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Recent electron spin resonance experiments on CaWO$_4$:Gd$^{3+}$ and on other magnetic impurities have demonstrated that sustained Rabi oscillations can be created by driving a magnetic moment with a microwave field frequency slightly larger than the Larmor frequency and tuned to the Floquet resonance together with another microwave field (image drive). These observations are confirmed by the new experimental results reported in this paper. We investigate several mechanisms of decoherence and dissipation by using a combination of numerical and analytical techniques. The first microscopic model describes a magnetic moment in external magnetic fields, interacting with a bath of two-level systems acting as a source of decoherence and dissipation. The second model describes a collection of the identical, interacting magnetics moments, all subject to the same magnetic fields. In this case, the many-body interactions causes a decay of the Rabi oscillations. In addition, we also study the effect of the inhomogeneity of the microwave radiation on the decay of the Rabi oscillations. Our simulation results show that the dynamics of a magnetic moment subject to the two microwave fields with different frequencies and in contact with an environment is highly nontrivial. We show that under appropriate conditions, and in particular at the Floquet resonance, the magnetization exhibits sustained Rabi oscillations, in some cases with additional beatings. Although these two microscopic models separately describe the experimental data well, a simulation study that simultaneously accounts for both types of interactions is currently prohibitively costly. To gain further insight into the microscopic dynamics of these two different models, we study the time dependence of the bath and system energy and of the correlations of the spins, data that is not readily accessible experimentally.

We present a detailed analysis of the time series of time-stamped neutron counts obtained by single-neutron interferometry. The neutron counting statistics display the usual Poissonian behavior, but the variance of the neutron counts does not. Instead, the variance is found to exhibit a dependence on the phase-shifter setting which can be explained by a probabilistic model that accounts for fluctuations of the phase shift. The time series of the detection events exhibit long-time correlations with amplitudes that also depend on the phase-shifter setting. These correlations appear as damped oscillations with a period of about 2.8 s. By simulation, we show that the correlations of the time differences observed in the experiment can be reproduced by assuming that, for a fixed setting of the phase shifter, the phase shift experienced by the neutrons varies periodically in time with a period of 2.8 s. The same simulations also reproduce the behavior of the variance. Our analysis of the experimental data suggests that time-stamped data of singleparticle interference experiments may exhibit transient features that require a description in terms of non-stationary processes, going beyond the standard quantum model of independent random events.

We extensively test a recent protocol to demonstrate quantum fault tolerance on three systems: (1) a real-time simulation of five spin qubits coupled to an environment with two-level defects, (2) a real-time simulation of transmon quantum computers, and (3) the 16-qubit processor of the IBM Q Experience. In the simulations, the dynamics of the full system is obtained by numerically solving the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation. We find that the fault-tolerant scheme provides a systematic way to improve the results when the errors are dominated by the inherent control and measurement errors present in transmon systems. However, the scheme fails to satisfy the criterion for fault tolerance when decoherence effects are dominant.

A quantum measuring instrument is constructed that utilises symmetry breaking to enhance a microscopic signal. The entire quantum system consists of a system-apparatus-environment triad that is composed of a small set of spin-1/2 particles. The apparatus is a ferromagnet that measures the $z$-component of a single spin. A full quantum many-body calculation allows for a careful examination of the loss of phase coherence, the formation and amplification of system-apparatus correlations, the irreversibility of registration, the fault tolerance, and the bias of the device.

In the theory of antiferromagnetism, the staggered field---an external magnetic field that alternates in sign on atomic length scales---is used to select the classical N\'eel state from a quantum magnet, but justification is missing. This work examines, within the decoherence framework, whether repeated $local$ measurement can replace a staggered field. Accordingly, the conditions under which local decoherence can be considered a continuous measurement are studied. The dynamics of a small magnetic system is analysed to illustrate that local decoherence can lead to (symmetry-broken) order similar to order resulting from a staggered field.

In the model of gate-based quantum computation, the qubits are controlled by a sequence of quantum gates. In superconducting qubit systems, these gates can be implemented by voltage pulses. The success of implementing a particular gate can be expressed by various metrics such as the average gate fidelity, the diamond distance, and the unitarity. We analyze these metrics of gate pulses for a system of two superconducting transmon qubits coupled by a resonator, a system inspired by the architecture of the IBM Quantum Experience. The metrics are obtained by numerical solution of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation of the transmon system. We find that the metrics reflect systematic errors that are most pronounced for echoed cross-resonance gates, but that none of the studied metrics can reliably predict the performance of a gate when used repeatedly in a quantum algorithm.

Recent Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm experiments [M. Giustina et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 250401 (2015); L. K. Shalm et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 250402 (2015)] that claim to be loophole free are scrutinized and are shown to suffer a photon identification loophole. The combination of a digital computer and discrete-event simulation is used to construct a minimal but faithful model of the most perfected realization of these laboratory experiments. In contrast to prior simulations, all photon selections are strictly made, as they are in the actual experiments, at the local station and no other "post-selection" is involved. The simulation results demonstrate that a manifestly non-quantum model that identifies photons in the same local manner as in these experiments can produce correlations that are in excellent agreement with those of the quantum theoretical description of the corresponding thought experiment, in conflict with Bell's theorem. The failure of Bell's theorem is possible because of our recognition of the photon identification loophole. Such identification measurement-procedures are necessarily included in all actual experiments but are not included in the theory of Bell and his followers., Comment: Corrected typo's and added two references

We study the real-time and real-space dynamics of charge in the one-dimensional Hubbard model in the limit of high temperatures. To this end, we prepare pure initial states with sharply peaked density profiles and calculate the time evolution of these nonequilibrium states, by using numerical forward-propagation approaches to chains as long as 20 sites. For a class of typical states, we find excellent agreement with linear-response theory and unveil the existence of remarkably clean charge diffusion in the regime of strong particle-particle interactions. Moreover, we demonstrate that this diffusive behavior does not depend on certain details of our initial conditions, i.e., it occurs for five different realizations with random and nonrandom internal degrees of freedom, single and double occupation of the central site, and displacement of spin-up and spin-down particles., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures (+ 3 pages, 5 figures)

We study the decoherence process of a four spin-1/2 antiferromagnet that is coupled to an environment of spin-1/2 particles. The preferred basis of the antiferromagnet is discussed in two limiting cases and we identify two $\it{exact}$ pointer states. Decoherence near the two limits is examined whereby entropy is used to quantify the $\it{robustness}$ of states against environmental coupling. We find that close to the quantum measurement limit, the self-Hamiltonian of the system of interest can become dynamically relevant on macroscopic timescales. We illustrate this point by explicitly constructing a state that is more robust than (generic) states diagonal in the system-environment interaction Hamiltonian., Comment: 21 pages

The real-time broadening of density profiles starting from non-equilibrium states is at the center of transport in condensed-matter systems and dynamics in ultracold atomic gases. Initial profiles close to equilibrium are expected to evolve according to linear response, e.g., as given by the current correlator evaluated exactly at equilibrium. Significantly off equilibrium, linear response is expected to break down and even a description in terms of canonical ensembles is questionable. We unveil that single pure states with density profiles of maximum amplitude yield a broadening in perfect agreement with linear response, if the structure of these states involves randomness in terms of decoherent off-diagonal density-matrix elements. While these states allow for spin diffusion in the XXZ spin-1/2 chain at large exchange anisotropies, coherences yield entirely different behavior., Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. B

Data of the numerical solution of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation of a system containing one spin-1/2 particle interacting with a bath of up to 32 spin-1/2 particles is used to construct a Markovian quantum master equation describing the dynamics of the system spin. The procedure of obtaining this quantum master equation, which takes the form of a Bloch equation with time-independent coefficients, accounts for all non-Markovian effects in as much the general structure of the quantum master equation allows. Our simulation results show that, with a few rather exotic exceptions, the Bloch-type equation with time-independent coefficients provides a simple and accurate description of the dynamics of a spin-1/2 particle in contact with a thermal bath. A calculation of the coefficients that appear in the Redfield master equation in the Markovian limit shows that this perturbatively derived equation quantitatively differs from the numerically estimated Markovian master equation, the results of which agree very well with the solution of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation., Comment: Corrections + additional results, accepted for publication in Physical Review E

The logical inference approach to quantum theory, proposed earlier [Ann. Phys. 347 (2014) 45-73], is considered in a relativistic setting. It is shown that the Klein-Gordon equation for a massive, charged, and spinless particle derives from the combination of the requirements that the space-time data collected by probing the particle is obtained from the most robust experiment and that on average, the classical relativistic equation of motion of a particle holds.

Since the first suggestion of the Jarzynski equality many derivations of this equality have been presented in both, the classical and the quantum context. While the approaches and settings greatly differ from one to another, they all appear to rely on the initial state being a thermal Gibbs state. Here, we present an investigation of work distributions in driven isolated quantum systems, starting off from pure states that are close to energy eigenstates of the initial Hamiltonian. We find that, for the nonintegrable system in quest, the Jarzynski equality is fulfilled to good accuracy., Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures

We review recent work that employs the framework of logical inference to establish a bridge between data gathered through experiments and their objective description in terms of human-made concepts. It is shown that logical inference applied to experiments for which the observed events are independent and for which the frequency distribution of these events is robust with respect to small changes of the conditions under which experiments are carried out yields, without introducing any concept of quantum theory, the quantum theoretical description in terms of the Schr\"odinger or the Pauli equation, the Stern-Gerlach or Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm experiments. The extraordinary descriptive power of quantum theory then follows from the fact that it is plausible reasoning, that is common sense, applied to reproducible and robust experimental data., Comment: Philosophical Transactions A (in press). arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1506.03373, arXiv:1303.4574

The interplay between the singlet ground state of the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model and the experimentally measured N\'eel state of antiferromagnets is studied. To verify the hypothesis [M. I. Katsnelson et al., Phys. Rev. B 63, 212404 (2001)] that the latter can be considered to be a result of local measurements destroying the entanglement of the quantum ground state, we have performed systematic simulations of the effects of von Neumannmeasurements for the case of a one-dimensional antiferromagnetic spin-1/2 system for various types and degrees of magnetic anisotropies. It is found that in the ground state, a magnetization measurement can create decoherence waves [M. I. Katsnelson et al. Phys. Rev. A 62, 022118 (2000)] in the magnetic sublattices, and that a symmetry breaking anisotropy does not lead to alignment of the spins in a particular direction. However, for an easy-axis anisotropy of the same order magnitude as the exchange constant, a measurement on the singlet ground state can create N\'eel-ordering in finite systems of experimentally accessible size.

We study measures of decoherence and thermalization of a quantum system $S$ in the presence of a quantum environment (bath) $E$. The entirety $S$$+$$E$ is prepared in a canonical thermal state at a finite temperature, that is the entirety is in a steady state. Both our numerical results and theoretical predictions show that measures of the decoherence and the thermalization of $S$ are generally finite, even in the thermodynamic limit, when the entirety $S$$+$$E$ is at finite temperature. Notably, applying perturbation theory with respect to the system-environment coupling strength, we find that under common Hamiltonian symmetries, up to first order in the coupling strength it is sufficient to consider $S$ uncoupled from $E$, but entangled with $E$, to predict decoherence and thermalization measures of $S$. This decoupling allows closed form expressions for perturbative expansions for the measures of decoherence and thermalization in terms of the free energies of $S$ and of $E$. Large-scale numerical results for both coupled and uncoupled entireties with up to 40 quantum spins support these findings., Comment: 46 pages, 21 figures, long appendix includes the perturbation theory calculation details

We study the charge conductivity of the one-dimensional repulsive Hubbard model at finite temperature using the method of dynamical quantum typicality, focusing at half filling. This numerical approach allows us to obtain current autocorrelation functions from systems with as many as 18 sites, way beyond the range of standard exact diagonalization. Our data clearly suggest that the charge Drude weight vanishes with a power law as a function of system size. The low-frequency dependence of the conductivity is consistent with a finite dc value and thus with diffusion, despite large finite-size effects. Furthermore, we consider the mass-imbalanced Hubbard model for which the charge Drude weight decays exponentially with system size, as expected for a non-integrable model. We analyze the conductivity and diffusion constant as a function of the mass imbalance and we observe that the conductivity of the lighter component decreases exponentially fast with the mass-imbalance ratio. While in the extreme limit of immobile heavy particles, the Falicov-Kimball model, there is an effective Anderson-localization mechanism leading to a vanishing conductivity of the lighter species, we resolve finite conductivities for an inverse mass ratio of $\eta \gtrsim 0.25$., Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures

We propose and develop the thesis that the quantum theoretical description of experiments emerges from the desire to organize experimental data such that the description of the system under scrutiny and the one used to acquire the data are separated as much as possible. Application to the Stern-Gerlach and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm experiments are shown to support this thesis. General principles of logical inference which have been shown to lead to the Schr\"odinger and Pauli equation and the probabilistic descriptions of the Stern-Gerlach and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm experiments, are used to demonstrate that the condition for the separation procedure to yield the quantum theoretical description is intimately related to the assumptions that the observed events are independent and that the data generated by these experiments is robust with respect to small changes of the conditions under which the experiment is carried out., Comment: Paper to be presented at SPIE15

We present a systematic study of the electronic, transport and optical properties of disordered graphene including the next-nearest-neighbor hopping. We show that this hopping has a non-negligible effect on resonant scattering but is of minor importance for long-range disorder such as charged impurities, random potentials or hoppings induced by strain fluctuations. Different types of disorders can be recognized by their fingerprints appearing in the profiles of dc conductivity, carrier mobility, optical spectroscopy and Landau level spectrum. The minimum conductivity $4e^{2}/h$ found in the experiments is dominated by long-range disorder and the value of $4e^{2}/\pi h$ is due to resonant scatterers only., Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, 1 table

We study measures of decoherence and thermalization of a quantum system $S$ in the presence of a quantum environment (bath) $E$. The whole system is prepared in a canonical thermal state at a finite temperature. Applying perturbation theory with respect to the system-environment coupling strength, we find that under common Hamiltonian symmetries, up to first order in the coupling strength it is sufficient to consider the uncoupled system to predict decoherence and thermalization measures of $S$. This decoupling allows closed form expressions for perturbative expansions for the measures of decoherence and thermalization in terms of the free energies of $S$ and of $E$. Numerical results for both coupled and decoupled systems with up to 40 quantum spins validate these findings., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures

We have developed a fully microscopic theory of magnetic properties of the prototype molecular magnet Mn12. First, the intra-molecular magnetic properties have been studied by means of first-principles density functional-based methods, with local correlation effects being taken into account within the local density approximation plus U (LDA+U) approach. Using the magnetic force theorem, we have calculated the interatomic isotropic and anisotropic exchange interactions and full tensors of single-ion anisotropy for each Mn ion. Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction parameters turned out to be unusually large, reflecting a low symmetry of magnetic pairs in molecules, in comparison with bulk crystals. Based on these results we predict a distortion of ferrimagnetic ordering due to DM interactions. Further, we use an exact diagonalization approach allowing to work with as large Hilbert space dimension as 10^8 without any particular symmetry (the case of the constructed magnetic model). Based on the computational results for the excitation spectrum, we propose a distinct interpretation of the experimental inelastic neutron scattering spectra., Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures. To appear in Physical Review B

We study the dynamics of spin currents in the XX spin-1/2 ladder at finite temperature. Within the framework of linear response theory, we numerically calculate autocorrelation functions for quantum systems larger than what is accessible with exact diagonalization using the concept of dynamical quantum typicality. We show that spin Drude weights vanish exponentially fast with increasing system size. As a main result, we unveil qualitatively different dependencies of the spin diffusion coefficient on the rung-interaction strength, resulting from a crossover from exponential to Gaussian dissipation as the rung coupling increases. This behavior is also derived analytically. We further discuss the relation of our results to experiments with cold atomic gases., Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. B

It is shown that both the visibility ${\cal V} = 1/2$ predicted for two-photon interference experiments with two independent sources\textcolor{black}{, like the Hanbury Brown-Twiss experiment,} and the visibility ${\cal V} = 1$ predicted for two-photon interference experiments with a parametric down-conversion source\textcolor{black}{, like the Ghosh-Mandel experiment,} can be explained \textcolor{black}{by a discrete event simulation. This simulation approach reproduces the statistical distributions of wave theory not by requiring the knowledge of the solution of the wave equation of the whole system but by generating detection events one-by-one according to an unknown distribution.} There is thus no need to invoke quantum theory to explain the so-called nonclassical effects in the interference of signal and idler photons in parametric down conversion. Hence, a revision of the commonly accepted criterion of the nonclassical nature of light\textcolor{black}{, ${\cal V} > 1/2$,} is called for., Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1208.2368, arXiv:1006.1728

Data sets produced by three different Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm (EPRB) experiments are tested against the hypothesis that the statistics of this data is described by quantum theory. Although these experiments generate data that violate Bell inequalities for suitable choices of the time-coincidence window, the analysis shows that it is highly unlikely that these data sets are compatible with the quantum theoretical description of the EPRB experiment, suggesting that the popular statements that EPRB experiments agree with quantum theory lack a solid scientific basis and that more precise experiments are called for., Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1112.2629

We discuss a discrete-event, particle-based simulation approach which reproduces the statistical distributions of Maxwell's theory and quantum theory by generating detection events one-by-one. This event-based approach gives a unified cause-and-effect description of quantum optics experiments such as single-photon Mach-Zehnder interferometer, Wheeler's delayed choice, quantum eraser, double-slit, Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm and Hanbury Brown-Twiss experiments, and various neutron interferometry experiments at a level of detail which is not covered by conventional quantum theoretical descriptions. We illustrate the approach by application to single-photon Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm experiments and single-neutron interferometry experiments that violate a Bell inequality., Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1208.2365

It is shown that the basic equations of quantum theory can be obtained from a straightforward application of logical inference to experiments for which there is uncertainty about individual events and for which the frequencies of the observed events are robust with respect to small changes in the conditions under which the experiments are carried out., Comment: A link to a video presentation can be found at http://rugth30.phys.rug.nl/compphys0/publications/2014.html

We study the quantum dynamics of a spin ensemble coupled to cavity photons. Recently, related experimental results have been reported, showing the existence of the strong coupling regime in such systems. We study the eigenenergy distribution of the multi-spin system (following the Tavis-Cummings model) which shows a peculiar structure as a function of the number of cavity photons and of spins. We study how this structure causes changes in the spectrum of the admittance in the linear response theory, and also the frequency dependence of the excited quantities in the stationary state under a probing field. In particular, we investigate how the structure of the higher excited energy levels changes the spectrum from a double-peak structure (the so-called vacuum field Rabi splitting) to a single peak structure. We also point out that the spin dynamics in the region of the double-peak structure corresponds to recent experiments using cavity ringing while in region of the single peak structure, it corresponds to the coherent Rabi oscillation in a driving electromagnetic filed. Using a standard Lindblad type mechanism, we study the effect of dissipations on the line width and separation in the computed spectra. In particular, we study the relaxation of the total spin in the general case of a spin ensemble in which the total spin of the system is not specified. The theoretical results are correlated with experimental evidence of the strong coupling regime, achieved with a spin 1/2 ensemble.

It is demonstrated that the three-slit interference, as obtained from explicit solutions of Maxwell's equations for realistic models of three-slit devices, including an idealized version of the three-slit device used in a recent three-slit experiment with light (U. Sinha {\sl et al.}, Science 329, 418 (2010)), is nonzero. The hypothesis that the three-slit interference should be zero is the result of dropping the one-to-one correspondence between the symbols in the mathematical theory and the different experimental configurations, opening the route to conclusions that cannot be derived from the theory proper. It is also shown that under certain experimental conditions, this hypothesis is a good approximation., Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review A. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1103.0121

Electron Paramagnetic Resonance experiments show that the decay of Rabi oscillations of ensembles of spin qubits depends noticeably on the microwave power and more precisely on the Rabi frequency, an effect recently called "driven decoherence". By direct numerical solution of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation of the associated many-body system, we scrutinize the different mechanisms that may lead to this type of decoherence. Assuming the effects of dissipation to be negligible ($T_1=\infty$), it is shown that a system of dipolar-coupled spins with -- even weak-- random inhomogeneities is sufficient to explain the salient features of the experimental observations. Some experimental examples are given to illustrate the potential of the numerical simulation approach., Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review B

We analyze the predictions of an event-based corpuscular model for interference in the case of two-beam interference experiments in which the two sources are alternatingly blocked. We show that such experiments may be used to test specific predictions of the corpuscular model., Comment: FPP6 - Foundations of Probability and Physics 6, edited by A. Khrennikov et al., AIP Conference Proceedings

Data produced by laboratory Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm (EPRB) experiments is tested against the hypothesis that the statistics of this data is given by quantum theory of this thought experiment. Statistical evidence is presented that the experimental data, while violating Bell inequalities, does not support this hypothesis. It is shown that an event-based simulation model, providing a cause-and-effect description of real EPRB experiments at a level of detail which is not covered by quantum theory, reproduces the results of quantum theory of this thought experiment, indicating that there is no fundamental obstacle for a real EPRB experiment to produce data that can be described by quantum theory., Comment: FPP6 - Foundations of Probability and Physics 6, AIP Conference Proceedings, in press

We determine the classical and quantum complexities of a specific ensemble of three-satisfiability problems with a unique satisfying assignment for up to N=100 and N=80 variables, respectively. In the classical limit we employ generalized ensemble techniques and measure the time that a Markovian Monte Carlo process spends in searching classical ground states. In the quantum limit we determine the maximum finite correlation length along a quantum adiabatic trajectory determined by the linear sweep of the adiabatic control parameter in the Hamiltonian composed of the problem Hamiltonian and the constant transverse field Hamiltonian. In the median of our ensemble both complexities diverge exponentially with the number of variables. Hence, standard, conventional adiabatic quantum computation fails to reduce the computational complexity to polynomial. Moreover, the growth-rate constant in the quantum limit is 3.8 times as large as the one in the classical limit, making classical fluctuations more beneficial than quantum fluctuations in ground-state searches.

A corpuscular simulation model of optical phenomena that does not require the knowledge of the solution of a wave equation of the whole system and reproduces the results of Maxwell's theory by generating detection events one-by-one is presented. The event-based corpuscular model is shown to give a unified description of multiple-beam fringes of a plane parallel plate, single-photon Mach-Zehnder interferometer, Wheeler's delayed choice, photon tunneling, quantum erasers, two-beam interference, double-slit, and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm and Hanbury Brown-Twiss experiments., Comment: To appear in J. Comp. Theor. Nanoscience

We analyze a single-particle Mach-Zehnder interferometer experiment in which the path length of one arm may change (randomly or systematically) according to the value of an external two-valued variable $x$, for each passage of a particle through the interferometer. Quantum theory predicts an interference pattern that is independent of the sequence of the values of $x$. On the other hand, corpuscular models that reproduce the results of quantum optics experiments carried out up to this date show a reduced visibility and a shift of the interference pattern depending on the details of the sequence of the values of $x$. The proposed experiment will show that: (1) it can be described by quantum theory, and thus not by the current corpuscular models, or (2) it cannot be described by quantum theory but can be described by the corpuscular models or variations thereof, or (3) it can neither be described by quantum theory nor by corpuscular models. Therefore, the proposed experiment can be used to determine to what extent quantum theory provides a description of observed events beyond the usual statistical level., Comment: Accepted for publication in J. Phys. Soc. Jpn

We present a computer simulation model that is a one-to-one copy of an experimental realization of Wheeler's delayed choice experiment that employs a single photon source and a Mach-Zehnder interferometer composed of a 50/50 input beam splitter and a variable output beam splitter with adjustable reflection coefficient $R$ (V. Jacques {\sl et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 220402 (2008)). For $0\le R\le 0.5$, experimentally measured values of the interference visibility $V$ and the path distinguishability $D$, a parameter quantifying the which-path information WPI, are found to fulfill the complementary relation $V^2+D^2\le 1$, thereby allowing to obtain partial WPI while keeping interference with limited visibility. The simulation model that is solely based on experimental facts, that satisfies Einstein's criterion of local causality and that does not rely on any concept of quantum theory or of probability theory, reproduces quantitatively the averages calculated from quantum theory. Our results prove that it is possible to give a particle-only description of the experiment, that one can have full WPI even if D=0, V=1 and therefore that the relation $V^2+D^2\le 1$ cannot be regarded as quantifying the notion of complementarity., Comment: Physica E, in press; see also http://www.compphys.net

We present a computer simulation model that is a one-to-one copy of a quantum eraser experiment with photons (P. D. D. Schwindt {\sl et al.}, Phys. Rev. A 60, 4285 (1999)). The model is solely based on experimental facts, satisfies Einstein's criterion of local causality and does not require knowledge of the solution of a wave equation. Nevertheless, the simulation model reproduces the averages as obtained from the wave mechanical description of the quantum eraser experiment, proving that it is possible to give a particle-only description of quantum eraser experiments with photons. We demonstrate that although the visibility can be used as a measure for the interference, it cannot be used to quantify the wave character of a photon. The classical particle-like simulation model renders the concept of wave-particle duality, used to explain the outcome of the quantum eraser experiment with photons, superfluous., Comment: J. Comp. Theor. Nanosci., in press; see also http://www.compphys.net

We discuss recent progress in the development of simulation algorithms that do not rely on any concept of quantum theory but are nevertheless capable of reproducing the averages computed from quantum theory through an event-by-event simulation. The simulation approach is illustrated by applications to Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm experiments with photons., Comment: Physica E in press; see also http://www.compphys.net

We present a computer simulation model for the Hanbury Brown-Twiss experiment that is entirely particle-based and reproduces the results of wave theory. The model is solely based on experimental facts, satisfies Einstein's criterion of local causality and does not require knowledge of the solution of a wave equation. The simulation model is fully consistent with earlier work and provides another demonstration that it is possible to give a particle-only description of wave phenomena, rendering the concept of wave-particle duality superfluous., Comment: Submitted to Commmun. Comput. Phys

Mainstream interpretations of quantum theory maintain that violations of the Bell inequalities deny at least either realism or Einstein locality. Here we investigate the premises of the Bell-type inequalities by returning to earlier inequalities presented by Boole and the findings of Vorob'ev as related to these inequalities. These findings together with a space-time generalization of Boole's elements of logic lead us to a completely transparent Einstein local counterexample from everyday life that violates certain variations of the Bell inequalities. We show that the counterexample suggests an interpretation of the Born rule as a pre-measure of probability that can be transformed into a Kolmogorov probability measure by certain Einstein local space-time characterizations of the involved random variables., Comment: Published in: EPL, 87 (2009) 60007

We present a computer simulation model that reproduces, event-by-event, the wave mechanical results of double-slit and two-beam interference experiments. The same model also simulates a one-to-one copy of a single-photon interference experiment with a Fresnel biprism (Jacques V. et al., Eur. Phys. J. D, 35 (2005) 561). The model satisfies Einstein's criterion of local causality and is solely based on experimental facts, comprising the apparatuses used in the experiment and the observation of individual detector clicks. Our results prove that it is possible to give a particle-only description of single-photon double-slit experiments., Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures

Motivated by recent experimental observations of size quantization of electron energy levels in graphene quantum dots \cite{ponomarenko} we investigate the level statistics in the simplest tight-binding model for different dot shapes by computer simulation. The results are in a reasonable agreement with the experiment which confirms qualitatively interpretation of observed level statistics in terms of "Dirac billiards" without taking into account many-body effects. It is shown that edge effects are in general sufficient to produce the observed level distribution and that even strong bulk disorder does not change the results drastically., Comment: Published: Pis'ma v ZhETF, vol. 88, iss. 9, pp. 698 -- 701 (2008)

We review the data gathering and analysis procedure used in real Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm experiments with photons and we illustrate the procedure by analyzing experimental data. Based on this analysis, we construct event-based computer simulation models in which every essential element in the experiment has a counterpart. The data is analyzed by counting single-particle events and two-particle coincidences, using the same procedure as in experiments. The simulation models strictly satisfy Einstein's criteria of local causality, do not rely on any concept of quantum theory or probability theory, and reproduce all results of quantum theory for a quantum system of two $S=1/2$ particles. We present a rigorous analytical treatment of these models and show that they may yield results that are in exact agreement with quantum theory. The apparent conflict with the folklore on Bell's theorem, stating that such models are not supposed to exist, is resolved. Finally, starting from the principles of probable inference, we derive the probability distributions of quantum theory of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm experiment without invoking concepts of quantum theory., Comment: Published paper with minor corrections

In this talk, I discuss recent progress in the development of simulation algorithms that do not rely on any concept of quantum theory but are nevertheless capable of reproducing the averages computed from quantum theory through an event-by-event simulation. The simulation approach is illustrated by applications to single-photon Mach-Zehnder interferometer experiments and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm experiments with photons., Comment: V Brazilian Meeting on Simulational Physics, Ouro Preto, 2007

We present a computer simulation model of Wheeler's delayed choice experiment that is a one-to-one copy of an experiment reported recently (V. Jacques {\sl et al.}, Science 315, 966 (2007)). The model is solely based on experimental facts, satisfies Einstein's criterion of local causality and does not rely on any concept of quantum theory. Nevertheless, the simulation model reproduces the averages as obtained from the quantum theoretical description of Wheeler's delayed choice experiment. Our results prove that it is possible to give a particle-only description of Wheeler's delayed choice experiment which reproduces the averages calculated from quantum theory and which does not defy common sense., Comment: Europhysics Letters (in press)

We study the decoherence of two coupled spins that interact with a spin-bath environment. It is shown that the connectivity and the coupling strength between the spins in the environment are of crucial importance for the decoherence of the central system. Changing the connectivity or coupling strenghts changes the decoherence of the central system from Gaussian to exponential decay law.

The general conclusion of Seevinck and Larsson is that our model exploits the so-called coincidence-time loophole and produces sinusoidal (quantum-like) correlations but does not model the singlet state because it does not violate the relevant Bell inequality derived by Larsson and Gill, since in order to obtain the sinusoidal correlations the probability of coincidences in our model goes to zero. In this reply, we refute their arguments that lead to this conclusion and demonstrate that our model can reproduce results of photon and ion-trap experiments with frequencies of coincidences that are not in conflict with the observations., Comment: Corrected typos

We study the decoherence of two ferro- and antiferromagnetically coupled spins that interact with a frustrated spin-bath environment in its ground state. The conditions under which the two-spin system relaxes from the initial spin-up - spin-down state towards its ground state are determined. It is shown that the two-spin system relaxes to its ground state for narrow ranges of the model parameters only. It is demonstrated that the symmetry of the coupling between the two-spin system and the environment has an important effect on the relaxation process. In particular, we show that if this coupling conserves the magnetization, the two-spin system readily relaxes to its ground state whereas a non-conserving coupling prevents the two-spin system from coming close to its ground state., Comment: to appear in Phys. Rev. A

We describe portable software to simulate universal quantum computers on massive parallel computers. We illustrate the use of the simulation software by running various quantum algorithms on different computer architectures, such as a IBM BlueGene/L, a IBM Regatta p690+, a Hitachi SR11000/J1, a Cray X1E, a SGI Altix 3700 and clusters of PCs running Windows XP. We study the performance of the software by simulating quantum computers containing up to 36 qubits, using up to 4096 processors and up to 1 TB of memory. Our results demonstrate that the simulator exhibits nearly ideal scaling as a function of the number of processors and suggest that the simulation software described in this paper may also serve as benchmark for testing high-end parallel computers., Comment: To appear in Comp. Phys. Comm