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We propose a scheme leveraging reinforcement learning to engineer control fields for generating non-classical states. It is exemplified by the application to prepare spin-squeezed states for an open collective spin model where a linear control field is designed to govern the dynamics. The reinforcement learning agent determines the temporal sequence of control pulses, commencing from a coherent spin state in an environment characterized by dissipation and dephasing. Compared to the constant control scenario, this approach provides various control sequences maintaining collective spin squeezing and entanglement. It is observed that denser application of the control pulses enhances the performance of the outcomes. However, there is a minor enhancement in the performance by adding control actions. The proposed strategy demonstrates increased effectiveness for larger systems. Thermal excitations of the reservoir are detrimental to the control outcomes. Feasible experiments are suggested to implement this control proposal based on the comparison with the others. The extensions to continuous control problems and another quantum system are discussed. The replaceability of the reinforcement learning module is also emphasized. This research paves the way for its application in manipulating other quantum systems.

As the simplest and most fundamental model describing the interaction between light and matter, a breakdown in the rotating wave approximation of the Rabi model leads to phase transition versus coupling strength when the frequency of the qubit greatly surpasses that of the oscillator. Besides the phase transition revealed in the ground state, we show that the dynamics of physical quantities can reflect such a phase transition for this model. In addition to the excitation of the bosonic field in the ground state, we show that the witness of inseparability (entanglement), mutual information, quantum Fisher information, and the variance of cavity quadrature can be employed to detect the phase transition in quench. We also reveal the negative impact of temperature on checking the phase transition by quench. This model can be implemented using trapped ions, superconducting artificial atoms coupled bosonic modes, and quantum simulations. By reflecting the phase transition in a fundamental quantum optics model without imposing the thermodynamic limit, this work offers an idea to explore phase transitions by non-equilibrium process for open quantum systems.

We focus on the dynamical feature for a $p$-wave superconductor model in different parameter regions in terms of the appearance of gapless edge modes in reel geometry. Firstly, we show the parameter region with gapless edge modes versus a parameter and quasi-momentum. The parameter diagram can be reflected by the expectations of Pauli matrices in global manners. In another view, the dynamical feature of the excitation behave differently in the parameter regions with topological gapless edge modes and not. And the cusps of dynamical return rate vanish as the parameter pass the boundary in the parameter region slowly enough. It is found that the dynamics in the parameter region with gapless edge modes behaves differently to that without edge modes and related mostly to the eigenenergy gap between the pre-and post-quench eigenstates. The cusps of the dynamical return rate behave robustly against the noise in the lattice until localization behavior dominates. This work benefits detecting topological edge modes by dynamical manners.

Non-Hermiticity enriches the contents of topological classification of matter including exceptional points, bulk-edge correspondence and skin effect. Gain and loss can be described by imaginary diagonal elements in Hamiltonians and the topological phase transition for a crosslinked chain in the presence of such non-Hermiticity is investigated in this work. We obtain the phase diagram in term of a winding number analytically. The boundaries of the phases coincide with the surfaces of exceptional points in the parameter space. The topologically original edge states locating mainly at the joints between domains of different phases hold on even for the long chain. The non-Hermitian topological feature can also be reflected by vortex structures in the vector fields of complex eigenenergies and expected values of Pauli matrices or the trajectories of these quantities. This model can be implemented in coupled waveguides or photonic crystals. And the edge states are immune to various kinds of disorders until the topological phase transition occurs. This work benefits our insight into the influence of gain and loss on the topological phase of matter.

We present an early-phase $g$-band light curve and visual-wavelength spectra of the normal Type Ia supernova (SN) 2013gy. The light curve is constructed by determining the appropriate S-corrections to transform KAIT natural-system $B$- and $V$-band photometry and Carnegie Supernova Project natural-system $g$-band photometry to the Pan-STARRS1 $g$-band natural photometric system. A Markov Chain Monte Carlo calculation provides a best-fit single power-law function to the first ten epochs of photometry described by an exponent of $2.16^{+0.06}_{-0.06}$ and a time of first light of MJD 56629.4$^{+0.1}_{-0.1}$, which is $1.93^{+0.12}_{-0.13}$ days (i.e., $<48$~hr) before the discovery date (2013 December 4.84 UT) and $-19.10^{+0.12}_{-0.13}$ days before the time of $B$-band maximum (MJD 56648.5$\pm0.1$). The estimate of the time of first light is consistent with the explosion time inferred from the evolution of the Si II $\lambda$6355 Doppler velocity. Furthermore, discovery photometry and previous nondetection limits enable us to constrain the companion radius down to $R_c \leq 4\,R_{\odot}$. In addition to our early-time constraints, we use a deep +235 day nebular-phase spectrum from Magellan/IMACS to place a stripped H-mass limit of $< 0.018\,M_{\odot}$. Combined, these limits effectively rule out H-rich nondegenerate companions.

We propose an iterative proposal to estimate critical points for statistical models based on configurations by combing machine-learning tools. Firstly, phase scenarios and preliminary boundaries of phases are obtained by dimensionality-reduction techniques. Besides, this step not only provides labelled samples for the subsequent step but also is necessary for its application to novel statistical models. Secondly, making use of these samples as training set, neural networks are employed to assign labels to those samples between the phase boundaries in an iterative manner. Newly labelled samples would be put in the training set used in subsequent training and the phase boundaries would be updated as well. The average of the phase boundaries is expected to converge to the critical temperature in this proposal. In concrete examples, we implement this proposal to estimate the critical temperatures for two q-state Potts models with continuous and first order phase transitions. Linear and manifold dimensionality-reduction techniques are employed in the first step. Both a convolutional neural network and a bidirectional recurrent neural network with long short-term memory units perform well for two Potts models in the second step. The convergent behaviors of the estimations reflect the types of phase transitions. And the results indicate that our proposal may be used to explore phase transitions for new general statistical models., Comment: We focus on the iterative strategy but not the concrete tools like specific dimension-reduction techniques, CNN and BLSTM in this work. Other machine-learning tools with similar functions may be applied to new statistical models with this proposal

We show the localization transition and its effect on two dynamical processes for an extended Aubry-Andr\'e-Harper model with incommensurate on-site and hopping potentials. After specifying an extended Aubry-Andr\'e-Harper model, we check the localization transition for all the eigenstates and eigenenergy band splitting behavior versus a system parameter. To examine the effect of localization transition on dynamical processes, firstly, the slowly pumping of the edge states are examined. In the dynamical processes, the system acts as conductor for the excitation in the nonlocal region and insulator in the localized region. Then by quantum Lyapunov control method with different control Hamiltonians, we prepare an edge localized state which exists in the nonlocal region. Compared to that in the nonlocal region, the control effect is suppressed in the localized region. Then we employ the entropy and occupation imbalance between even and odd sites to indicate the localization transition further. Finally, the experimental schemes based on cold atoms trapped quasiperiodic optical lattice and coupled optical waveguide arrays are suggested.

By introducing loss to one sublattice of a dimer chain described by the extended Aubry-Andr\'e or Harper (AAH) model, we study the topological features including the edge states, spectrum and winding number of the chain. We find that the parameter region for the system to have real band-gap-closing is increased due to the loss, and the average displacement of the single excitation can still witness the topological features of the chain in the presence of loss. The robustness of the zero energy eigenstate against four kinds of disorders is also examined. A feasible experiment setup based on coupled waveguides to observe the prediction of this paper is proposed.

Quantum Lyapunov control uses a feedback control methodology to determine control fields which are applied to control quantum systems in an open-loop way. In this work, we adopt two Lyapunov control schemes to prepare an edge state for a fermionic chain consisted of cold atoms loaded in an optical lattice. Such a chain can be described by the Harper model. Corresponding to the two schemes, state distance and state error Lyapunov functions are considered. The results show that both the schemes are effective to prepare the edge state within a wide range of parameters. We found that the edge state can be prepared with high fidelity even \textbf{if} there are moderate fluctuations in on-site or hopping potentials. Both control schemes can be extended to similar chains (3$m+d$, $d$=2) of different lengths. Since regular amplitude control field is easier to apply in practice, amplitude-modulated control fields are used to replace the unmodulated one to prepare the edge state. Such control approaches provide tools to explore edge states for one dimensional topological materials.

Taking the decoherence into account, we investigate nonclassical features of the optical Schr\"odinger cat states in one mode and two coupled-modes systems with two-photon driving. In the one mode system, the relationship between the Schr\"odinger cat states and the system parameters is derived. We observe that in the presence of single-photon decay the steady states would be a mixture of Schr\"odinger cats. The dynamics and steady states of such a cat versus single-photon decay are examined. In the two coupled-modes cases with linear and nonlinear couplings, the dynamics of entanglement and mutual information are examined with two different initial states and single-photon decay. Compared to the linear coupling case, more complicated structure appears in the Wigner function in the nonlinear coupling case. The joint quadrature distributions are also explored. Such nonclassical states can be used not only in exploring the boundary between the classical and the quantum worlds but also in quantum metrology and quantum information processing.

In this paper, we apply the polaron master equation, which offers the possibilities to interpolate between weak and strong system-bath coupling, to study how system-bath couplings affect charge transfer processes in Photosystem II reaction center (PSII RC) inspired quantum heat engine (QHE) model in a wide parameter range. The effects of bath correlation and temperature, together with the combined effects of these factors are also discussed in details. The results show a variety of dynamical behaviours. We interpret these results in terms of noise-assisted transport effect and dynamical localization which correspond to two mechanisms underpinning the transfer process in photosynthetic complexes: One is resonance energy transfer and the other is dynamical localization effect captured by the polaron master equation. The effects of system-bath coupling and bath correlation are incorporated in the effective system-bath coupling strength determining whether noise-assisted transport effect or dynamical localization dominates the dynamics and temperature modulates the balance of the two mechanisms. Furthermore, these two mechanisms can be attributed to one physical origin: bath-induced fluctuations. The two mechanisms is manifestations of dual role played by bath-induced fluctuations within respective parameter range. In addition, we find that the effec- tive voltage of QHE exhibits superior robustness with respect to the bath noise as long as the system-coupling strength is not too large.

Based on the Lyapunov control, we present a scheme to realize state transfer with high fidelity by only modulating the boundary spins in a quantum spin-1/2 chain. Recall that the conventional transmission protocols aim at nonstationary state (or information) transfer from the first spin to the end spin at a fixed time. The present scheme possesses the following advantages. First, the scheme does not require precise manipulations of the control time. Second, it is robust against uncertainties in the initial states and fluctuations in the control fields. Third, the controls are exerted only on the boundary sites of the chain. It works for variable spin-1/2 chains with different periodic structures and has good scalability. The feasibility to replace the control fields by square pules is explored, which simplifies the realization in experiments.

Understanding the mechanisms of efficient and robust energy transfer in organic systems provides us with new insights for the optimal design of artificial systems. In this paper, we explore the dynamics of excitation energy transfer (EET) through a complex quantum network by a toy model consisting of three sites coupled to environments. We study how the coherent evolution and the noise-induced decoherence work together to reach efficient EET and illustrate the role of the phase factor attached to the coupling constant in the EET. By comparing the differences between the Markovian and non-Markovian dynamics, we discuss the effect of environment and the spatial structure of system on the dynamics and the efficiency of EET. A intuitive picture is given to show how the exciton is transferred through the system. Employing the simple model, we show the robustness of EET efficiency under the influence of the environment and elucidate the important role of quantum coherence in EET. We go further to study the quantum feature of the EET dynamics by {\it quantumness} and show the importance of quantum coherence from a new respect. We calculate the energy current in the EET and its quantumness, results for different system parameters are presented and discussed., Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures

By Lyapunov control, we present a proposal to drive quasi-particles into a topological mode in quantum systems described by a quadratic Hamiltonian. The merit of this control is the individual manipulations on the boundary sites. We take the Kitaev's chain as an illustration for Fermi systems and show that an arbitrary excitation mode can be steered into the Majorana zero mode by manipulating the chemical potential of the boundary sites. For Bose systems, taking the noninteracting Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model as an example, we illustrate how to drive the system into the edge mode. The sensitivity of the fidelity to perturbations and uncertainties in the control fields and initial modes is also examined. The experimental feasibility of the proposal and the possibility to replace the continuous control field with square wave pulses is finally discussed., Comment: 15 pages; 11 figures

A series of high-quality La2-xSrxCuO4 (LSCO) superconductor crystals in the under-doping region with x = 0.063, 0.07, 0.09, 0.10, 0.111 and 0.125 has been successfully prepared by traveling-solvent floating-zone (TSFZ) technique. The crystals are large and free of sub-grains and foreign phases. The high crystal quality has been revealed by double-crystal x-ray rocking curves and Rutherford backscattering spectrometry combined with ion-beam channeling effect. We find that the evolutions of the superconducting transition width and volume fraction as a function of carrier concentration exhibit interesting anomalies in the vicinity of some magic number doping levels such as x =1/4^2 (=0.0625) and 1/3^2 (=0.111). We argue that these behaviours are of intrinsic electronic origin., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to be published on Superconductor Science and Technology