arXiv subjects

Susana F. Huelga

Publications and source records attributed to Susana F. Huelga.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2024

Accelerating two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy simulations with a probe qubit protocol

Two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy (2DES) is a powerful tool for exploring quantum effects in energy transport within photosynthetic systems and investigating novel material properties. However, simulating the dynamics of these experiments poses significant challenges for classical computers due to the large system sizes, long timescales and numerous experiment repetitions involved. This paper introduces the probe qubit protocol (PQP)-for quantum simulation of 2DES on quantum devices-addressing these challenges. The PQP offers several enhancements over standard methods, notably reducing computational resources, by requiring only a single-qubit measurement per circuit run and achieving Heisenberg scaling in detection frequency resolution, without the need to apply expensive controlled evolution operators in the quantum circuit. The implementation of the PQP protocol requires only one additional ancilla qubit, the probe qubit, with one-to-all connectivity and two-qubit interactions between each system and probe qubits. We evaluate the computational resources necessary for this protocol in detail, demonstrating its function as a dynamic frequency-filtering method through numerical simulations. We find that simulations of the PQP on classical and quantum computers enable a reduction on the number of measurements, i.e. simulation runtime, and memory savings of several orders of magnitude relatively to standard quantum simulation protocols of 2DES. The paper discusses the applicability of the PQP on near-term quantum devices and highlights potential applications where this spectroscopy simulation protocol could provide significant speedups over standard approaches such as the quantum simulation of 2DES applied to the Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) complex in green sulphur bacteria.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Time dependent Markovian master equation beyond the adiabatic limit

We derive a Markovian master equation that models the evolution of systems subject to driving and control fields. Our approach combines time rescaling and weak-coupling limits for the system-environment interaction with a secular approximation. The derivation makes use of the adiabatic time-evolution operator in a manner that allows for the efficient description of strong driving, while recovering the well-known adiabatic master equation in the appropriate limit. To illustrate the effectiveness of our approach, firstly we apply it to the paradigmatic case of a two-level (qubit) system subject to a form of periodic driving that remains unsolvable using a Floquet representation and lastly we extend this scenario to the situation of two interacting qubits, the first driven while the second one directly in contact with the environment. We demonstrate the reliability and broad scope of our approach by benchmarking the solutions of the derived reduced time evolution against numerically exact simulations using tensor networks. Our results provide rigorous conditions that must be satisfied by phenomenological master equations for driven systems that do not rely on first-principles derivations.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Spectral Density Modulation and Universal Markovian Closure of Fermionic Environments

The combination of chain-mapping and tensor-network techniques provides a powerful tool for the numerically exact simulation of open quantum systems interacting with structured environments. However, these methods suffer from a quadratic scaling with the physical simulation time, and therefore they become challenging in the presence of multiple environments. This is particularly true when fermionic environments, well-known to be highly correlated, are considered. In this work we first illustrate how a thermo-chemical modulation of the spectral density allows replacing the original fermionic environments with equivalent, but simpler, ones. Moreover, we show how this procedure reduces the number of chains needed to model multiple environments. We then provide a derivation of the fermionic Markovian closure construction, consisting of a small collection of damped fermionic modes undergoing a Lindblad-type dynamics and mimicking a continuum of bath modes. We describe, in particular, how the use of the Markovian closure allows for a polynomial reduction of the time complexity of chain-mapping based algorithms when long-time dynamics are needed.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Quantum resource-theoretical analysis of the role of vibrational structure in photoisomerization

Thermodynamical systems at the nanoscale, such as single molecules interacting with highly structured vibrational environments, typically undergo non-equilibrium physical processes that lack precise microscopic descriptions. Photoisomerization is such an example which has emerged as a platform on which to study single-molecule ultrafast photochemical processes from a quantum resource theoretic perspective. However, upper bounds on its efficiency have only been obtained under significant simplifications that make the mathematics of the resource-theoretical treatment manageable. Here we generalize previous models for the photoisomers, while retaining the full vibrational structure, and still get analytical bounds on the efficiency of hotoisomerization. We quantify the impact of such vibrational structure on the optimal photoisomerization quantum yield both when the vibrational coordinate has no dynamics of its own and when we take into account the vibrational dynamics. This work serves as an example of how to bridge the gap between the abstract language of quantum resource theories and the open system formulation of nanoscale processes.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Criticality-enhanced Electric Field Gradient Sensor with Single Trapped Ions

We propose and analyze a driven-dissipative quantum sensor that is continuously monitored close to a dissipative critical point. The sensor relies on the critical open Rabi model with the spin and phonon degrees of freedom of a single trapped ion to achieve criticality-enhanced sensitivity. Effective continuous monitoring of the sensor is realized via a co-trapped ancilla ion that switches between dark and bright internal states conditioned on a `jump' of the phonon population which, remarkably, achieves nearly perfect phonon counting despite a low photon collection efficiency. By exploiting both dissipative criticality and efficient continuous readout, the sensor device achieves highly precise sensing of oscillating electric field gradients at a criticality-enhanced precision scaling beyond the standard quantum limit, which we demonstrate is robust to the experimental imperfections in real-world applications.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Systematic coarse-graining of environments for the non-perturbative simulation of open quantum systems

Conducting precise electronic-vibrational dynamics simulations of molecular systems poses significant challenges when dealing with realistic environments composed of numerous vibrational modes. Here, we introduce a technique for the construction of effective phonon spectral densities that capture accurately open system dynamics over a finite time interval of interest. When combined with existing non-perturbative simulation tools, our approach can reduce significantly the computational costs associated with many-body open system dynamics.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Optimized noise-assisted simulation of the Lindblad equation with time-dependent coefficients on a noisy quantum processor

Noise in quantum devices is generally considered detrimental to computational accuracy. However, the recent proposal of noise-assisted simulation has demonstrated that noise can be an asset in digital quantum simulations of open systems on Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices. In this context, we introduce an optimized decoherence rate control scheme that can significantly reduce computational requirements by multiple orders of magnitude, in comparison to the original noise-assisted simulation. We further extend this approach to encompass Lindblad equations with time-dependent coefficients, using only quantum error characterization and mitigation techniques. This extension allows for the perturbative simulation of non-Markovian dynamics on NISQ devices, eliminating the need for ancilla qubits or mid-circuit measurements. Our contributions are validated through numerical experiments on an emulated IBMQ device. Overall, our work offers valuable optimizations that bring current quantum processors closer to effectively simulating realistic open systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Efficient Information Retrieval for Sensing via Continuous Measurement

Continuous monitoring of driven-dissipative quantum optical systems is a crucial element in the implementation of quantum metrology, providing essential strategies for achieving highly precise measurements beyond the classical limit. In this context, the relevant figure of merit is the quantum Fisher information of the radiation field emitted by the driven-dissipative sensor. Saturation of the corresponding precision limit as defined by the quantum Cramer-Rao bound is typically not achieved by conventional, temporally local continuous measurement schemes such as counting or homodyning. To address the outstanding open challenge of efficient retrieval of the quantum Fisher information of the emission field, we design a novel continuous measurement strategy featuring temporally quasilocal measurement bases as captured by matrix product states. Such measurement can be implemented effectively by injecting the emission field of the sensor into an auxiliary open system, a `quantum decoder' module, which `decodes' specific input matrix product states into simple product states as its output field, and performing conventional continuous measurement at the output. We devise a universal recipe for the construction of the decoder by exploiting time reversal transformation of quantum optical input-output channels, thereby establishing a universal method to achieve the quantum Cramer-Rao precision limit for generic sensors based on continuous measurement. As a by-product, we establish an effective formula for the evaluation of the quantum Fisher information of the emission field of generic driven-dissipative open sensors. We illustrate the power of our scheme with paramagnetic open sensor designs including linear force sensors, fibre-interfaced nonlinear emitters, and driven-dissipative many-body sensors, and demonstrate that it can be robustly implemented under realistic experimental imperfections.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Noise-assisted digital quantum simulation of open systems

Quantum systems are inherently open and susceptible to environmental noise, which can have both detrimental and beneficial effects on their dynamics. This phenomenon has been observed in bio-molecular systems, where noise enables novel functionalities, making the simulation of their dynamics a crucial target for digital and analog quantum simulation. Nevertheless, the computational capabilities of current quantum devices are often limited due to their inherent noise. In this work, we present a novel approach that capitalizes on the intrinsic noise of quantum devices to reduce the computational resources required for simulating open quantum systems. Our approach combines quantum noise characterization methods with quantum error mitigation techniques, enabling us to manipulate and control the intrinsic noise in a quantum circuit. Specifically, we selectively enhance or reduce decoherence rates in the quantum circuit to achieve the desired simulation of open system dynamics. We provide a detailed description of our methods and report on the results of noise characterization and quantum error mitigation experiments conducted on both real and emulated IBM Quantum computers. Additionally, we estimate the experimental resource requirements for our techniques. Our approach holds the potential to unlock new simulation techniques in Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices, harnessing their intrinsic noise to enhance quantum computations.

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arXiv2022

Fingerprint and universal Markovian closure of structured bosonic environments

We exploit the properties of chain mapping transformations of bosonic environments to identify a finite collection of modes able to capture the characteristic features, or fingerprint, of the environment. Moreover we show that the countable infinity of residual bath modes can be replaced by a universal Markovian closure, namely a small collection of damped modes undergoing a Lindblad-type dynamics whose parametrization is independent of the spectral density under consideration. We show that the Markovian closure provides a quadratic speed-up with respect to standard chain mapping techniques and makes the memory requirement independent of the simulation time, while preserving all the information on the fingerprint modes. We illustrate the application of the Markovian closure to the computation of linear spectra but also to non-linear spectral response, a relevant experimentally accessible many body coherence witness for which efficient numerically exact calculations in realistic environments are currently lacking.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Spin-Dependent Momentum Conservation of Electron-Phonon Scattering in Chirality-Induced Spin Selectivity

The elucidation of the mechanisms behind chiral-induced spin selectivity remains an outstanding scientific challenge. Here we consider the role of delocalised phonon modes in electron transport in chiral structures and demonstrate that spin selectivity can originate from spin-dependent energy and momentum conservation in electron-phonon scattering events. While this mechanism is robust to the specifical nature of the vibrational modes, the degree of spin polarization depends on environmental factors, such as external driving fields, temperatures and phonon relaxation rates. This dependence is used to present experimentally testable predictions of our model.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Driving Force and Nonequilibrium Vibronic Dynamics in Charge Separation of Strongly Bound Electron-Hole Pairs

Electron-hole pairs in organic photovoltaics dissociate efficiently despite their Coulomb-binding energy exceeding thermal energy at room temperature. The electronic states involved in charge separation couple to structured vibrational environments containing multiple underdamped modes. The non-perturbative simulations of such large, spatially extended electronic-vibrational (vibronic) systems remains an outstanding challenge. Current methods bypass this difficulty by considering effective one-dimensional Coulomb potentials or unstructured environments. Here we extend and apply a recently developed method for the non-perturbative simulation of open quantum systems to the dynamics of charge separation in one, two and three-dimensional donor-acceptor networks. This allows us to identify the precise conditions in which underdamped vibrational motion induces efficient long-range charge separation. Our analysis provides a comprehensive picture of ultrafast charge separation by showing how different mechanisms driven either by electronic or vibronic couplings are well differentiated for a wide range of driving forces and how entropic effects become apparent in large vibronic systems. These results allow us to quantify the relative importance of electronic and vibronic contributions in organic photovoltaics and provide a toolbox for the design of efficient charge separation pathways in artificial nanostructures.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Criticality-Enhanced Quantum Sensing via Continuous Measurement

Present protocols of criticality-enhanced sensing with open quantum sensors assume direct measurement of the sensor and omit the radiation quanta emitted to the environment, thereby potentially missing valuable information. Here we propose a protocol for criticality-enhanced sensing via continuous observation of the emitted radiation quanta. Under general assumptions, we establish a scaling theory for the global quantum Fisher information of the joint system and environment state at dissipative critical points. We derive universal scaling laws featuring transient and long-time behavior governed by the underlying critical exponents. Importantly, such scaling laws exceed the standard quantum limit and can in principle saturate the Heisenberg limit. To harness such advantageous scaling, we propose a practical sensing scheme based on continuous detection of the emitted quanta as realized experimentally in various quantum-optical setups. In such a scheme a single interrogation corresponds to a (stochastic) quantum trajectory of the open system evolving under the nonunitary dynamics dependent on the parameter to be sensed and the backaction of the continuous measurement. Remarkably, we demonstrate that the associated precision scaling significantly exceeds that based on direct measurement of the critical steady state, thereby establishing the metrological value of the continuous detection of the emitted quanta at dissipative criticality. We illustrate our protocol via counting the photons emitted by the open Rabi model, a paradigmatic model for the study of dissipative phase transition with finite components. Our protocol is applicable to generic quantum-optical open sensors permitting continuous readout, and may find applications at the frontier of quantum sensing, such as the human-machine interface, magnetic diagnosis of heart disease, and zero-field nuclear magnetic resonance.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Transfer-tensor description of memory effects in open-system dynamics and multi-time statistics

The non-Markovianity of an arbitrary open quantum system is analyzed in reference to the multi-time statistics given by its monitoring at discrete times. On the one hand, we exploit the hierarchy of inhomogeneous transfer tensors, which provides us with relevant information about the role of correlations between the system and the environment in the dynamics. The connection between the transfer-tensor hierarchy and the CP-divisibility property is then investigated, by showing to what extent quantum Markovianity can be linked to a description of the open-system dynamics by means of the composition of 1-step transfer tensors only. On the other hand, we introduce the set of stochastic transfer tensor transformations associated with local measurements on the open system at different times and conditioned on the measurement outcomes. The use of the transfer-tensor formalism accounts for different kinds of memory effects in the multi-time statistics and allows us to compare them on a similar footing with the memory effects present in non-monitored non-Markovian dynamics, as we illustrate on a spin-boson case study.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Capacity of non-Markovianity to boost the efficiency of molecular switches

Quantum resource theory formulations of thermodynamics offer a versatile tool for the study of fundamental limitations to the efficiency of physical processes, independently of the microscopic details governing their dynamics. Despite the ubiquitous presence of non-Markovian dynamics in open quantum systems at the nanoscale, rigorous proofs of their beneficial effects on the efficiency of quantum dynamical processes at the bio-molecular level have not been reported yet. Here we combine the resource theory of athermality with concepts from the theory of divisibility classes for quantum channels, to prove that memory effects can increase the efficiency of photoisomerization to levels that are not achievable under a purely thermal Markovian (i.e. memoryless) evolution. This provides rigorous evidence that memory effects can provide a resource in biological quantum dynamics, and, more generally, quantum thermodynamics at the nanoscale.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Interface-Induced Conservation of Momentum Leads to Chiral-Induced Spin Selectivity

We study the non-equilibrium dynamics of electron transmission from a straight waveguide to a helix with spin-orbit coupling. Transmission is found to be spin-selective and can lead to large spin polarizations of the itinerant electrons. The degree of spin selectivity depends on the width of the interface region, and no polarization is found for single-point couplings. We show that this is due to momentum conservation conditions arising from extended interfaces. We therefore identify interface structure and conservation of momentum as crucial ingredients for chiral-induced spin selectivity, and confirm that this mechanism is robust against static disorder.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Entanglement Spectrum in General Free Fermionic Systems

The statistical mechanics characterization of a finite subsystem embedded in an infinite system is a fundamental question of quantum physics. Nevertheless, a full closed form { for all required entropic measures} does not exist in the general case even for free systems when the finite system in question is composed of several disjoint intervals. Here we develop a mathematical framework based on the Riemann-Hilbert approach to treat this problem in the one-dimensional case where the finite system is composed of two disjoint intervals and in the thermodynamic limit (both intervals and the space between them contains an infinite number of lattice sites and the result is given as a thermodynamic expansion). To demonstrate the usefulness of our method, we compute the change in the entanglement and negativity namely the spectrum of eigenvalues of the reduced density matrix with our without time reversal of one of the intervals. We do this in the case that the distance between the intervals is much larger than their size. The method we use can be easily applied to compute any power in an expansion in the ratio of the distance between the intervals to their size. {We expect these results to provide the necessary mathematical apparatus to address relevant questions in concrete physical scenarios, namely the structure and extent of quantum correlations in fermionic systems subject to local environment.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Design principles for long-range energy transfer at room temperature

Under physiological conditions, ballistic long-range transfer of electronic excitations in molecular aggregates is generally expected to be suppressed by noise and dissipative processes. Hence, quantum phenomena are not considered to be relevant for the design of efficient and controllable energy transfer over significant length and time scales. Contrary to this conventional wisdom, here we show that the robust quantum properties of small configurations of repeating clusters of molecules can be used to tune energy transfer mechanism that take place on much larger scales. With the support of an exactly solvable model, we demonstrate that coherent exciton delocalization and dark states within unit cells can be used to harness dissipative phenomena of varying nature (thermalization, fluorescence, non-radiative decay and weak inter-site correlations) to support classical propagation over macroscopic distances. In particular, we argue that coherent delocalization of electronic excitations over just a few pigments can drastically alter the relevant dissipation pathways which influence the energy transfer mechanism, and thus serve as a molecular control tool for large-scale properties of molecular materials. Building on these principles, we use extensive numerical simulations to demonstrate that they can explain currently not understood measurements of micron-scale exciton diffusion in nano-fabricated arrays of bacterial photosynthetic complexes. Based on these results we provide quantum design guidelines at the molecular scale to optimize both energy transfer speed and range over macroscopic distances in artificial light-harvesting architectures.

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