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The manipulation of trapped charged particles by electric fields is an accurate, robust, and reliable technique for many applications or experiments in high-precision spectroscopy. The transfer of an ion sample between multiple traps allows the use of a tailored environment in quantum information, cold chemistry, or frequency metrology experiments. In this article, we experimentally study the transport of ion clouds of up to 80000 ions over a distance of 20 mm inside a linear radio-frequency trap. Ion transport is controlled by a transfer function, which is designed taking into account the local electric potentials. We observe that the ion response is very sensitive to the details of the description of the electric potential. Nevertheless, we show that fast transport with a total duration of 100 μs--results in transport efficiencies attaining values higher than 90% of the ion number, even with large ion clouds. For clouds smaller than 2000 ions, a 100% transfer efficiency is observed. Transport induced heating, which depends on the transport duration, is also analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We realize a pair of simultaneous ten-step one-dimensional quantum walks with two walkers sharing coins, which we prove is analogous to the ten-step two-dimensional quantum walk with a single walker holding a four-dimensional coin. Our experiment demonstrates a ten-step quantum walk over an 11 × 11 two-dimensional lattice with a line defect, thereby realizing a localized walker state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The difficulty of an optimization task in quantum information science depends on the proper mathematical expression of the physical target. Here we demonstrate the power of optimization functionals targeting an arbitrary perfect two-qubit entangler, which allow generation of a maximally entangled state from some initial product state. We show for two quantum information platforms of current interest, i.e., nitrogen vacancy centers in diamond and superconducting Josephson junctions, that an arbitrary perfect entangler can be reached faster and with higher fidelity than both specific two-qubit gates and local equivalence classes of two-qubit gates. Our results are obtained using two independent optimization approaches, underscoring the critical role of the optimization target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We discuss the so-called mean king's problem, a retrodiction problem among noncommutative observables, in the context of error detection. Describing the king's measurement effectively by a single error operation, we give a solution of the mean king's problem using quantum error-correcting codes. The existence of a quantum error-correcting code from a solution is also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nonequilibrium dynamics of a gas of cold atoms in which Rydberg states are off-resonantly excited is studied in the presence of noise. The interplay between interaction and off-resonant excitation leads to an initial dynamics where aggregates of excited Rydberg atoms slowly nucleate and grow, eventually reaching long-lived metastable arrangements which then relax further on much longer time scales. This growth dynamics is governed by an effective Master equation which permits a transparent and largely analytical understanding of the underlying physics. By means of extensive numerical simulations we study the many-body dynamics and the correlations of the resulting nonequilibrium states in various dimensions. Our results provide insight into the dynamical richness of strongly interacting Rydberg gases in noisy environments, and highlight the usefulness of these kinds of systems for the exploration of soft-matter-type collective behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report the implementation of the relativistic equation-of-motion coupled-cluster method to calculate the double-ionization spectra (DI-EOMCC) of the closed-shell atomic systems. This method is employed to calculate the principal valence double-ionization potential values of He and alkaline-earth-metal (Be, Mg, Ca, Sr, and Ba) atoms. Our results are compared with the results available from the NIST database and other ab initio calculations. We have achieved an accuracy of ~ 0.1 %, which is an improvement over the first-principles T-matrix calculations [Y. Noguchi et al., J. Chem. Phys. 123,144112 (2005)]. We also present results using the second-order many-body perturbation theory and the random-phase approximation in the equation-of-motion framework, and these results are compared with the DI-EOMCC results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to achieve practical implementations of emerging quantum technologies, it is important to have a firm understanding of the dynamics of realistic quantum open systems. Master equations provide a widely used tool in this regard. In this work we first construct a master equation, valid for weak system-environment coupling, which explicitly takes into account the impact of preparing an initial system state from an equilibrium system-environment state that has system-environment correlations. We then investigate the role of initial system-environment correlations using this master equation for a system consisting of many two-level atoms interacting with a common environment. We show that, in general, due to the initial system-environment correlations before a state preparation, the quantum state of the system can evolve at a faster time scale. Moreover, we also consider different initial state preparations, and demonstrate that the influence of state preparations depends on the initial states prepared. Our results can be of interest to many topics based on quantum open systems where system-environment correlation effects have been neglected before. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce a method to witness the quantumness of a system. The method relies' on the fact that the anticommutator of two classical states is always positive. By contrast, we show that there is always a nonpositive anticommutator due to any two quantum states. We notice that interference depends on the trace of the anticommutator of two states, and it is therefore operationally more suitable to detect quantumness by looking at anticommutators of states rather than their commutators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Svetlichny's inequality (SI) is a Bell-like inequality, the violation of which can be used to confirm the existence of genuine multipartite correlations. However, poor detector efficiency can possibly cause a so-called detection loophole in actual Svetlichny experiments. We derive an alternative SI to deal with this loophole. If the experimental data can violate this SI, it must result in loophole-free violation of the original SI. We show that the minimum detection efficiency needed for a loophole-free violation of the tripartite SI is about 0.97. For the general case of η particles, we give the analytic expression of the needed detection efficiency, and find that its value monotonically and rapidly approaches 1 as the number of particles increases [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We design, by invariant-based inverse engineering, resonant laser pulses to perform fast population transfers in three-level systems. The laser intensities to improve the fidelity or to achieve a perfect transfer are examined for different protocols. They can be reduced by populating the intermediate state and by multimode driving [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Level crossing models for two-state quantum systems are applicable to a wide variety of physical problems. We address the special case of level glancing, i.e., when energy levels reach a degeneracy at a specific point of time, but never actually cross. The simplest model with such behavior is the parabolic model, and its generalizations, which we call superparabolic models. We discuss their basic characteristics, complementing the previous work on the related nonlinear crossing models [Vitanov and Suominen, Phys. Rev. A 59, 4580 (1999) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a general upper bound on the success probability for unambiguous discrimination among arbitrary m mixed quantum states with given a priori probability. We further analyze how this upper bound can be achievable by presenting a sufficient condition related to it, and we compare this upper bound with three other upper bounds. Moreover, for the issue of the unambiguous identification of m unknown multicopy qudit pure states, we also get a bound [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Klein-Gordon equation is used to calculate the Zitterbewegung (ZB, trembling motion) of spin-zero particles in the absence of fields and in the presence of an external magnetic field. Both Hamiltonian and wave formalisms are employed to describe ZB and their results are compared. It is demonstrated that if one uses wave packets to represent particles, then the ZB motion has a decaying behavior. It is also shown that the trembling motion is caused by an interference of two subpackets composed of positive- and negative-energy states, which propagate with different velocities. In the presence of a magnetic field, the quantization of the energy spectrum results in many interband frequencies contributing to ZB oscillations and the motion follows a collapse-revival pattern. In the limit of nonrelativistic velocities, the interband ZB components vanish and the motion is reduced to cyclotron oscillations. The exact dynamics of a charged Klein-Gordon (KG) particle in the presence of a magnetic field is described on an operator level. The trembling motion of a KG particle in the absence of fields is simulated using a classical model proposed by Morse and Feshbach—-it is shown that a variance of a Gaussian wave packet exhibits ZB oscillations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constrained Hamiltonian description of the classical limit is utilized in order to derive consistent dynamical equations for hybrid quantum-classical systems. Starting with a compound quantum system in the Hamiltonian formulation, conditions for classical behavior are imposed on one of its subsystems and the corresponding hybrid dynamical equations are derived. The presented formalism suggests that the hybrid systems have properties that are not exhausted by those of quantum and classical systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study theoretically the transfer of quantum information along bends in two-dimensional discrete lattices. Our analysis shows that the fidelity of the transfer decreases considerably as a result of interactions in the neighborhood of the bend. It is also demonstrated that such losses can be controlled efficiently by the inclusion of a defect. The present results are of relevance to various physical implementations of quantum networks, where geometric imperfections with finite spatial extent may arise as a result of bending, residual stress, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A five-qubit-codeword-stabilized quantum code is implemented in a seven-qubit system using nuclear magnetic resonance. Our experiment implements a good nonadditive quantum code which encodes a larger Hubert space than any stabilizer code with the same length and capable of correcting the same kind of errors. The experimentally measured quantum coherence is shown to be robust against artificially introduced errors, benchmarking the success in implementing the quantum error correction code. Given the typical decoherence time of the system, our experiment illustrates the ability of coherent control to implement complex quantum circuits for demonstrating interesting results in spin qubits for quantum computing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For any Bell locality scenario (or Kochen-Specker noncontextuality scenario), the joint Shannon entropies of local (or noncontextual) models define a convex cone for which the nontrivial facets are tight entropie Bell (or contextuality) inequalities. In this paper we explore this entropie approach and derive tight entropie inequalities for various scenarios. One advantage of entropie inequalities is that they easily adapt to situations such as bilocality scenarios, which have additional independence requirements that are nonlinear on the level of probabilities, but linear on the level of entropies. Another advantage is that, despite the nonlinearity, taking detection inefficiencies into account turns out to be very simple. When joint measurements are conducted by a single detector only, the detector efficiency for witnessing quantum contextuality can be arbitrarily low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We derive a fundamental conservation law of operator current for master equations describing reduced quantum systems. If this law is broken, the temporal integral of the current operator of an arbitrary system observable does not yield in general the change of that observable in the evolution. We study Lindblad-type master equations as examples and prove that the application of the secular approximation during their derivation results in a violation of the conservation law. We show that generally any violation of the law leads to artificial corrections to the complete quantum dynamics, thus questioning the accuracy of the particular master equation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use singular value decomposition to derive a tight lower bound for geometric discord of arbitrary bipartite states. In a single shot this also leads to an upper bound of measurement-induced nonlocality which in turn yields that for Werner and isotropic states the two measures coincide. We also emphasize that our lower bound is saturated for all 2 ⊗ n states. Using this we show that both the generalized Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger and W states of Nqubits satisfy monogamy of geometric discord. Indeed, the same holds for all N-qubit pure states which are equivalent to W states under stochastic local operations and classical communication. We show by giving an example that not all pure states of four or higher qubits satisfy monogamy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We show how to calculate the first- and second-order statistics of the scattered fields for an arbitrary intensity coherent-state light field interacting with a two-level system in a waveguide geometry. Specifically, we calculate the resonance fluorescence from the qubit, using input-output formalism. We derive the transmission and reflection coefficients, and illustrate the bunching and antibunching of light that is scattered in the forward and backward directions, respectively. Our results agree with previous calculations on one- and two-photon scattering as well as those that are based on the master equation approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a characterization of optimal entanglement witnesses in terms of positive maps and then provide a general method of checking optimality of entanglement witnesses. Applying it, we obtain indecomposable optimal witnesses that have no spanning property. These also provide examples that support a recent conjecture saying that the so-called structural physical approximations to optimal positive maps (optimal entanglement witnesses) give entanglement breaking maps (separable states). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we explicitly calculate information and fidelity of an r-rank projective measurement on a completely unknown state in a d/-dimensional Hilbert space. We also show a trade off between information and fidelity at the level of a single outcome and discuss the efficiency of measurement with respect to fidelity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use a one-dimensional model system to compare the predictions of two different yardsticks to compute the position of a particle from its quantum field theoretical state. Based on the first yardstick (defined by the Newton-Wigner position operator), the spatial density can be arbitrarily narrow, and its time evolution is superluminal for short time intervals. Furthermore, two spatially distant particles might be able to interact with each other outside the light cone, which is manifested by an asymmetric spreading of the spatial density. The second yardstick (defined by the quantum field operator) does not permit localized states, and the time evolution is subluminal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A technique, which we call homogenization, is applied to transform Clauser and Home- (CH)-type Bell inequalities that contain lower-order correlations into CH, Shimony, and Holt- (CHSH)-type Bell inequalities, which are defined for highest-order correlation functions. A homogenization leads to inequalities involving more settings, that is, a choice of one more observable is possible for each party. We show that this technique preserves the tightness of Bell inequalities: A homogenization of a tight CH-type Bell inequality is still a tight CHSH-type Bell inequality. As an example, we obtain 3 × 3 × 3 CHSH-type Bell inequalities by the homogenization of 2 × 2 × 2 CH-type Bell inequalities derived by Sliwa [Phys. Lett. A 317, 165 (2003)]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is shown that, under certain boundary conditions, the virial theorem has to be modified. We analyze the origin of the extra term and compute it for particular examples. The Coulomb and harmonic oscillator with the point interaction have been studied in light of this generalization of the virial theorem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We observe that changing a phase at a single point in a discrete quantum walk results in a rather surprising localization effect. For certain values of this phase change the possibility of localization strongly depends on the internal coin state of the walker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In ordinary quantum theory, any mixed state can be purified in an enlarged Hilbert space by adding an ancillary system. The purified state does not depend on the state of any extraneous system with which the mixed state is going to interact or on the physical interaction. Here, we prove that it is not possible to purify a mixed state that traverses a closed timelike curve (CTC) and is allowed to interact in a consistent way with a causality-respecting (CR) quantum system in the same manner. In other words, if a CTC quantum system with a mixed state has to undergo an arbitrary interaction with an arbitrary CR system then it has to be in a "proper" mixture, as it cannot be regarded as a subsystem of a pure entangled state. Thus, in general for arbitrary interactions between CR and CTC systems, there is no universal purification by embedding in a larger Hilbert space for mixed states with CTCs. This shows that in quantum theory with CTCs there can exist proper and improper mixtures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a lower bound of concurrence for arbitrary-dimensional bipartite quantum states. This lower bound may be used to improve all the known lower bounds of concurrence. Moreover, the lower bound gives rise to an operational sufficient criterion of distillability of quantum entanglement. The significance of our result is illustrated by quantitative evaluation of entanglement for entangled states that fail to be identified by the usual concurrence estimation method and by showing the distillability of mixed states that cannot be recognized by other distillability criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent paper [L. Heaney, A. Cabello, M. F. Santos, and V. Vedral, New J. Phys. 13, 053054 (2011)] revealed that a single quantum symmetrically delocalized over N modes, namely a W state, effectively allows for all-versus-nothing proofs of nonlocality in the limit of large N. Ideally, this finding opens up the possibility of using the robustness of the W states while realizing the nonlocal behavior previously thought to be exclusive to the more complex class of Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states. We show that in practice, however, the slightest decoherence or inefficiency of the Bell measurements on W states will degrade any violation margin gained by scaling to higher N. The nonstatistical demonstration of nonlocality is thus proved to be impossible in any realistic experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have recently proposed a two-dimensional quantum walk where the requirement of a higher dimensionality of the coin space is substituted with the alternance of the directions in which the walker can move [C. Di Franco, M. Mc Gettrick, and Th. Busch, Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 080502 (2011)]. For a particular initial state of the coin, this walk is able to perfectly reproduce the spatial probability distribution of the nonlocalized case of the Grover walk. Here, we present a more detailed proof of this equivalence. We also extend the analysis to other initial states in order to provide a more complete picture of our walk. We show that this scheme outperforms the Grover walk in the generation of x-y spatial entanglement for any initial condition, with the maximum entanglement obtained in the case of the particular aforementioned state. Finally, the equivalence is generalized to wider classes of quantum walks and a limit theorem for the alternate walk in this context is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We calculate, in the framework of open quantum systems, the ground state energy-level shift for a static two-level atom outside a spherically symmetric black hole in interaction with fluctuating massless scalar fields in the Boulware and Unruh vacuums. We find that the energy-level shift is position dependent and thus gives rise to a force on the atom besides the classical gravitational force. For the case of the Boulware vacuum that represents a star which has not collapsed through its event horizon, this force is attractive near the horizon and is repulsive far away from the black hole with a behavior of r-3. For the case of the Unruh vacuum which represents a radiating black hole, we find that the contribution to the Casimir-Polder-like force due to the presence of Hawking radiation is always attractive and, remarkably, this attractive force diverges at the event horizon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze the condition for complete population inversion by a chirped pulse over a finite duration. The nonadiabatic transition probability is mapped in the two-dimensional parameter space of coupling strength and detuning amplitude. Asymptotic forms of the probability are derived by the interference of nonadiabatic transitions for sinusoidal and triangular pulses. The qualitative difference between the maps for the two types of pulses is accounted for. The map is used for the design of stable inversion pulses under specific accuracy thresholds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present high-sensitivity and high-spectral-resolution line-shape and line-intensity measurements of self-broadened O2 Due to images restrictions, multiple line equation(s) cannot be graphically displayed band transitions measured using the Pound-Drever-Hall-locked frequency-stabilized cavity ring-down spectroscopy technique. We give collisional broadening parameters and take into account the line-narrowing effects described by Dicke narrowing or the speed dependence of collisional broadening. We compare line intensities measured with relative uncertainties below 0.4% to data available in the HITRAN spectroscopic database. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An alternative one-parameter measure of divergence is proposed, quantifying the discrepancy among general probability densities. Its main mathematical properties include (I) comparison among an arbitrary number of functions, (ii) the possibility of assigning different weights to each function according to its relevance on the comparative procedure, and (iii) ability to modify the relative contribution of different regions within the domain. Applications to the study of atomic density functions, in both conjugated spaces, show the versatility and universality of this divergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the Casimir force between two corrugated plates due to thermal fluctuations of a scalar field. For arbitrary corrugations and temperature T, we provide an analytical expression for the Casimir force, which is exact to second order in the corrugation amplitude. We study the specific case of two sinusoidally corrugated plates with corrugation wavelength λ, lateral displacement b, and mean separation H. We find that the lateral Casimir force is Fl(T, H) sin(2π b/λ). In other words, at all temperatures, the lateral force is a sinusoidal function of the lateral shift. In the limit λ ≫ H, Fl (T → ∞, H) ∝ kB T H-4 λ-1. In this opposite limit λ ≪ H, Fl (T → ∞, H) ∝ kB T H-1/2 λ-9/2 e-2π H/λ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a scheme for quasiperfect transfer of polariton states from a sender to a spatially separated receiver, both composed of high-quality cavities filled by atomic samples. The sender and the receiver are connected by a nonideal transmission channel--the data bus--modelled by a network of lossy empty cavities. In particular, we analyze the influence of a large class of data-bus topologies on the fidelity and transfer time of the polariton state. Moreover, we also assume dispersive couplings between the polariton fields and the data-bus normal modes in order to achieve a tunneling-like state transfer. Such a tunneling-transfer mechanism, by which the excitation energy of the polariton effectively does not populate the data-bus cavities, is capable of attenuating appreciably the dissipative effects of the data-bus cavities. After deriving a Hamiltonian for the effective coupling between the sender and the receiver, we show that the decay rate of the fidelity is proportional to a cooperativity parameter that weighs the cost of the dissipation rate against the benefit of the effective coupling strength. The increase of the fidelity of the transfer process can be achieved at the expense of longer transfer times. We also show that the dependence of both the fidelity and the transfer time on the network topology is analyzed in detail for distinct regimes of parameters. It follows that the data-bus topology can be explored to control the time of the state-transfer process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a robust deterministic scheme to generate entanglement at high fidelity without the need for photodetectors even for quantum bits (qubits) with extremely poor optically active states. Our protocol employs stimulated Raman adiabatic passage for population transfer without actually exciting the system. Furthermore, it is found to be effective even if the environmental decoherence rate is of the same order of magnitude as the atom-photon coupling frequency. Our scheme has the potential to solve entanglement generation problems, e.g., in distributed quantum computing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of scintillation, arising from propagation through atmospheric turbulence, on the sift and error probabilities of a quantum key distribution (QKD) system that uses the weak-laser-pulse version of the Bennett-Brassard 1984 (BB84) protocol is evaluated. Two earth-space scenarios are examined: satellite-to-ground and ground-to-satellite transmission. Both lie in the far-field power-transfer regime. This work complements previous analysis of turbulence effects in near-field terrestrial BB84 QKD [J. H. Shapiro, Phys. Rev. A 67, 022309 (2003)]. More importantly, it shows that scintillation has virtually no impact on the sift and error probabilities in earth-space BB84 QKD, something that has been implicitly assumed in prior analyses for that application. This result contrasts rather sharply with what is known for high-speed laser communications over such paths, in which deep, long-lived scintillation fades present a major challenge to high-reliability operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we discuss extremal extensions of entanglement witnesses based on Choi's map. The constructions are based on a generalization of the Choi map, from which we construct entanglement witnesses. These extremal extensions are powerful in terms of their capacity to detect entanglement of positive under partial transpose (PPT) entangled states and lead to unearthing of entanglement of new PPT states. We also use the Cholesky-like decomposition to construct entangled states which are revealed by these extremal entanglement witnesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the dynamics of a chain of interacting quantum particles affected by an individual or collective environment(s), focusing on the role played by the environmental quantum correlations over the evolution of the chain. The presence of entanglement in the state of the environment magnifies the non-Markovian nature of the chain's dynamics, giving rise to structures in figures of merit such as spin entanglement and purity that are not observed under a separable environmental state. Our analysis can be relevant to problems tackling the open-system dynamics of biological complexes of strong current interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose the necessary and sufficient condition for the presence of quantum entanglement in arbitrary symmetric pure states of two-level atomic systems. We introduce a parameter to quantify quantum entanglement in such systems. We express the inherent quantum fluctuations of a composite system of two-level atoms as a sum of the quantum fluctuations of the individual constituent atoms and their correlation terms. This helps to separate out and study solely the quantum correlations among the atoms and obtain the criterion for the presence of entanglement in such multiatomic systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given an unknown state of a qudit that has already been measured optimally, can one still extract any information about the original unknown state? Clearly, after a maximally informative measurement, the state of the system collapses into a postmeasurement state from which the same observer cannot obtain further information about the original state of the system. However, the system still encodes a significant amount of information about the original preparation for a second observer who is unaware of the actions of the first one. We study how a series of independent observers can obtain, or can scavenge, information about the unknown state of a system (quantified by the fidelity) when they sequentially measure it. We give closed-form expressions for the estimation fidelity when one or several qudits are available to carry information about the single-qudit state, and we study the classical limit when an arbitrarily large number of observers can obtain (nearly) complete information on the system. In addition to the case where all observers perform most informative measurements, we study the scenario where a finite number of observers estimates the state with equal fidelity, regardless of their position in the measurement sequence and the scenario where all observers use identical measurement apparatuses (up to a mutually unknown orientation) chosen so that a particular observer's estimation fidelity is maximized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the recently proposed "no-go" theorem of Lamata et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 180506 (2008)] on the impossibility of sequential implementation of global unitary operations with the aid of an itinerant ancillary system and view the claim within the language of Kraus representation. By virtue of an extremely useful tool for analyzing entanglement properties of quantum operations, namely, operator-Schmidt decomposition, we provide alternative proof to the no-go theorem and also study the role of initial correlations between the qubits and ancilla in sequential preparation of unitary entanglers. Despite the negative response from the no-go theorem, we demonstrate explicitly how the matrix-product operator (MPO) formalism provides a flexible structure to develop protocols for sequential implementation of such entanglers with an optimal fidelity. The proposed numerical technique, which we call variational matrix-product operator (VMPO), offers a computationally efficient tool for characterizing the "globalness" and entangling capabilities of nonlocal unitary operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We formulate a framework for discrete-time quantum walks, motivated by classical random walks with memory. We present a specific representation of the classical walk with memory 2, on which this is based. The framework has no need for coin spaces, it imposes no constraints on the evolution operator other than unitarity, and is unifying of other approaches. As an example we construct a symmetric discrete-time quantum walk on the semi-infinite binary tree. The generating function of the amplitude at the root is computed in closed form, as a function of time and the initial level n in the tree, and we find the asymptotic and a full numerical solution for the amplitude. It exhibits a sharp interference peak and a power-law tail, as opposed to the exponentially decaying tail of a broadly peaked distribution of the classical symmetric random walk on a binary tree. The probability peak is orders of magnitude larger than it is for the classical walk (already at small n). The quantum walk shows a polynomial algorithmic speedup in n over the classical walk, which we conjecture to be of the order 2/3, based on strong trends in data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the autoresonant dynamics of a discrete level coupled to a continuum, and show that passing adiabatically through a linear resonance, above a well-defined threshold, yields a transition to nonlinear phase locking and linear non-Markovian decay to the continuum. This process results in broadening of the population of the continuum modes beyond its natural linewidth. This concept can be employed to alter spontaneous emission, where driving an atom into phase locking with continuum modes will yield the emission of short pulses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a single observable to witness the nonzero quantum discord of an unknown quantum state provided that we have four copies of the state. The expectation value of this observable provides a necessary and sufficient condition for the nonzero quantum discord in 2 x N systems and a necessary condition in higher finite-dimensional bipartite systems. Furthermore, a nontrivial lower bound of the quantum discord can be obtained from this expectation value. The proposed observable can be experimentally measured in exactly the same way as the entanglement witness. Moreover, a quantum circuit is designed to determine the expectation value of our observable with four simultaneous local qubit measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adiabatic processes driven by non-Hermitian, time-dependent Hamiltonians may be sped up by generalizing inverse engineering techniques based on counter-diabatic (transitionless driving) algorithms or on dynamical invariants. We work out the basic theory and examples described by two-level Hamiltonians: the acceleration of rapid adiabatic passage with a decaying excited level and of the dynamics of a classical particle on an expanding harmonic oscillator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the propagation of circularly polarized few-cycle pulses (FCPs) in Kerr media beyond the slowly varying envelope approximation. Assuming that the frequency of the transition is far above the characteristic wave frequency (long-wave-approximation regime), we show that propagation of FCPs, taking into account the wave polarization, is described by the nonintegrable complex modified Korteweg-de Vries (cmKdV) equation. By direct numerical simulations, we get robust localized solutions to the cmKdV equation, which describe circularly polarized few-cycle-optical solitons and strongly differ from the breather soliton of the modified Korteweg-de Vnes equation, which represents linearly polarized FCP solitons. The circularly polarized FCP soliton becomes unstable when the angular frequency is less than 1.5 times the inverse of the pulse length. The unstable subeycle pulses decay into linearly polarized half-cycle pulses, the polarization direction of which slowly rotates around the propagation axis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent paper, Bancal et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 106 250404 (2011)] put forward the concept of device-independent witnesses of genuine multipartite entanglement. These witnesses are capable of verifying genuine multipartite entanglement produced in a laboratory without resorting to any knowledge of the dimension of the state space or of the specific form of the measurement operators. As a by-product they found a multiparty three-setting Bell inequality which makes it possible to detect genuine n-partite entanglement in a noisy n-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state for visibilities as low as 2/3 in a device-independent way. In this paper, we generalize this inequality to an arbitrary number of settings, demonstrating a threshold visibility of 2/π ∼ 0.6366 for number of settings going to infinity. We also present a pseudotelepathy Bell inequality achieving the same threshold value. We argue that our device-independent witnesses are optimal in the sense that for n odd the above value cannot be beaten with n-party-correlation Bell inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different methods have been recently put forward and implemented experimentally to inverse engineer the time-dependent Hamiltonian of a quantum system and accelerate slow adiabatic processes via nonadiabatic shortcuts. In the "transitionless quantum driving" proposed by Berry, shortcut Hamiltonians are designed so that the system follows exactly, in an arbitrarily short time, the approximate adiabatic path defined by a reference Hamiltonian. A different approach is based on first designing a Lewis-Riesenfeld invariant to carry the eigenstates of a Hamiltonian from specified initial to final configurations, again in an arbitrary time, and then constructing from the invariant the transient Hamiltonian that connects these boundary configurations. We show that the two approaches, apparently quite different in form and so far in results, are, in fact, strongly related and potentially equivalent, so that the inverse-engineering operations in one of them can be reinterpreted and understood in terms of the concepts and operations of the other one. We study, as explicit examples, expansions of time-dependent harmonic traps and the state preparation of two-level systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]