arXiv subjects

S. F. Huelga

Publications and source records attributed to S. F. Huelga.

35 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2011

A variational description of the quantum phase transition in the sub-Ohmic spin-boson model

The sub-ohmic spin-boson model is known to possess a novel quantum phase transition at zero temperature between a localised and delocalised phase. We present here an analytical theory based on a variational ansatz for the ground state, which describes a continuous localization transition with mean-field exponents for $0<s<0.5$. Our results for the critical properties show good quantitiative agreement with previous numerical results, and we present a detailed description of all the spin observables as the system passes through the transition. Analysing the ansatz itself, we give an intuitive microscopic description of the transition in terms of the changing correlations between the system and bath, and show that it is always accompanied by a divergence of the low-frequency boson occupations. The possible relevance of this divergence for some numerical approaches to this problem is discussed and illustrated by looking at the ground state obtained using density matrix renormalisation group methods.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2008

State Transfer in Highly Connected Networks and a Quantum Babinet Principle

The transfer of a quantum state between distant nodes in two-dimensional networks, is considered. The fidelity of state transfer is calculated as a function of the number of interactions in networks that are described by regular graphs. It is shown that perfect state transfer is achieved in a network of size N, whose structure is that of a N/2-cross polytope graph, if N is a multiple of 4. The result is reminiscent of the Babinet principle of classical optics. A quantum Babinet principle is derived, which allows for the identification of complementary graphs leading to the same fidelity of state transfer, in analogy with complementary screens providing identical diffraction patterns.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2008

Dephasing assisted transport: Quantum networks and biomolecules

Transport phenomena are fundamental in Physics. They allow for information and energy to be exchanged between individual constituents of communication systems, networks or even biological entities. Environmental noise will generally hinder the efficiency of the transport process. However, and contrary to intuition, there are situations in classical systems where thermal fluctuations are actually instrumental in assisting transport phenomena. Here we show that, even at zero temperature, transport of excitations across dissipative quantum networks can be enhanced by local dephasing noise. We explain the underlying physical mechanisms behind this phenomenon, show that entanglement does not play a supportive role and propose possible experimental demonstrations in quantum optics. We argue that Nature may be routinely exploiting this effect and show that the transport of excitations in light harvesting molecules does benefit from such noise assisted processes. These results point towards the possibility for designing optimized structures for transport, for example in artificial nano-structures, assisted by noise.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2008

Control-limited perfect state transfer, quantum stochastic resonance and many-body entangling gate in imperfect qubit registers

We propose a protocol for perfect quantum state transfer that is resilient to a broad class of realistic experimental imperfections, including noise sources that could be modelled either as independent Markovian baths or as certain forms of spatially correlated environments. We highlight interesting connections between the fidelity of state transfer and quantum stochastic resonance effects. The scheme is flexible enough to act as an effective entangling gate for the generation of genuine multipartite entanglement in a control-limited setting. Possible experimental implementations using superconducting qubits are also briefly discussed.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2007

Entanglement dynamics in chains of qubits with noise and disorder

The entanglement dynamics of arrays of qubits is analysed in the presence of some general sources of noise and disorder. In particular, we consider linear chains of Josephson qubits in experimentally realistic conditions. Electromagnetic and other (spin or boson) fluctuations due to the background circuitry and surrounding substrate, finite temperature in the external environment, and disorder in the initial preparation and the control parameters are embedded into our model. We show that the amount of disorder that is typically present in current experiments does not affect the entanglement dynamics significantly, while the presence of noise can have a drastic influence on the generation and propagation of entanglement. We examine under which circumstances the system exhibits steady-state entanglement for both short (N < 10) and long (N > 30) chains and show that, remarkably, there are parameter regimes where the steady-state entanglement is strictly non-monotonic as a function of the noise strength. We also present optimized schemes for entanglement verification and quantification based on simple correlation measurements that are experimentally more economic than state tomography.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2005

Cavity Loss Induced Generation of Entangled Atoms

We discuss the generation of entangled states of two two-level atoms inside an optical resonator. When the cavity decay is continuously monitored, the absence of photon-counts is associated with the presence of an atomic entangled state. In addition to being conceptually simple, this scheme could be demonstrated with presently available technology. We describe how such a state is generated through conditional dynamics, using quantum jump methods, including both cavity damping and spontaneous emission decay, and evaluate the fidelity and relative entropy of entanglement of the generated state compared with the target entangled state.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2003

Robust creation of entanglement between ions in spatially separate cavities

We present a protocol that allows the generation of a maximally entangled state between individual atoms held in spatially separate cavities. Assuming perfect detectors and neglecting spontaneous emission from the atoms, the resulting idealized scheme is deterministic. Under more realistic conditions, when the the atom-cavity interaction departs from the strong coupling regime, and considering imperfect detectors, we show that the scheme is robust against experimental inefficiencies and yields probabilistic entanglement of very high fidelity.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2002

Entangled light from white noise

An atom that couples to two distinct leaky optical cavities is driven by an external optical white noise field. We describe how entanglement between the light fields sustained by two optical cavities arises in such a situation. The entanglement is maximized for intermediate values of the cavity damping rates and the intensity of the white noise field, vanishing both for small and for large values of these parameters and thus exhibiting a stochastic-resonance-like behaviour. This example illustrates the possibility of generating entanglement by exclusively incoherent means and sheds new light on the constructive role noise may play in certain tasks of interest for quantum information processing.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2001

Remote control of restricted sets of operations: Teleportation of Angles

We study the remote implementation of a unitary transformation on a qubit. We show the existence of non-trivial protocols (i.e., using less resources than bidirectional state teleportation) which allow the perfect remote implementation of certain continuous sets of quantum operations. We prove that, up to a local change of basis, only two subsets exist that can be implemented remotely with a non-trivial protocol: Arbitrary rotations around a fixed direction $\vec{n}$ and rotations by a fixed angle around an arbitrary direction lying in a plane orthogonal to $\vec{n}$. The overall classical information and distributed entanglement cost required for the remote implementation depends on whether it is a priori known to which of the two teleportable subsets the transformation belongs to. If it is so, the optimal protocol consumes one e-bit of entanglement and one c-bit in each direction. If the subset is not known, two e-bits of entanglement need to be consumed while the classical channel becomes asymmetric, two c-bits are conveyed from Alice to Bob but only one from Bob to Alice.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2001

A class of symmetric controlled quantum operations

Certain quantum gates, such as the controlled-NOT gate, are symmetric in terms of the operation of the control system upon the target system and vice versa. However, no operational criteria yet exist for establishing whether or not a given quantum gate is symmetrical in this sense. We consider a restricted, yet broad, class of two-party controlled gate operations for which the gate transforms a reference state of the target into one of an orthogonal set of states. We show that for this class of gates it is possible to establish a simple necessary and sufficient condition for the gate operation to be symmetric.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2000

Entangling Atoms and Ions in Dissipative Environments

Quantum information processing rests on our ability to manipulate quantum superpositions through coherent unitary transformations, and to establish entanglement between constituent quantum components of the processor. The quantum information processor (a linear ion trap, or a cavity confining the radiation field for example) exists in a dissipative environment. We discuss ways in which entanglement can be established within such dissipative environments. We can even make use of a strong interaction of the system with its environment to produce entanglement in a controlled way.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2000

Quantum remote control: Teleportation of unitary operations

We consider the implementation of an arbitrary unitary operation U upon a distant quantum system. This teleportation of U can be viewed as a quantum remote control. We investigate protocols which achieve this using local operations, classical communication and shared entanglement (LOCCSE). Lower bounds on the necessary entanglement and classical communication are determined using causality and the linearity of quantum mechanics. We examine in particular detail the resources required if the remote control is to be implemented as a classical black box. Under these circumstances, we prove that the required resources are, necessarily, those needed for implementation by bidirectional state teleportation.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2000

Singlet aided infinite resource reduction in the comparison of distant fields

We present a task which can be faithfully solved with finite resources only when aided by particles prepared in a particular entangled state: the singlet state. The task consists of identifying the mutual parallelity or orthogonality of weak distant magnetic fields whose absolute directions are completely unknown.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2000

Quantum Stochastic Resonance in Electron Shelving

Stochastic resonance shows that under some circumstances noise can enhance the response of a system to a periodic force. While this effect has been extensively investigated theoretically and demonstrated experimentally in classical systems, there is complete lack of experimental evidence within the purely quantum mechanical domain. Here we demonstrate that stochastic resonance can be exhibited in a single ion and would be experimentally observable using well mastered experimental techniques. We discuss the use of this scheme for the detection of the frequency difference of two lasers to demonstrate that stochastic resonance may have applications in precision measurements at the quantum limit.

quant-ph↗

arXiv1999

Measuring the entanglement of bipartite pure states

The problem of the experimental determination of the amount of entanglement of a bipartite pure state is addressed. We show that measuring a single observable does not suffice to determine the entanglement of a given unknown pure state of two particles. Possible minimal local measuring strategies are discussed and a comparison is made on the basis of their best achievable precision.

quant-ph↗

arXiv1999

Coherent manipulation of two dipole-dipole interacting ions

We investigate to what extent two trapped ions can be manipulated coherently when their coupling is mediated by a dipole-dipole interaction. We will show how the resulting level shift induced by this interaction can be used to create entanglement, while the decay of the states remains nearly negligible. This will allow us to implement conditional dynamics (a CNOT gate) and single qubit operations. We propose two different experimental realisations where a large level shift can be achieved and discuss both the strengths and weaknesses of this scheme from the point of view of a practical realization.

quant-ph↗

arXiv1999

Distributed Quantum Computation over Noisy Channels

We analyse the use of entangled states to perform quantum computations non locally among distant nodes in a quantum network. The complexity associated with the generation of multiparticle entangled states is quantified in terms of the concept of global cost. This parameter allows us to compare the use of physical resources in different schemes. We show that for ideal channels and for a sufficiently large number of nodes, the use of maximally entangled states is advantageous over uncorrelated ones. For noisy channels, one has to use entanglement purification procedures in order to create entangled states of high fidelity. We show that under certain circumstances a quantum network supplied with a maximally entangled input still yields a smaller global cost, provided that $n$ belongs to a given interval $n\in [n_{min},n_{max}]$. The values of $n_{min}$ and $n_{max}$ crucially depend on the purification protocols used to establish the $n$-- processor entangled states, as well as on the presence of decoherence processes during the computation. The phase estimation problem has been used to illustrate this fact.

quant-ph↗