arXiv subjects

Stefan Rotter

Publications and source records attributed to Stefan Rotter.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

Optimal control of non-Markovian dynamics in a single-mode cavity strongly coupled to an inhomogeneously broadened spin ensemble

Ensembles of quantum mechanical spins offer a promising platform for quantum memories, but proper functionality requires accurate control of unavoidable system imperfections. We present an efficient control scheme for a spin ensemble strongly coupled to a single-mode cavity based on a set of Volterra equations relying solely on weak classical control pulses. The viability of our approach is demonstrated in terms of explicit storage and readout sequences that will serve as a starting point towards the realization of more demanding full quantum mechanical optimal control schemes.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2017

Unidirectional zero reflection as gauged parity-time symmetry

We introduce here the concept of establishing Parity-time symmetry through a gauge transformation involving a shift of the mirror plane for the Parity operation. The corresponding unitary transformation on the system's constitutive matrix allows us to generate and explore a family of equivalent Parity-time symmetric systems. We further derive that unidirectional zero reflection can always be associated with a gauged PT-symmetry and demonstrate this experimentally using a microstrip transmission-line with magnetoelectric coupling. This study allows us to use bianisotropy as a simple route to realize and explore exceptional point behaviour of PT-symmetric or generally non-Hermitian systems.

physics.class-ph↗

arXiv2017

Particlelike scattering states in a microwave cavity

We realize scattering states in a lossy and chaotic two-dimensional microwave cavity which follow bundles of classical particle trajectories. To generate such particlelike scattering states we measure the system's transmission matrix and apply an adapted Wigner-Smith time-delay formalism to it. The necessary shaping of the incident wave is achieved in situ using phase and amplitude regulated microwave antennas. Our experimental findings pave the way for establishing spatially confined communication channels that avoid possible intruders or obstacles in wave-based communication systems.

physics.class-ph↗

arXiv2017

Super- and Anti-Principal Modes in Multi-Mode Waveguides

We introduce a new type of states for light in multimode waveguides featuring strongly enhanced or reduced spectral correlations. Based on the experimentally measured multi-spectral transmission matrix of a multimode fiber, we generate a set of states that outperform the established "principal modes" in terms of the spectral stability of their output spatial field profiles. Inverting this concept also allows us to create states with a minimal spectral correlation width, whose output profiles are considerably more sensitive to a frequency change than typical input wavefronts. The resulting "super-" and "anti-principal" modes are made orthogonal to each other even in the presence of mode-dependent loss. By decomposing them in the principal mode basis, we show that the super-principal modes are formed via interference of principal modes with closeby delay times, whereas the anti-principal modes are a superposition of principal modes with the most different delay times available in the fiber. Such novel states are expected to have broad applications in fiber communication, imaging, and spectroscopy.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2017

Focusing inside Disordered Media with the Generalized Wigner-Smith Operator

We introduce a wavefront shaping protocol for focusing inside disordered media based on a generalization of the established Wigner-Smith time-delay operator. The key ingredient for our approach is the scattering (or transmission) matrix of the medium and its derivative with respect to the position of the target one aims to focus on. A specifc experimental realization in the microwave regime is presented showing that the eigenstates of a corresponding operator are sorted by their focusing strength - ranging from strongly focusing on the designated target to completely bypassing it. Our protocol works without optimization or phase-conjugation and we expect it to be particularly attractive for optical imaging in disordered media.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2017

Mean path length invariance in multiple light scattering

Our everyday experience teaches us that the structure of a medium strongly influences how light propagates through it. A disordered medium, e.g., appears transparent or opaque, depending on whether its structure features a mean free path that is larger or smaller than the medium thickness. While the microstructure of the medium uniquely determines the shape of all penetrating light paths, recent theoretical insights indicate that the mean length of these paths is entirely independent of any structural medium property and thus also invariant with respect to a change in the mean free path. Here, we report an experiment that demonstrates this surprising property explicitly. Using colloidal solutions with varying concentration and particle size, we establish an invariance of the mean path length spanning nearly two orders of magnitude in scattering strength, from almost transparent to very opaque media. This very general, fundamental and counterintuitive result can be extended to a wide range of systems, however ordered, correlated or disordered, and has important consequences for many fields, including light trapping and harvesting for solar cells and more generally in photonic structure design.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2017

Dynamical Exploration of Amplitude Bistability in Engineered Quantum Systems

Nonlinear systems, whose outputs are not directly proportional to their inputs, are well known to exhibit many interesting and important phenomena which have profoundly changed our technological landscape over the last 50 years. Recently the ability to engineer quantum metamaterials through hybridisation has allowed to explore these nonlinear effects in systems with no natural analogue. Here we investigate amplitude bistability, which is one of the most fundamental nonlinear phenomena, in a hybrid system composed of a superconducting resonator inductively coupled to an ensemble of nitrogen-vacancy centres. One of the exciting properties of this spin system is its extremely long spin life-time, more than ten orders of magnitude longer than other relevant timescales of the hybrid system. This allows us to dynamically explore this nonlinear regime of cavity quantum electrodynamics (cQED) and demonstrate a critical slowing down of the cavity population on the order of several tens of thousands of seconds - a timescale much longer than observed so far for this effect. Our results provide the foundation for future quantum technologies based on nonlinear phenomena.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2017

Symmetry, stability, and computation of degenerate lasing modes

We present a general method to obtain the stable lasing solutions for the steady-state ab-initio lasing theory (SALT) for the case of a degenerate symmetric laser in two dimensions (2d). We find that under most regimes (with one pathological exception), the stable solutions are clockwise and counterclockwise circulating modes, generalizing previously known results of ring lasers to all 2d rotational symmetry groups. Our method uses a combination of semi-analytical solutions close to lasing threshold and numerical solvers to track the lasing modes far above threshold. Near threshold, we find closed-form expressions for both circulating modes and other types of lasing solutions as well as for their linearized Maxwell--Bloch eigenvalues, providing a simple way to determine their stability without having to do a full nonlinear numerical calculation. Above threshold, we show that a key feature of the circulating mode is its "chiral" intensity pattern, which arises from spontaneous symmetry-breaking of mirror symmetry, and whose symmetry group requires that the degeneracy persists even when nonlinear effects become important. Finally, we introduce a numerical technique to solve the degenerate SALT equations far above threshold even when spatial discretization artificially breaks the degeneracy.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2017

Light fields in complex media: mesoscopic scattering meets wave control

The newly emerging field of wave front shaping in complex media has recently seen enormous progress. The driving force behind these advances has been the experimental accessibility of the information stored in the scattering matrix of a disordered medium, which can nowadays routinely be exploited to focus light as well as to image or to transmit information even across highly turbid scattering samples. We will provide an overview of these new techniques, of their experimental implementations as well as of the underlying theoretical concepts following from mesoscopic scattering theory. In particular, we will highlight the intimate connections between quantum transport phenomena and the scattering of light fields in disordered media, which can both be described by the same theoretical concepts. We also put particular emphasis on how the above topics relate to application-oriented research fields such as optical imaging, sensing and communication.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2017

Sustained photon pulse revivals from inhomogeneously broadened spin ensembles

A very promising recent trend in applied quantum physics is to combine the advantageous features of different quantum systems into what is called "hybrid quantum technology". One of the key elements in this new field will have to be a quantum memory enabling to store quanta over extended periods of time. Systems that may fulfill the demands of such applications are comb-shaped spin ensembles coupled to a cavity. Due to the decoherence induced by the inhomogeneous ensemble broadening, the storage time of these quantum memories is, however, still rather limited. Here we demonstrate how to overcome this problem by burning well-placed holes into the spectral spin density leading to spectacular performance in the multimode regime. Specifically, we show how an initial excitation of the ensemble leads to the emission of more than a hundred well-separated photon pulses with a decay rate significantly below the fundamental limit of the recently proposed "cavity protection effect".

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Wave propagation through disordered media without backscattering and intensity variations

A fundamental manifestation of wave scattering in a disordered medium is the highly complex intensity pattern the waves acquire due to multi-path interference. Here we show that these intensity variations can be entirely suppressed by adding disorder-specific gain and loss components to the medium. The resulting constant-intensity (CI) waves in such non-Hermitian scattering landscapes are free of any backscattering and feature perfect transmission through the disorder. An experimental demonstration of these unique wave states is envisioned based on spatially modulated pump beams that can flexibly control the gain and loss components in an active medium.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2016

Coherent Coupling of Remote Spin Ensembles via a Cavity Bus

We report coherent coupling between two macroscopically separated nitrogen-vacancy electron spin ensembles in a cavity quantum electrodynamics system. The coherent interaction between the distant ensembles is directly detected in the cavity transmission spectrum by observing bright and dark collective multiensemble states and an increase of the coupling strength to the cavity mode. Additionally, in the dispersive limit we show transverse ensemble-ensemble coupling via virtual photons.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Principal modes in multimode fibers: exploring the crossover from weak to strong mode coupling

We present experimental and numerical studies on principal modes in a multimode fiber with mode coupling. By applying external stress to the fiber and gradually adjusting the stress, we have realized a transition from weak to strong mode coupling, which corresponds to the transition from single scattering to multiple scattering in mode space. Our experiments show that principal modes have distinct spatial and spectral characteristic in the weak and strong mode coupling regimes. We also investigate the bandwidth of the principal modes, in particular, the dependence of the bandwidth on the delay time, and the effects of the mode-dependent loss. By analyzing the path-length distributions, we discover two distinct mechanisms that are responsible for the bandwidth of principal modes in weak and strong mode coupling regimes. Taking into account the mode-dependent loss in the fiber, our numerical results are in good agreement with our experimental observations. Our study paves the way for exploring potential applications of principal modes in communication, imaging and spectroscopy.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2016

Joint Statistics of Strongly Correlated Neurons via Dimensional Reduction

The relative timing of action potentials in neurons recorded from local cortical networks often shows a non-trivial dependence, which is then quantified by cross-correlation functions. Theoretical models emphasize that such spike train correlations are an inevitable consequence of two neurons being part of the same network and sharing some synaptic input. For non-linear neuron models, however, explicit correlation functions are difficult to compute analytically, and perturbative methods work only for weak shared input. In order to treat strong correlations, we suggest here an alternative non-perturbative method. Specifically, we study the case of two leaky integrate-and-fire neurons with strong shared input. Correlation functions derived from simulated spike trains fit our theoretical predictions very accurately. Using our method, we computed the non-linear correlation transfer as well as correlation functions that are asymmetric due to inhomogeneous intrinsic parameters or unequal input.

q-bio.NC↗

arXiv2016

PT-symmetry breaking in the steady state of microscopic gain-loss systems

The phenomenon of PT (parity- and time-reversal) symmetry breaking is conventionally associated with a change in the complex mode spectrum of a non-Hermitian system that marks a transition from a purely oscillatory to an exponentially amplified dynamical regime. In this work we describe a new type of PT-symmetry breaking, which occurs in the steady-state energy distribution of open systems with balanced gain and loss. In particular, we show that the combination of nonlinear saturation effects and the presence of thermal or quantum noise in actual experiments results in unexpected behavior that differs significantly from the usual dynamical picture. We observe additional phases with preserved or `weakly' broken PT symmetry, and an unconventional transition from a high-noise thermal state to a low-amplitude lasing state with broken symmetry and strongly reduced fluctuations. We illustrate these effects here for the specific example of coupled mechanical resonators with optically-induced loss and gain, but the described mechanisms will be essential for a general understanding of the steady-state properties of actual PT-symmetric systems operated at low amplitudes or close to the quantum regime.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Particlelike wave packets in complex scattering systems

A wave packet undergoes a strong spatial and temporal dispersion while propagating through a complex medium. This wave scattering is often seen as a nightmare in wave physics whether it be for focusing, imaging or communication purposes. Controlling wave propagation through complex systems is thus of fundamental interest in many areas, ranging from optics or acoustics to medical imaging or telecommunications. Here, we study the propagation of elastic waves in a cavity and a disordered waveguide by means of laser interferometry. From the direct experimental access to the time-delay matrix of these systems, we demonstrate the existence of particle-like wave packets that remain focused in time and space throughout their complex trajectory. Due to their limited dispersion, their selective excitation will be crucially relevant for all applications involving selective wave focusing and efficient information transfer through complex media.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2016

Random Lasers for Broadband Directional Emission

Broadband coherent light sources are becoming increasingly important for sensing and spectroscopic applications, especially in the mid-infrared and terahertz (THz) spectral regions, where the unique absorption characteristics of a whole host of molecules are located. The desire to miniaturize such light emitters has recently lead to spectacular advances with compact on-chip lasers that cover both of these spectral regions. The long wavelength and the small size of the sources result in a strongly diverging laser beam that is difficult to focus on the target that one aims to perform spectroscopy with. Here, we introduce an unconventional solution to this vexing problem relying on a random laser to produce coherent broadband THz radiation as well as an almost diffraction limited far-field emission profile. Our random lasers do not require any fine-tuning and thus constitute a promising example of practical device applications for random lasing.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2016

Solving the 2-Dimensional Fokker-Planck Equation for Strongly Correlated Neurons

Pairs of neurons in brain networks often share much of the input they receive from other neurons. Due to essential non-linearities of neuronal dynamics, the consequences for the correlation of the output spike trains are not well understood in the strongly correlated regime. Here we consider two leaky integrate-and-fire neurons with correlated white noise input. We analyze this scenario using a novel non-perturbative approach. Hence our treatment covers both weakly and strongly correlated dynamics, generalizing previous results based on linear response theory.

physics.bio-ph↗