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Consecutive measurements performed on the same quantum system can reveal fundamental insights into quantum theory’s causal structure, and probe different aspects of the quantum measurement problem. According to the Copenhagen interpretation, measurements affect the quantum system in such a way that the quantum superposition collapses after each measurement, erasing any memory of the prior state. We show here that counter to this view, un-amplified measurements (measurements where all variables comprising a pointer are in principle controllable) have coherent ancilla density matrices that encode the memory of the entire set of (un-amplified) quantum measurements that came before, and that the chain of this entire set is therefore non-Markovian. In contrast, sequences of amplified measurements (measurements where at least one pointer variable has been lost) are equivalent to a quantum Markov chain. We argue that the non-Markovian nature of quantum measurement has empirical consequences that are incompatible with the assumption of wave function collapse, thus elevating the collapse assumption into a testable hypothesis. Finally, we find that all of the information necessary to reconstruct an arbitrary non-Markovian quantum chain of measurements is encoded on the boundary of that chain (the first and the final measurement), reminiscent of the holographic principle.

We consider the escape of a photon from a single-mode optical cavity with a controlled variable intensity. The source of the photon is a relaxing two-level atom. The quantum bottleneck effect involves a counterintuitive decrease of the probability of photon escape from the cavity with the increase of its escape intensity. Numerical simulations of the process were carried out using the basic Lindblad quantum equation for the Jaynes-Cummings model with thermal relaxation. A quasi-classical description of the bottleneck mechanism is presented, similar to the Zeno effect. The counterintuitive behavior described plays an important role in the description of the exchange of single photons in nanosystems and in molecular complexes converting solar energy in bacteria.

We investigate whether and how the quantum Zeno effect, i.e., the inhibition of quantum evolution by frequent measurements, can be employed to isolate a quantum dot from its surrounding electron reservoir. In contrast to the often studied case of tunneling between discrete levels, we consider the tunnelling of an electron from a continuum reservoir to a discrete level in the dot. Realizing the quantum Zeno effect in this scenario can be much harder because the measurements should be repeated before the wave packet of the hole left behind in the reservoir moves away from the vicinity of the dot. Thus, the required repetition rate could be lowered by having a flat band (with a slow group velocity) in resonance with the dot or a sufficiently small Fermi velocity or a strong external magnetic field. We also consider the anti-Zeno effect, i.e., how measurements can accelerate or enable quantum evolution., Comment: 5 pg + 7 pg supplement, 1+1 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. Res. Lett

Based on the invariant-based inverse engineering and quantum Zeno dynamics, we design time-dependent resonant laser pulses to speed up the population transfer in two spatially separated $$\Lambda $$ -type atoms. Through designing a virtual dark state for the evolution of the system, we can rapidly achieve a perfect population transfer in an ordinary cavity quantum electrodynamics system. We also discuss the influence of decoherence by numerical computation, and the result proves that this method is insensitive to the cavity decay and atomic spontaneous dissipation. In addition, this method is robust against the amplitude fluctuations of most of the parameters.

In the presence of a periodic external drive, the mean value of the energy of a two-level quantum system (or qubit) displays the well-known Rabi oscillatory dynamics that is usually described within the rotating wave approximation. In order to calculate its standard deviation, we get rid of this latter and obtain a huge ratio (of order unity) of standard deviation over mean value. This is due to the large-amplitude high-frequency oscillations of the internal as well as of the overall phase of the two-level system. In presence of continuous measurement of, say, the ground state energy that yields the quantum Zeno effect, the system remains frozen in its ground state as long as the dynamics of the driven system allows its energy to stay within its Rabi standard deviation. When reaching the boundary, the energy suddenly flips over to the excited level in order to stay further within its standard deviation. We model this energy flip by use of parametrized quantum transitions and show that it can be defined as the result of action quantization. We check our theory by recovering the so-called “quantum jumps” published by Minev et al. (2019).

We study the heat statistics of a multi-level $N$-dimensional quantum system monitored by a sequence of projective measurements. The late-time, asymptotic properties of the heat characteristic function are analyzed in the thermodynamic limit of a high, ideally infinite, number $M$ of measurements $(M \to \infty)$. In this context, the conditions allowing for an Infinite-Temperature Thermalization (ITT), induced by the repeated monitoring of the quantum system, are discussed. We show that ITT is identified by the fixed point of a symmetric random matrix that models the stochastic process originated by the sequence of measurements. Such fixed point is independent on the non-equilibrium evolution of the system and its initial state. Exceptions to ITT, to which we refer to as partial thermalization, take place when the observable of the intermediate measurements is commuting (or quasi-commuting) with the Hamiltonian of the quantum system, or when the time interval between measurements is smaller or comparable with the system energy scale (quantum Zeno regime). Results on the limit of infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces ($N \to \infty$), describing continuous systems with a discrete spectrum, are also presented. We show that the order of the limits $M\to\infty$ and $N\to\infty$ matters: when $N$ is fixed and $M$ diverges, then ITT occurs. In the opposite case, the system becomes classical, so that the measurements are no longer effective in changing the state of the system. A non trivial result is obtained fixing $M/N^2$ where instead partial ITT occurs. Finally, an example of partial thermalization applicable to rotating two-dimensional gases is presented., Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures; v2: close to the published version

It is well known that by repeatedly measuring a quantum system it is possible to completely freeze its dynamics into a well defined state, a signature of the quantum Zeno effect. Here we show that for a many-body system evolving under competing unitary evolution and variable-strength measurements the onset of the Zeno effect takes the form of a sharp phase transition. Using the Quantum Ising chain with continuous monitoring of the transverse magnetization as paradigmatic example we show that for weak measurements the entanglement produced by the unitary dynamics remains protected, and actually enhanced by the monitoring, while only above a certain threshold the system is sharply brought into an uncorrelated Zeno state. We show that this transition is invisible to the average dynamics, but encoded in the rare fluctuations of the stochastic measurement process, which we show to be perfectly captured by a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian which takes the form of a Quantum Ising model in an imaginary valued transverse field. We provide analytical results based on the fermionization of the non-Hermitian Hamiltonian in supports of our exact numerical calculations., 14 pages, 10 figures

This talk presents recent experimental demonstrations that use integrated nanophotonic processors for various quantum computations such as quantum machine learning and in particular reinforcement learning, where agents interact with environments by exchanging signals via a communication channel. We show that this exchange allows boosting the learning of the agent. Another experiment underlines the feasibility of such photonic integrated processors for a homomorphically-encrypted quantum walk computation. This secure quantum computation exploits path- and polarization as degrees-of-freedom for encrypting the input and output of the photonic processor. As last demonstration I will present counter-intuitive quantum communication tasks that are linked to the Zeno effect. As outlook I will discuss technological challenges for the scale up of photonic quantum computers, and our group’s current work for addressing some of those.

We investigate a spatial subsystem entropy extracted from the one-particle density matrix (OPDM) in one-dimensional disordered interacting fermions that host a many-body localized (MBL) phase. Deep in the putative MBL regime, this OPDM entropy exhibits the salient features of localization, despite not being a proper entanglement measure. We numerically show that the OPDM entropy of the eigenstates obeys an area law. Similar to the von-Neumann entropy, the OPDM entropy grows logarithmically with time after a quantum quench, albeit with a different prefactor. Both these features survive at moderately large interactions and well towards the transition into the ergodic phase. The computational cost to calculate the OPDM entropy scales only polynomially with the system size, suggesting that the OPDM provides a promising starting point for developing diagnostic tools for MBL in simulations and experiments., 11 pages, 8 figures. Published version. Data shown in the manuscript is partially available as ancillary files

Exceptional points (EPs), the degeneracy point of non-Hermitian systems, have recently attracted great attention after its ability to greatly enhance the sensitivity of micro-cavities is demonstrated experimentally. Unlike the usual degeneracies in Hermitian systems, at EPs, both the eigenenergies and eigenvectors coalesce. Although some of the exotic properties and potential applications of EPs are explored, the range of EPs studied is largely limited by the experimental capability. Some of the systems, e.g. with higher-order EPs, are hard to achieve with conventional simulations. Here we propose an extendable method to simulate non-Hermitian systems on the quantum circuits, where a wide range of EPs can be studied. The system is inherently parity-time (PT) broken due to the non-symmetric controlling effects and post-selection. A sample circuit is implemented in a quantum programming framework, and the phase transition at EP is demonstrated. Considering the scalable and flexible nature of quantum circuits, our model is capable of simulating large scale systems with higher-order EPs. We believe this work may lead to broader applications of quantum computers and provide a tool to the studies for non-Hermitian systems and the associated EPs.

We uncover a new quantum paradox, where a simple question about two identical quantum systems reveals unsettlingly paradoxical answers when weak measurements are considered. Our resolution of the paradox, from within the weak measurement framework, amounts to a demonstration of exchange-free communication for the generalised protocol for sending an unknown qubit without any particles travelling between the communicating parties, i.e. counterfactually. The paradox and its resolution are reproduced from a consistent-histories viewpoint. We go on to propose a novel, experimentally feasible implementation of this counterfactual disembodied transport that we call counterportation, based on cavity quantum electrodynamics, estimating resources for beating the no-cloning fidelity limit---except that unlike teleportation no previously-shared entanglement nor classical communication are required. Our approach is several orders of magnitude more efficient in terms of physical resources than previously proposed techniques, while being remarkably tolerant to device imperfections, paving the way for an experimental demonstration. Surprisingly, while counterfactual communication is intuitively explained in terms of interaction-free measurement and the Zeno effect, we show based on our proposed scheme that neither is necessary, with implications in support of an underlying physical reality.

In this paper, we study the dynamics of atom–atom entanglement inside a single-mode cavity using quantum Zeno dynamics (QZD). The system under study consists of two two-level atoms with dipole–dipole and Ising interactions. By applying QZD, based on strong continuous coupling, we study the possibility of generating atom–atom entanglement in terms of different initial states. Furthermore, we control the dynamics of atom–atom entanglement in different quantum Zeno regimes. To show its efficiency, we compare the entanglement dynamics under QZD to free evolution. We show that in comparison with free evolution of a system, QZD not only does restrict the dynamics in the subspace where the system is initially prepared, but also preserves entanglement.

Quantum Zeno and anti-Zeno behaviors of a two-level macroscopic quantum system in interaction with a harmonic environment are studied using the perturbation theory. The system-environment interactions are applied in a successive and step-by-step way. A new expression for the probability of surviving the macrosystem in its initial state, after the Nth interaction step, is derived through a different method of calculation. It is shown that multiple transitions between Zeno and anti-Zeno behaviors can be found in our approach. We have shown that in addition to the environmental parameters like the Ohmicity, the macroscopic trait of the system also has a notable effect on the decay rate Γ(τ). Moreover, we have investigated how the decay rate Γ(τ) varies as the parameter of the macroscopicity of the system $$\tilde{{\boldsymbol{h}}}$$ h ˜ changes continuously in a given domain.

In this paper, we discuss approximations of the dynamical quantum Zeno effect by a fixed number of nonselective quantum measurements. A wide class of measurements whose efficiency is close to optimal in the case of two-level systems is found.

Controlling the dynamics of entanglement and preventing its disappearance are central requisites for any implementation of quantum information processing. Many solid state qubits are affected by non-Markovian noise, often with 1/f spectrum. Leading order dephasing effects are captured by treating noise in the quasistatic approximation. In this article we investigate dynamical decoupling of a two-qubit gate studying the crossover from Zeno to anti-Zeno entanglement dynamics obtained by varying the sequence parameters.

Reeves et al. in their recent work on small silicon quantum dots [Reeves, Nano Lett., 2015, 15, 6429−6433] found that surface passivation with fluorine atoms results in a significant slow down of hot electron relaxation because there exist particular electronic states that retain the hot electron for an extended time, and the relaxation time scale is largely influenced by shuttling of the hot electron between energetically adjacent states by such unique electronic states. In this work, we investigate how the quantum dot size changes this observation associated with the fluorine passivation and also consider the effect of decoherence. With the larger size of silicon quantum dot, the distinct hot electron shuttling behavior is no longer observed, and the relaxation time constant is much shorter. At the same time, decoherence can significantly slow down the hot electron relaxation by a factor of two or more. Our study reveals that slow hot electron relaxation can result from the quantum Zeno effect, in addit...

We show that for any finite-dimensional quantum systems the conserved quantities can be characterized by their robustness to small perturbations: for fragile symmetries, small perturbations can lead to large deviations over long times, while for robust symmetries, their expectation values remain close to their initial values for all times. This is in analogy with the celebrated Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser theorem in classical mechanics. To prove this result, we introduce a resummation of a perturbation series, which generalizes the Hamiltonian of the quantum Zeno dynamics.

The problem of the time of arrival of a quantum system in a specified state is considered in the framework of the repeated measurement protocol and in particular the limit of continuous measurements is discussed. It is shown that for a particular choice of system-detector coupling, the Zeno effect is avoided and the system can be described effectively by a non-Hermitian effective Hamiltonian. As a specific example we consider the evolution of a quantum particle on a one-dimensional lattice that is subjected to position measurements at a specific site. By solving the corresponding non-Hermitian wave function evolution equation, we present analytic closed-form results on the survival probability and the first arrival time distribution. Finally we discuss the limit of vanishing lattice spacing and show that this leads to a continuum description where the particle evolves via the free Schrodinger equation with complex Robin boundary conditions at the detector site. Several interesting physical results for this dynamics are presented., Comment: 30 pages, 5 figures

The ability to manipulate quantum systems lies at the heart of the development of quantum technology. The ultimate goal of quantum control is to realize arbitrary quantum operations (AQuOs) for all possible open quantum system dynamics. However, the demanding extra physical resources impose great obstacles. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a universal approach of AQuO on a photonic qudit with minimum physical resource of a two-level ancilla and a $\log_{2}d$-scale circuit depth for a $d$-dimensional system. The AQuO is then applied in quantum trajectory simulation for quantum subspace stabilization and quantum Zeno dynamics, as well as incoherent manipulation and generalized measurements of the qudit. Therefore, the demonstrated AQuO for complete quantum control would play an indispensable role in quantum information science., main text 7 pages, 3 figures; supplementary material 13 pages, 8 figures

We iteratively apply a recently formulated adiabatic theorem for the strong-coupling limit in finite-dimensional closed and open quantum systems. This allows us to improve approximations to a perturbed dynamics, beyond the standard approximation based on quantum Zeno dynamics and adiabatic elimination. The effective generators describing the approximate evolutions are endowed with the same block structure as the unperturbed part of the generator, and exhibit adiabatic evolutions. This iterative adiabatic theorem reveals that adiabaticity holds eternally, that is, the system evolves within each eigenspace of the unperturbed part of the generator, with an error bounded by $O(1/\ensuremath{\gamma})$ uniformly in time, where $\ensuremath{\gamma}$ is the strength of the unperturbed part of the generator. We prove that the iterative adiabatic theorem reproduces Bloch's perturbation theory in the unitary case, and is therefore a full generalization to open systems. We furthermore prove the equivalence of the Schrieffer-Wolff and des Cloizeaux approaches in the unitary case and generalize both to arbitrary open systems, showing that they share the eternal adiabaticity, and providing explicit error bounds. Finally we discuss the physical structure of the effective adiabatic generators and show that ideal effective generators for open systems do not exist in general.

As a basic operation in quantum computers, quantum logic gates and particularly controlled NOT (CNOT) gates are important in quantum information processing. In this paper, we propose a one-step scheme to generate a CNOT gate via transitionless quantum driving. In this scheme, an effective Hamiltonian is obtained based on quantum Zeno dynamics to drive the system to evolve into the target state when the parameters are reasonably set. The results of explicit numerical simulations indicate that the proposed scheme is robust against instability related to variation in experimental parameters and decoherence. The scheme can also be extended to generate a Toffoli gate, which is useful for large-scale quantum computers. Moreover, the generation process involves only a single step, greatly simplifying its implementation.

The interplay between measurement and quantum correlations in many-body systems can lead to novel types of collective phenomena which are not accessible in isolated systems. In this work, we merge the Zeno-paradigm of quantum measurement theory with the concept of polarons in condensed-matter physics. The resulting quantum-Zeno Fermi-polaron is a quasi-particle which emerges for lossy impurities interacting with a quantum-degenerate bath of fermions. For loss rates of the order of the impurity-fermion binding energy the quasi-particle is short lived. However, we show that in the strongly dissipative regime of large loss rates a long-lived polaron branch re-emerges. This quantum-Zeno Fermi-polaron originates from the nontrivial interplay between the Fermi-surface and the surface of the momentum region forbidden by the quantum Zeno projection. The situation we consider here is realized naturally for polaritonic impurities in charge-tuneable semiconductors and can be also implemented using dressed atomic states in ultracold gases., Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures, accepted in Phys. Rev. Research

We theoretically describe the quantum Zeno effect in a spin-photon interface represented by a charged quantum dot in a micropillar cavity in the strong coupling regime. This simplest model allows for various generalizations for the different systems. We derive a simple expression for the spin measurement rate, which allows one to tune the electron spin precession frequency in an external magnetic field and spin relaxation time. We calculate the spin noise bispectrum, which reveals the qualitative change of the spin dynamics with an increase of the measurement strength and proves the quantum nature of the spin noise. We also calculate the quantum information gain rate and find the conditions when it equals the spin dephasing rate, i.e., reaches the quantum limit.

Cycling processes are important in many areas of physics ranging from lasers to topological insulators, often offering surprising insights into dynamical and structural aspects of the respective system. Here we report on a quantum-nonlinear wave-mixing experiment where resonant lasers and an optical cavity define a closed cycle between several ground and excited states of a single atom. We show that, for strong atom–cavity coupling and steady-state driving, the entanglement between the atomic states and intracavity photon number suppresses the excited-state population via quantum interference, effectively reducing the cycle to the atomic ground states. The system dynamics then result from transitions within a harmonic ladder of entangled dark states, one for each cavity photon number, and a quantum Zeno blockade that generates antibunching in the photons emitted from the cavity. The reduced cycle suppresses unwanted optical pumping into atomic states outside the cycle, thereby enhancing the number of emitted photons. The ability of optically dark states to protect against decoherence makes them useful for the generation of entangled photons. Here, a continuous stream of single photons is generated by a controllable quantum Zeno effect between entangled atom–photon states.

We consider strong two-body losses in bosonic gases trapped in one-dimensional optical lattices. We exploit the separation of time scales typical of a system in the many-body quantum Zeno regime to establish a connection with the theory of the time-dependent generalized Gibbs ensemble. Our main result is a simple set of rate equations that capture the simultaneous action of coherent evolution and two-body losses. This treatment gives an accurate description of the dynamics of a gas prepared in a Mott insulating state and shows that its long-time behaviour deviates significantly from mean-field analyses. The possibility of observing our predictions in an experiment with $^{174}$Yb in a metastable state is also discussed., Comment: 5 pages and 3 figures + Appendices

We study the effect of frequent projective measurements on the dynamics of quantum self-sustaining systems, by considering the prototypical example of the quantum Van der Pol oscillator. Quantum fluctuations are responsible for phase diffusion which progressively blurs the semiclassical limit cycle dynamics and synchronization, either to an external driving, or between two coupled self-sustained oscillators. We show that by subjecting the system to repeated measurements of heterodyne type at an appropriate repetition frequency one can significantly suppress phase diffusion without spoiling the semiclassical dynamics. This quantum Zeno-like effect may be effective either in the case of one or two coupled van der Pol oscillators, and we discuss its possible implementation in the case of trapped ions.

We study the Quantum Zeno Effect (QZE) induced by continuous partial measurement in the presence of short-correlated noise in the system Hamiltonian. We study the survival probability and the onset of the QZE as a function of the measurement strength, and find that, depending on the noise parameters, the quantum Zeno effect can be enhanced or suppressed by the noise in different regions of the parameter space. Notably, the conditions for the enhancement of the QZE are different when determined by the short-time or long-time behavior of the survival probability, or by the measurement strength marking the onset of the quantum Zeno regime., 9 pages, 4 figures

We report on theoretical and experimental study of the spin polarization recovery and Hanle effect for the charge carriers interacting with the fluctuating nuclear spins in the semiconductor structures. We start the theoretical description from the simplest model of static and isotropic nuclear spin fluctuations. Then we describe the modification of the polarization recovery and Hanle curves due to the anisotropy of the hyperfine interaction, finite nuclear spin correlation time, and the strong pulsed spin excitation. For the latter case, we describe the resonance spin amplification effect in the Faraday geometry and discuss the manifestations of the quantum Zeno effect. The set of the experimental results for various structures and experimental conditions is chosen to highlight the specific effects predicted theoretically. We show that the spin polarization recovery is a very valuable tool for addressing carrier spin dynamics in semiconductors and their nanostructures., Comment: 16 pages, 15 figures

In the paper, we propose a scheme for fast preparation of Bell state and W state based on quantum Zeno dynamics and shortcuts to adiabaticity with Rydberg superatom. The quantum information is encoded in the collective state of superatom which contains n individual ladder-type Rydberg atoms. When the Rabi frequencies of classical fields are appropriately regulated, the scheme can be achieved within one step. Moreover, the effects of imperfections induced by leakage of the cavity and atomic spontaneous emission are also taken into account. The numerical simulation result shows that this scheme is robust against both cavity leakage and atomic spontaneous emission.

We present a quantum eigenstate filtering algorithm based on quantum signal processing (QSP) and minimax polynomials. The algorithm allows us to efficiently prepare a target eigenstate of a given Hamiltonian, if we have access to an initial state with non-trivial overlap with the target eigenstate and have a reasonable lower bound for the spectral gap. We apply this algorithm to the quantum linear system problem (QLSP), and present two algorithms based on quantum adiabatic computing (AQC) and quantum Zeno effect respectively. Both algorithms prepare the final solution as a pure state, and achieves the near optimalO~(dκlog⁡(1/ϵ))query complexity for ad-sparse matrix, whereκis the condition number, andϵis the desired precision. Neither algorithm uses phase estimation or amplitude amplification.

It is well-known that, in science, several concepts that apply to an specific area of knowledge, may be borrowed by other areas of knowledge. Namely, resilience, reservoirs, evolution, etc. are concepts that may be used in social sciences, physics, biology and other sciences with complete sense. In this contribution I want to give some insights about some topics of quantum physics that could be used in social sciences.

This paper revives the controversial debate that has arisen over the last two decades about the possibility that the electromagnetic field affects the lifetime or the decay rate of an unstable particle. In this research, we show, by performing analytical calculations and extracting numerical results, that the pion lifetime can be changed notably by inserting the decaying pion into an electromagnetic field only if the number of photons transferred between the decaying system and the laser field does not reach the well-known sum-rule. The influence of the laser parameters on the decay rate and branching ratio is also discussed. The surprising result obtained for the pion lifetime is referred to as the well-known quantum Zeno effect.