Search

The famous Kibble-Zurek mechanism offers us a significant clue to study quantum phase transitions out of equilibrium. Here, we investigate an intriguing phenomenon of a spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensate by quenching the Raman coupling strength from a high-symmetry phase (nonmagnetic phase) to a low-symmetry phase (magnetic phase). When crossing the critical point, the fluctuation of momentum distribution leads to delayed bifurcation structures. Simultaneously, the domain information emerges in momentum space. Moreover, the universal scalings of spatiotemporal dynamics are extracted from the fluctuations and domains, which manifests homogeneous and inhomogeneous Kibble-Zurek power laws at different timescales. Our work demonstrates a paradigmatic study on the inhomogeneous Kibble-Zurek mechanism.

Weak-value amplification has been used to enhance the sensitivity of a linear detector response to small interaction parameters. However, the generation of a large weak value gives rise to reduction in postselection probability, which restricts the feasibility of the weak-value amplification technique. Recently, theoretical works have shown that the use of entanglement can increase the efficiency of the weak-value amplification method. Specifically, it is proven that by entangling $n$ particles of a system, the maximum postselection probability scales quadratically with $n$ [Pang, Dressel, and Brun, Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 030401 (2014)]. In this work, we demonstrate an experimental realization of entanglement-assisted weak-value amplification in a photonic system, which shows that importing quantum entanglement can indeed improve the efficiency of weak-value amplification.

Sequential weak measurements of non-commuting observables is not only fundamentally interesting in quantum measurement but also shown potential in various applications. The previous reported methods, however, can only realize limited sequential weak measurements experimentally. In this Letter, we propose the realization of sequential measurements of arbitrary observables and experimentally demonstrate for the first time the measurement of sequential weak values of three non-commuting Pauli observables by using genuine single photons. The results presented here will not only improve our understanding of quantum measurement, e.g. testing quantum contextuality, macroscopic realism, and uncertainty relation, but also have many applications such as realizing counterfactual computation, direct process tomography, direct measurement of the density matrix and unbounded randomness certification., Comment: Comments are welcome!

It is of great importance to determine an unknown quantum state for fundamental studies of quantum mechanics, yet it is still difficult to characterize systems of large dimensions in practice. Although the scan-free direct measurement approach based on a weak measurement scheme was proposed to measure a high-dimensional photonic state, how weak the interaction should be to give a correct estimation remains unclear. Here we propose and experimentally demonstrate a technique that measures a high-dimensional quantum state with the combination of scan-free measurement and direct strong measurement. The procedure involves sequential strong measurement, in which case no approximation is made similarly to the conventional direct weak measurement. We use this method to measure a transverse state of a photon with effective dimensionality of 65000 without the time-consumed scanning process. Furthermore, the high fidelity of the result and the simplicity of the experimental apparatus show that our approach can be readily used to measure the complex field of a beam in diverse applications such as wavefront sensing and quantitative phase imaging.

We experimentally realize the internal and external entanglement tradeoff, which is a new kind of entanglement monogamy relation different from that usually discussed. Using a source of twin photons, we find that the external entanglement in polarization of twin photons, and the path-polarization internal entanglement of one photon, limit each other. In the extreme case, when the internal state is maximally entangled, the external entanglement must be vanishing, that illustrate entanglement monogamy. Our results of the experiment coincide with the theoretical predictions, and therefore provide a direct experimental observation of the internal and external entanglement monogamy relation., 10 pages, 7 figures

The problem of establishing a fair bet between spatially separated gambler and casino can only be solved in the classical regime by relying on a trusted third party. By combining Nash-equilibrium theory with quantum game theory, we show that a secure, remote, two-party game can be played using a quantum gambling machine which has no classical counterpart. Specifically, by modifying the Nash-equilibrium point we can construct games with arbitrary amount of bias, including a game that is demonstrably fair to both parties. We also report a proof-of-principle experimental demonstration using linear optics. Gambling or betting on an event with an uncertain outcome, is one of the most widely practiced activities in human society. Despite its widespread usage and applications, fair gambling between two spatially separated parties cannot be made without the assistance of a trusted third party. A group of international scientists led by Prof. Pei Zhang from Xi'an Jiaotong University, China, has experimentally demonstrated a novel gambling protocol, which enables fair gambling between two distant parties without the help of a third party. By incorporating the key concepts and methods of game theory, their protocol will “force” the two parties to move their strategies to a Nash-equilibrium point which guarantees the fairness through the physical laws of Quantum Mechanics. Furthermore, the authors show that the protocol can be easily adapted to a biased version, which would find applications in lottery, casino, etc.

We present a scheme to realize the (extended) Bose-Hubbard model in an $N$-coupled optomechanical system. By treating the cavities as intermediary and eliminating them adiabatically with the condition of large detuning or fast decay, we can obtain the effective Hamiltonian for the $N$ oscillators, with the regular terms in the Bose-Hubbard model, i.e., the pair tunnelings and the density-density interactions. Then we verify and provide the condition for our approximation with numerical results. Due to the existence of the pair tunnelings and the density-density interactions, we can investigate the density wave and supersolid phases in our model. Moreover, we also discuss the competition between the regular tunneling and the pair tunneling.

As one of the most intriguing intrinsic properties of quantum world, quantum superposition provokes great interests in its own generation. Oszmaniec [Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 110403 (2016)] have proven that though a universal quantum machine that creates superposition of arbitrary two unknown states is physically impossible, a probabilistic protocol exists in the case of two input states have nonzero overlaps with the referential state. Here we report a heralded quantum machine realizing superposition of arbitrary two unknown photonic qubits as long as they have nonzero overlaps with the horizontal polarization state $|H\rangle$. A total of 11 different qubit pairs are chosen to test this protocol by comparing the reconstructed output state with theoretical expected superposition of input states. We obtain the average fidelity as high as 0.99, which shows the excellent reliability of our realization. This realization not only deepens our understanding of quantum superposition but also has significant applications in quantum information and quantum computation, e.g., generating non-classical states in the context of quantum optics and realizing information compression by coherent superposition of results of independent runs of subroutines in a quantum computation., 4 pages, 2 figures

The Heisenberg-Robertson uncertainty relation quantitatively expresses the impossibility of jointly sharp preparation of incompatible observables. However it does not capture the concept of incompatible observables because it can be trivial even for two incompatible observables. We experimentally demonstrate the new stronger uncertainty relations proposed by Maccone and Pati [Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 260401 (2014)] relating on that sum of variances are valid in a state-dependent manner and the lower bound is guaranteed to be nontrivial for two observables being incompatible on the state of the system being measured. The behaviour we find agrees with the predictions of quantum theory and obeys the new uncertainty relations even for the special states which trivialize Heisenberg-Robertson relation. We realize a direct measurement model and give the first experimental investigation of the strengthened relations., 11 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. A

We propose a method for the creation of arbitrary superposition of N atomic states using generalized stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) techniques with laser fields coupling each one of N lower states to a single upper state in a ( N + 1 ) -level atomic system. ( N - 1 ) dark states that are composed of N lower states span a dark subspace. In the adiabatic limit, the dark and bright subspaces are decoupled, thus the nonadiabatic interaction within this dark subspace dominates the evolution of the system. Different from general methods to create our required coherent superposition state, in a reverse way, here we consider the required state as the starting point of evolution dynamics, and utilize laser fields to drive it into a single lower state step by step. Time reverse pulses of laser fields return the single lower state back to our required coherent superposition state based on time reversal symmetry. In principle, the computationally simple method allows the case with a large value of N . Based on the STIRAP techniques, it is robust against small variations of parameters of laser pulses and is immune to spontaneous radiation.

An method for adiabatic population transfer and the preparation of an arbitrary quantum superposition state using the oscillating dark states (ODS) in atomic system is presented. Quantum state of a three-level Λ configuration atomic system finally evolves into the same time-dependent state, and oscillates periodically between two ground levels under evolving adiabatic conditions when two pairs of classical detuning laser fields drive the system into the ODS forcedly, whatever the initial states of the system are. The decoherence of the ODS evolution is greatly suppressed and the oscillation is very stable, therefore adiabatic population transfer and the preparation of an arbitrary quantum superposition state of atomic system can be completed accurately and conveniently.

We present an interferometer for simulating the quantum network for quantum estimation proposed by A.K. Ekert et al. [A.K. Ekert, C.M. Alves, D.K.L. Oi, M. Horodecki, P. Horodecki, L.C. Kwek, Phys. Rev. Lett. 88 (2002) 217901]. We experimentally perform overlap measurements of two single-qubit states with linear optical elements. The scheme is generalized to perform estimation of Tr ρ 3 .

It is a simple introduction to quantum entanglement and quantum operations. The authors focus on some applications of quantum entanglement and relations between two-qubit entangled states and unitary operations. It includes remote state preparation by using any pure entangled states, nonlocal operation implementation using entangled states, entanglement capacity of two-qubit gates and two-qubit gates construction.

A simple proof of quantum adiabatic theorem is provided. Quantum adiabatic approximation is divided into two kinds. For Hamiltonian H(t/T), a relation between the size of the error caused by quantum adiabatic approximation and the parameter T is given., Comment: 10 pages

We consider the influence of the local squeezed vacuum fields on two initially entangled two-qubit system. By considering the upper bound of entanglement under time evolution, we find that the decay of the quantum entanglement shows different behavior for different time scales ( t ≫ max { ( 2 β A ) −1 , ( 2 β B ) −1 } and t ≪ min { ( 2 β A ) −1 , ( 2 β B ) −1 } ). The relative phase of the squeezing environment can also affect the entanglement dynamics profoundly.

We present a necessary condition for genuine entanglement of generalized Bell diagonal states in multiqubit systems. This condition has also been generalized into a general case with some restrictions, based on the direct sum representation of certain density matrices, and we show that generalized Bell diagonal states can be represented by the direct sum form.

A simple method to engineer qutrit state with biphotons is realized. The method is based on Hong–Ou–Mandel interferometer and it is insensitive to disturbance comparing to Mach–Zehnder interferometer in principle. Moreover, a tomography procedure is employed to reconstruct the output states.

We propose an experimentally feasible scheme to demonstrate quantum nonlocality, using Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) and $W$ entanglement between atomic ensembles generated by a new developed method based on laser manipulation and{} single-photon detection., 10 pages, 4 figures

A universal deterministic noiseless quantum amplifier has been shown to be impossible. However, probabilistic noiseless amplification of a certain set of states is physically permissible. Regarding quantum state amplification as quantum state transformation, we show that deterministic noiseless amplification of coherent states chosen from a proper set is possible. The relation between input coherent states and gain of amplification for deterministic noiseless amplification is thus derived. Besides, the potential applications of amplification of coherent states in quantum key distribution (QKD), noisy channel and non-ideal detection are also discussed., Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure

It is well known that entangled three particles have two different types of state: W state and Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger (GHZ) state. When we introduce entanglement to three-person prisoner's dilemma, it is found that if the initial state is W state, the players prefer to form a three-person coalition which can gain the largest payoffs for every player. It is also found that the players prefer to form a two-person coalition and the members of the coalition will gain larger payoffs than the third person if the initial state is GHZ state. From this quantum game we can see the difference between W state and GHZ state clearly.

A method of testing the maximal violation of the CHSH inequality for non-maximally entangled pure states is presented and experimentally realized.

We propose a probabilistic three-party communication complexity scenario: with a prior entangled tripartite pure state, to learn the value of a particular function determined by each communication player. It results in less communication than is required with only classical random correlations. If they share a Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state, this protocol is deterministic.

We report a state-independent experimental test of quantum contextuality of a single-photon qutrit. The experimental results demonstrate violations of an inequality originally formulated by Yu and Oh [Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 030402 (2012)] and further optimized by Cabello et al. [Phys. Rev. A 85, 032108 (2012)]; this inequality is satisfied by all noncontextual hidden variable models and is violated by all qutrit states. Our experiment shows quantum contextuality of this nature in a most fundamental way: A way that is independent of state and unrelated to entanglement.

We experimentally investigate the dynamics of classical and quantum correlations of a Bell diagonal state in a non-Markovian dephasing environment. The sudden transition from classical to quantum decoherence regime is observed during the dynamics of such kind of Bell diagonal state. Due to the refocusing effect of the overall relative phase, the quantum correlation revives from near zero and then decays again in the subsequent evolution. However, the non-Markovian effect is too weak to revive the classical correlation, which remains constant in the same evolution range. With the implementation of an optical $\sigma_{x}$ operation, the sudden transition from quantum to classical revival regime is obtained and correlation echoes are formed. Our method can be used to control the revival time of correlations, which would be important in quantum memory., Comment: extended revision, accepted for publication in Physical Review A

We propose a general description of adiabatic evolution of degenerate quantum systems in both linear and nonlinear cases. We derive the effective evolution equations of the considered system. For nondegenerate cases, we obtain a generalized Berry's phase for nonlinear systems. For linear cases, the equations reduce to the Wilczek-Zee dynamics in degenerate quantum systems, where non-Abelian adiabatic connections appear. The method can be used to study the coherent atom-molecule transition in ultracold quantum gases with degeneracy and is consistent with quantized treatment.

We propose a general method to realize frustrated tunneling of ultracold atoms in a state-dependent optical lattice. Two typical lattice configurations are considered, the square lattice with competing interaction and the kagom\'e lattice with geometrical frustration. The ideal can be extended to implement frustrated tunneling of ultracold atoms in various geometries, which enable us to investigate the physics of frustration in both bosonic and spin systems. We study the mean-field phase diagrams of the considered models and the experimental situations are also discussed.

We define a negative entanglement measure for separable states which shows that how much entanglement one should compensate the unentangled state at least for changing it into an entangled state. For two-qubit systems and some special classes of states in higher-dimensional systems, the explicit formula and the lower bounds for the negative entanglement measure have been presented, and it always vanishes for bipartite separable pure states. The negative entanglement measure can be used as a useful quantity to describe the entanglement dynamics and the quantum phase transition. In the transverse Ising model, the first derivatives of negative entanglement measure diverge on approaching the critical value of the quantum phase transition, although these two-site reduced density matrices have no entanglement at all. In the 1D Bose-Hubbard model, the NEM as a function of $t/U$ changes from zero to negative on approaching the critical point of quantum phase transition., 6 pages, 3 figures

We experimentally demonstrate the generation of non-degenerate nonclassical paired photons in a hot atomic ensemble using off-axis four-wave mixing. The time-resolved second-order correlated function between the Stokes photon and the anti-Stokes photon is given. The two-photon correlation between the photons obtained in this experiment is 1.87+/- 0.04, which leads to the violation of Cauchy-Schwarz inequality by a factor of 1.69+/- 0.14.

Quantum protocols will be more efficient with high-dimensional entangled states. Photons carrying orbital angular momenta can be used to create a high-dimensional entangled state. In this paper we experimentally demonstrate the entanglement of the orbital angular momentum between the Stokes and anti-Stokes photons generated in a hot atomic ensemble using spontaneous four-wave-mixing. This experiment also suggests the existence of the entanglement concerned with spatial degrees of freedom between the hot atomic ensemble and the Stokes photon., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures

We experimentally measure the lower and upper bounds of concurrence for a set of two-qubit mixed quantum states using photonic systems. The measured concurrence bounds are in agreement with the results evaluated from the density matrices reconstructed through quantum state tomography. In our experiment, we propose and demonstrate a simple method to provide two faithful copies of a two-photon mixed state required for parity measurements: Two photon pairs generated by two neighboring pump laser pulses through optical parametric down conversion processes represent two identical copies. This method can be conveniently generalized for entanglement estimation of multi-photon mixed states., 4 pages, 2 figures

We consider the decoherence of photons suffering in phase-damping channels. By exploring the evolutions of single-photon polarization states and two-photon polarization-entangled states, we find that different frequency spectrum envelopes of photons induce different decoherence processes. A white frequency spectrum can lead the decoherence to an ideal Markovian process. Some color frequency spectrums can induce asymptotical decoherence, while, some other color frequency spectrums can make coherence vanish periodically with variable revival amplitudes. These behaviors result from the non-Markovian effects on the decoherence process, which may give rise to a revival of coherence after complete decoherence., 7 pages, 4 figures, new results added, replaced by accepted version

We present observable upper bounds of squared concurrence, which are the dual inequalities of the observable lower bounds introduced in [F. Mintert and A. Buchleitner, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 140505 (2007)] and [L. Aolita, A. Buchleitner and F. Mintert, Phys. Rev. A 78, 022308 (2008)]. These bounds can be used to estimate entanglement for arbitrary experimental unknown finite-dimensional states by few experimental measurements on a twofold copy $\rho\otimes\rho$ of the mixed states. Furthermore, the degree of mixing for a mixed state and some properties of the linear entropy also have certain relations with its upper and lower bounds of squared concurrence., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures

Separability problem, to decide whether a given state is entangled or not, is a fundamental problem in quantum information theory. We propose a powerful and computationally simple separability criterion, which allows us to detect the entanglement of many bound entangled states. The criterion is strictly stronger than the criterion based on Bloch representations, the computable cross-norm or realignment criterion and its optimal nonlinear entanglement witnesses. Furthermore, this criterion can be generalized to an analog of permutation separability criteria in the even-partite systems.

We show that the entanglement witnesses based on local orthogonal observables which are introduced in [S. Yu and N.-L. Liu, Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 150504 (2005)] and [O. G\"uhne, M. Mechler, G. T\'oth and P. Adam, Phys. Rev. A 74, 010301 (2006)] in linear and nonlinear forms can be optimized, respectively. As applications, we calculate the optimal nonlinear witnesses of pure bipartite states and show a lower bound on the I-concurrence of bipartite higher dimensional systems with our method., Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure; minor changes, references added

We experimentally implement direct characterization of quantum dynamics (DCQD) algorithm of a single qubit proposed in M. Mohseni and D. A. Lidar [Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 170501 (2006)], which does not require quantum state tomography. The number of experimental configurations is reduced by a factor of 2 compared with that of standard quantum process tomography, which can be increased four times with an ideal Bell state analyzer. We combine the DCQD algorithm with maximum-likelihood estimation to give the physical characterization of quantum dynamics. It can also be applied to obtaining partial information about quantum dynamics.

We show that, in principle, N-partite unitary transformations can be perfectly discriminated under local operations and classical communication despite their nonlocal properties. Based on this result, some related topics, including the construction of the appropriate quantum circuit together with the extension to general completely positive trace preserving operations, are discussed.

We consider to treat the usual probabilistic cloning, state separation, unambiguous state discrimination, \emph{etc} in a uniform framework. All these transformations can be regarded as special examples of generalized completely positive trace non-increasing maps on a finite number of input states. From the system-ancilla model we construct the corresponding unitary implementation of pure $\to$ pure, pure $\to$ mixed, mixed $\to$ pure, and mixed $\to$ mixed states transformations in the whole system and obtain the necessary and sufficient conditions on the existence of the desired maps. We expect our work will be helpful to explore what we can do on a finite set of input states., 7 pages

Quantum beats can be produced in fourth-order interference such as in a Hong–Ou–Mandel (HOM) interferometer by using photons with different frequencies. Here we present theoretically the appearance of interference of quantum beats when the HOM interferometer is combined with a Franson-type interferometer. This combination can make the interference effect of photons with different colors take place not only within the coherence time of downconverted fields but also in the region beyond that. We expect that it can provide a new method in quantum metrology, as it can realize the measurement of time intervals in three scales.

We propose a general description on the unambiguous discrimination of mixed states according to the system-environment coupling, and present a procedure to reduce this to a standard semidefinite programming problem. In the two states case, we introduce the canonical vectors and partly simplify the problem to the case of discrimination between pairs of canonical vectors. By considering the positivity of the two by two matrices, we obtain a series of new upper bounds of the total success probability which depends on both the prior probabilities and specific state structures., 6 pages, 1 table, added some examples

We experimentally demonstrate optimal entanglement distillation from two forms of two-qubit mixed states under local filtering operations according to the constructive method introduced by [F. Verstraete, Phys. Rev. A 64, 010101(R) (2001)10.1103/PhysRevA.64.010101]. In principle, our setup can be easily applied to distilling entanglement from arbitrary two-qubit partially mixed states. We also test the violation of the Clauser-Horne-Shinmony-Holt inequality for the distilled state from the first form of mixed state to show its "hidden nonlocality."

Implementation of controlled-rotations using entanglement is considered. We show that the successful probability is closely related to the entanglement and the rotation angle. The successful probability will increase if we increase the entanglement we use or decrease the controlled-rotation angle and the probability will trend to unit when the entangled state trends to a Bell state or the controlled-rotation angle trends to zero., Comment: Our result satisfies our intuition about this question

We present a realization of weak measurement for the arrival time of a single photon in virtue of the simultaneous characteristic of biphotons. Our experimental setup is based on a Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer. A birefringent crystal is used to perform weak measurement between a preselected and a postselected measurement by two polarizers. The extreme weak values lie well outside of the eigenvalues of the observable.

A solid-state quantum computation protocol using controllable Heisenberg exchange interaction and a controllable global magnetic field is proposed. In this protocol, practical pulses can be used for controlling exchange interactions and the global magnetic field.

We show that, for $N$ parallel input states, an anti-linear map with respect to a specific basis is essentially a classical operator. We also consider the information contained in phase-conjugate pairs $|��> |��^*>$, and prove that there is more information about a quantum state encoded in phase-conjugate pairs than in parallel pairs., 4 pages, 1 table

It is shown in this paper that decoherence-free subspace (DFS) of practical multi-photon polarization can not avoid the exponential decoherence even in the same extra-environment if the photons are frequency-anticorrelated. The reason lies in that the condition of collective decoherence is not satisfied in this case. As an example, the evolution of biphoton's decoherence-free state is given. Possible solution for feasible multi-photon's DFS state is also given., 6 pages, no figure

We propose an experimentally feasible scheme to realize the nonlocal gate between two different quantum network nodes. With an entanglement-qubit (ebit) acts as a quantum channel, our scheme is resistive to actual environment noise and can get high fidelity in current cavity quantum electrodynamics (C-QED) system., 5 pages, 3 figures, 1 table

Teleportation of quantum gates is a critical step for implementation of quantum networking and teleportation-based models of quantum computation. We report an experimental demonstration of teleportation of the prototypical quantum controlled-NOT (CNOT) gate. Assisted with linear optical manipulations, photon entanglement produced from parametric down conversion, and coincidence measurements, we teleport the quantum CNOT gate from acting on local qubits to acting on remote qubits. The quality of the quantum gate teleportation is characterized through the method of quantum process tomography, with an average fidelity of 0.84 demonstrated for the teleported gate., 4 figures

We present an experimental demonstration to manipulate the width and position of the down-converted beam waist. Our results can be used to engineer the two-photon orbital angular momentum (OAM) entangled states (such as concentrating OAM entangled states) and generate Hermite-Gaussian (HG) modes entangled states., Revised edition, to appear in PLA