1/2$ spin chain

We study the effects of a magnetic impurity on the behavior of a $S=1/2$ spin chain. At T=0, both with and without an applied uniform magnetic field, an oscillating magnetization appears, whose decay with the distance from the impurity is ruled by a power law. As a consequence, pairwise entanglement is either enhanced or quenched, depending on the distance of the spin pair with respect to the impurity and on the values of the magnetic field and the intensity of the impurity itself. This leads us to suggest that acting on such control parameters, an adiabatic manipulation of the entanglement distribution can be performed. The robustness of our results against temperature is checked, and suggestions about possible experimental applications are put forward.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2007

Extracting signatures of quantum criticality in the finite-temperature behavior of many-body systems

We face the problem of detecting and featuring footprints of quantum criticality in the finite-temperature behavior of quantum many-body systems. Our strategy is that of comparing the phase diagram of a system displaying a T=0 quantum phase transition with that of its classical limit, in order to single out the genuinely quantum effects. To this aim, we consider the one-dimensional Ising model in a transverse field: while the quantum S=1/2 Ising chain is exactly solvable and extensively studied, results for the classical limit (infinite S) of such model are lacking, and we supply them here. They are obtained numerically, via the Transfer-matrix method, and their asymptotic low-temperature behavior is also derived analytically by self-consistent spin-wave theory. We draw the classical phase-diagram according to the same procedure followed in the quantum analysis, and the two phase diagrams are found unexpectedly similar: Three regimes are detected also in the classical case, each characterized by a functional dependence of the correlation length on temperature and field analogous to that of the quantum model. What discriminates the classical from the quantum case are the different values of the exponents entering such dependencies, a consequence of the different nature of zero-temperature quantum fluctuations with respect to thermal ones.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2007

Two-spin entanglement distribution near factorized states

We study the two-spin entanglement distribution along the infinite $S=1/2$ chain described by the XY model in a transverse field; closed analytical expressions are derived for the one-tangle and the concurrences $C_r$, $r$ being the distance between the two possibly entangled spins, for values of the Hamiltonian parameters close to those corresponding to factorized ground states. The total amount of entanglement, the fraction of such entanglement which is stored in pairwise entanglement, and the way such fraction distributes along the chain is discussed, with attention focused on the dependence on the anisotropy of the exchange interaction. Near factorization a characteristic length-scale naturally emerges in the system, which is specifically related with entanglement properties and diverges at the critical point of the fully isotropic model. In general, we find that anisotropy rule a complex behavior of the entanglement properties, which results in the fact that more isotropic models, despite being characterized by a larger amount of total entanglement, present a smaller fraction of pairwise entanglement: the latter, in turn, is more evenly distributed along the chain, to the extent that, in the fully isotropic model at the critical field, the concurrences do not depend on $r$.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2006

Quantum phase transition in spin systems studied through entanglement estimators

Entanglement represents a pure quantum effect involving two or more particles. Spin systems are good candidates for studying this effect and its relation with other collective phenomena ruled by quantum mechanics. While the presence of entangled states can be easily verified, the quantitative estimate of this property is still under investigation. One of the most useful tool in this framework is the concurrence whose definition, albeit limited to $S=1/2$ systems, can be related to the correlators. We consider quantum spin systems defined along chains and square lattices, and described by Heisenberg-like Hamiltonians: our goal is to clarify the relation between entanglement and quantum phase transitions, as well as that between the concurrence the and the specific quantum state of the system.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2006

Reading entanglement in terms of spin configurations in quantum magnets

We consider a quantum many-body system made of $N$ interacting $S{=}1/2$ spins on a lattice, and develop a formalism which allows to extract, out of conventional magnetic observables, the quantum probabilities for any selected spin pair to be in maximally entangled or factorized two-spin states. This result is used in order to capture the meaning of entanglement properties in terms of magnetic behavior. In particular, we consider the concurrence between two spins and show how its expression extracts information on the presence of bipartite entanglement out of the probability distributions relative to specific sets of two-spin quantum states. We apply the above findings to the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model in a uniform magnetic field, both on a chain and on a two-leg ladder. Using Quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we obtain the above probability distributions and the associated entanglement, discussing their evolution under application of the field.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2005

Quantum Heisenberg antiferromagnets: a survey of the activity in Firenze

Over the years the research group in Firenze has produced a number of theoretical results concerning the statistical mechanics of quantum antiferromagnetic models, which range from the theory of two-magnon Raman scattering to the characterization of the phase transitions in quantum low-dimensional antiferromagnetic models. Our research activity was steadily aimed to the understanding of experimental observations.

cond-mat.str-el↗