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In a quantum Stirling heat engine, the heat exchanged with two thermal baths is partly utilized for performing work by redistributing the energy levels of the working substance. We analyze the thermodynamics of a quantum Stirling engine operating in finite time. We develop a model in which a time-dependent potential barrier changes the energy-level structure of the working substance. The process takes place under a constant interaction with the thermal bath. We further show that in the limit of slow operation of the cycle and low temperature, the efficiency of such an engine approaches Carnot efficiency. We also show that the maximum output power , for the strokes that affect the energy levels, is obtained at an intermediate operating speed, demonstrating the importance of a finite-time analysis., Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures

The fundamental trade-off between robustness and tunability is a central challenge in the pursuit of quantum simulation and fault-tolerant quantum computation. In particular, many emerging quantum architectures are designed to achieve high coherence at the expense of having fixed spectra and consequently limited types of controllable interactions. Here, by adiabatically transforming fixed-frequency superconducting circuits into modifiable Floquet qubits, we demonstrate an XXZ Heisenberg interaction with fully adjustable anisotropy. This interaction model is on one hand the basis for many-body quantum simulation of spin systems, and on the other hand the primitive for an expressive quantum gate set. To illustrate the robustness and versatility of our Floquet protocol, we tailor the Heisenberg Hamiltonian and implement two-qubit iSWAP, CZ, and SWAP gates with estimated fidelities of 99.32(3)%, 99.72(2)%, and 98.93(5)%, respectively. In addition, we implement a Heisenberg interaction between higher energy levels and employ it to construct a three-qubit CCZ gate with a fidelity of 96.18(5)%. Importantly, the protocol is applicable to various fixed-frequency high-coherence platforms, thereby unlocking a suite of essential interactions for high-performance quantum information processing. From a broader perspective, our work provides compelling avenues for future exploration of quantum electrodynamics and optimal control using the Floquet framework.

Reconstructing the Hamiltonian of a quantum system is an essential task for characterizing and certifying quantum processors and simulators. Existing techniques either rely on projective measurements of the system before and after coherent time evolution and do not explicitly reconstruct the full time-dependent Hamiltonian or interrupt evolution for tomography. Here, we experimentally demonstrate that an a priori unknown, time-dependent Hamiltonian can be reconstructed from continuous weak measurements concurrent with coherent time evolution in a system of two superconducting transmons coupled by a flux-tunable coupler. In contrast to previous work, our technique does not require interruptions, which would distort the recovered Hamiltonian. We introduce an algorithm which recovers the Hamiltonian and density matrix from an incomplete set of continuous measurements and demonstrate that it reliably extracts amplitudes of a variety of single qubit and entangling two qubit Hamiltonians. We further demonstrate how this technique reveals deviations from a theoretical control Hamiltonian which would otherwise be missed by conventional techniques. Our work opens up novel applications for continuous weak measurements, such as studying non-idealities in gates, certifying analog quantum simulators, and performing quantum metrology., Comment: Main text: 12 pages, 4 figures. Appendix: 10 pages, 4 figures

The so-called quantum Cheshire cat is a phenomenon in which an object, identified with a "cat", is dissociated from a property of the object, identified with the "grin" of the cat. We propose a thought experiment, similar to this phenomenon, with an interferometric setup, where a property (a component of polarization) of an object (photon) can be separated from the object itself and can simultaneously be amplified when it is already decoupled from its object. We further show that this setup can be used to dissociate two complementary properties, e.g., two orthogonal components of polarization of a photon and identified with the grin and the snarl of a cat, from each other and one of them can be amplified while being detached from the other. Moreover, we extend the work to a noisy scenario, effected by a spin-orbit-coupling -like additional interaction term in the Hamiltonian for the measurement process, with the object in this scenario being identified with a so-called confused Cheshire cat. We devise a gedanken experiment in which such a "confusion" can be successfully dissociated from the system, and we find that the dissociation helps in the amplification of signals., Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures. Published as "Isolating noise and amplifying the signal using weak quantum measurement and postselection"

We analyze the continuous monitoring of a qudit coupled to a cavity using both phase-preserving and phase-sensitive amplification. The quantum trajectories of the system are described by a stochastic master equation, for which we derive the appropriate Lindblad operators. The measurement back-action causes spiraling in the state coordinates during collapse, which increases as the system levels become less distinguishable. We discuss two examples: a two-level system and an $N$-dimensional system and meter with rotational symmetry in the quadrature space. We also provide a comparison of the effects of phase-preserving and phase-sensitive detection on the master equation, and show that the average behavior is the same in both cases, but individual trajectories collapse at different rates depending on the measurement axis in the quadrature plane., Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures

The so-called quantum Cheshire Cat is a scenario where a photon, identified with a cat, and a component of its polarization, identified with the grin of that cat, are separated. We observe that the same techniques can be used to separate two orthogonal components of polarization of a photon, on an average. We identify these polarization components of the photon as the grin and snarl of the cat for ease of comprehension. A gedanken experiment is presented in which we simultaneously tune the input polarizations of the photon in the two arms of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. It is noted that for two particular choices of photon polarization, the presence of the two components gets reversed in the two arms. This reversal of the grin and the snarl occurs before the polarization components even interact with the tuners, i.e., before the choice of which arm each should be in is made., Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure. Published as "Delayed choice of paths in the quantum paradox of separating different properties of a photon"

A common-sense perception of a physical system is that it is inseparable from its physical properties. The notion of Quantum Cheshire Cat challenges this, as far as quantum systems are concerned. It shows that a quantum system can be decoupled from its physical property under suitable pre and postselections. However, in the Quantum Cheshire Cat setup, the decoupling is not permanent. The photon, for example, and its circular polarization is separated and then recombined. In this paper, we present a thought experiment where we decouple two photons from their respective polarizations and then interchange them during recombination. Thus, our proposal shows that the belongingness of a property for a physical system is very volatile in the quantum world. This raises the question of reality of an observable at a much deeper level., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1903.04152

Quantum Chesire Cat is a counterintuitive phenomenon that provides a new window into the nature of the quantum systems in relation to multiple degrees of freedom associated with a single physical entity. Under suitable pre and postselections, a photon (the cat) can be decoupled from its circular polarization (its grin). In this paper, we explore whether the grin without the cat can be teleported to a distant location. This will be a totally disembodied teleportation protocol. Based on the original Quantum Chesire Cat setup, we design a protocol where the circular polarization is successfully teleported between two spatially separated parties even when the photon is not physically present with them. The process raises questions in our understanding about properties of quantum system. In particular it shows that question like ``whose polarization is it'' can prove to be vacuous in such scenario., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures

Quantum states can be efficiently transferred over a long distance if the entire quantum channel can be divided into several small blocks. We consider a scenario in which each block consists of two copies of a multiparty state -- one is used for distributing an arbitrary quantum state to multiple parties while the other channel is required to concentrate it back to a single party. Both in noiseless and local noisy scenarios, we find one-shot quantum capacities of these channels in terms of fidelity, when the initial shared states in each block are the generalized Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger and the generalized W states. We also consider a situation where optimal local measurements transform multipartite states to bipartite ones which can then be used as single-path channels for quantum state transmission in each segment. We show that in some parameter ranges, the former protocol provides strictly better fidelities than that of the latter, thereby establishing the importance of distributing and concentrating arbitrary quantum states via multipartite entangled states in long distance quantum communication, over the local measurement based protocol. Moreover, we show that in presence of bit flip or bit-phase flip noise, shared generalized Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states possess an inherent noise detection and correction mechanism, leading to the same fidelity as in the noiseless case. We consider further noise models also, which do not enjoy the same mechanism. In addition to the fidelity based advantages, the multipath scheme is shown to be useful when one considers a situation in which the completion of the teleportation needs to be delayed. We also find the efficiencies of a quantum channel when a quantum state is transferred over long distances and the entire channel is divided into several small blocks., Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures

We study a quantum Stirling cycle which extracts work using quantized energy levels of a potential well. The work and the efficiency of the engine depend on the length of the potential well, and the Carnot efficiency is approached in a low temperature limiting case. We show that the lack of information about the position of the particle inside the potential well can be converted into useful work without resorting to any measurement. In the low temperature limit, we calculate the amount of work extractable from distinguishable particles, fermions, and bosons., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, modified version

This is a comment on "Strong Measurements Give a Better Direct Measurement of the Quantum Wave Function" which was published as PRL 116, 040502 (2016). We show that there is crucial normalization error in this Letter which invalidates the proposal., Comment: 1 page

Based on the statistical concept of the median, we propose a quantum uncertainty relation between semi-interquartile ranges of the position and momentum distributions of arbitrary quantum states. The relation is universal, unlike that based on the mean and standard deviation, as the latter may become non-existent or ineffective in certain cases. We show that the median-based one is not saturated for Gaussian distributions in position. Instead, the Cauchy-Lorentz distributions in position turn out to be the one with the minimal uncertainty, among the states inspected, implying that the minimum-uncertainty state is not unique but depends on the measure of spread used. Even the ordering of the states with respect to the distance from the minimum uncertainty state is altered by a change in the measure. We invoke the completeness of Hermite polynomials in the space of all quantum states to probe the median-based relation. The results have potential applications in a variety of studies including those on the quantum-to-classical boundary and on quantum cryptography., Comment: 9 pages; v3: corrections made, new results added

We present a scheme to estimate Gaussian states of one-dimensional continuous variable systems, based on weak (unsharp) quantum measurements. The estimation of a Gaussian state requires us to find position ($q$), momentum ($p$) and their second order moments. We measure $q$ weakly and follow it up with a projective measurement of $p$ on half of the ensemble, and on the other half we measure $p$ weakly followed by a projective measurement of $q$. In each case we use the state twice before discarding it. We compare our results with projective measurements and demonstrate that under certain conditions such weak measurement-based estimation schemes, where recycling of the states is possible, can outperform projective measurement-based state estimation schemes., Comment: 8 pages, Revtex, minor changes

We explore the possibility of using "weak measurements" without "weak value" for quantum state estimation. Since for weak measurements the disturbance caused during each measurement is small, we can rescue the state, unlike for the case of projective measurements. We use this property of weak measurements and design schemes for quantum state estimation for qubits and for Gaussian states. We show, via numerical simulations, that under certain circumstances, our method can outperform the estimation by projective measurements both for qubits and for Gaussian states. It turns out that ensemble size plays an important role and the scheme based on recycling works better for small ensembles., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures. Minor changes. Conference proceedings. Presented at DMQM2014(Bangalore Oct. 22-24, 2014). This article draws from arXiv:1402.0447

We experimentally construct a novel three-qubit entangled W-superposition ($\rm W \bar{\rm W}$) state on an NMR quantum information processor. We give a measurement-based filtration protocol for the invertible local operation (ILO) that converts the $\rm W \bar{\rm W}$ state to the GHZ state, using a register of three ancilla qubits. Further we implement an experimental protocol to reconstruct full information about the three-party $\rm W \bar{\rm W}$ state using only two-party reduced density matrices. An intriguing fact unearthed recently is that the $\rm W \bar{\rm W}$ state which is equivalent to the GHZ state under ILO, is in fact reconstructible from its two-party reduced density matrices, unlike the GHZ state. We hence demonstrate that although the $\rm W \bar{\rm W}$ state is interconvertible with the GHZ state, it stores entanglement very differently., Comment: 7 pages Revtex4-1, Six eps figures

We introduce local filters as a means to detect the entanglement of bound entangled states which do not yield to detection by witnesses based on positive (P) maps which are not completely positive (CP). We demonstrate how such non-detectable bound entangled states can be locally filtered into detectable bound entangled states. Specifically, we show that a bound entangled state in the orthogonal complement of the unextendible product bases (UPB), can be locally filtered into a another bound entangled state that is detectable by the Choi map. We reinterpret these filters as local measurements on locally extended Hilbert spaces. We give explicit constructions of a measurement-based implementation of these filters for $2 \otimes 2$ and $3 \otimes 3$ systems. This provides us with a physical mechanism to implement such local filters., Comment: 7 pages revtex 1 figure

We explore the possibility of using "weak" measurements to carry out quantum state tomography. Given a certain fixed number of copies of identically prepared states of a qubit, we simulate state tomography using weak as well as projective measurements. Due to the collapse of the state after measurement, we cannot re-use the state after a projective measurement. If the coupling strength between the quantum system and the measurement device is made weaker, the disturbance caused to the state can be lowered. This then allows us to re-use the same member of the ensemble for further measurements and thus extract more information from the system. However, this happens at the expense of getting imprecise information from the first measurement. We simulate this scheme for a single qubit and show that under certain circumstances, it can outperform the projective measurement-based tomography scheme. This opens up the possibility of new ways of extracting information from quantum ensembles. We study the efficacy of this scheme for different coupling strengths., Comment: Substantial addition and expansion