Heterodyne measurement of Wigner distributions for classical optical fields

We demonstrate a two-window heterodyne method for measuring the x-p cross correlation, ??(*)(x)? (p)?, of an optical field ? for transverse position x and transverse momentum p. This scheme permits independent control of the x and p resolution. A simple linear transform of the x-p correlation function yields the Wigner phase-space distribution. This technique is useful for both coherent and low-coherence light sources and may permit new biological imaging techniques based on transverse coherence measurement with time gating. We point out an interesting analogy between x-p correlation measurements for classical-wave and quantum fields.     

Dicke模型的量子混沌和单粒子相干动力学特性

量子化的Dicke模型在非旋波近似条件下表现为量子混沌动力学特征.利用单粒子一阶时间关联函数,通过数值计算详细考察了Dicke模型中单粒子相干动力学特性.结果表明:当初始相干态处在混沌区域时,一阶时间关联函数曲线衰减较快,而当初始相干态处在规则区域时,一阶时间关联函数曲线衰减较慢,单粒子相干动力学对初态具有较强的敏感性,经典混沌抑制量子相干.考察单粒子相干动力学在相空间的平均演化性质,得到一种较好的量子经典对应关系.最后研究了相空间单粒子相干的整体动力学性质,更好地揭示了相空间的混沌和规则结构.     

与XY双自旋链耦合的双量子比特系统的关联性与相干性

研究了双量子比特系统中在具有Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya相互作用的独立XY自旋链环境下的相干性与关联性动力学.推导出相干性与关联性的演化规律.发现在自旋链的临界点附近,当tt_0时,系统相干性的演化与经典关联完全相同;而在tt_0时,则与量子关联完全相同;在t_0时刻,量子关联突变为经典关联.     

Decoherence for a two-qubit system in a spin-chain environment

The quantum coherence and correlation dynamics for a two-qubit system in the Ising spin-chain environment are studied. A sudden change of coherence is found near the critical point, which provides us with an effective way to detect the quantum phase transition. By studying the relationship between quantum discord and coherence, we find that coherence displays the behavior of classical correlation for t t_0, and of quantum discord for t t_0, where t_0 is the time-point of a sudden transition between classical and quantum decoherence.     

Cover Picture: Fortschritte der Physik 8 / 2009

The cover page of 2009 shows high‐resolution interference “quantum carpet” patterns for the momentum wave function of an interacting Bose‐Einstein condensate (BEC). As time progresses (from back to front), the many‐body mean field interaction of the BEC first leads to a broadening of the wave function, but then also to a time‐varying interference structure by inducing site‐dependent nonlinear phase shifts when the BEC is confined in a spatially periodic potential. Imaging the wave function in momentum space for different times leads to a pattern that one reminds of a carefully woven carpet and is hence termed “quantum carpet”. Quantum carpets beautifully demonstrate the surprisingly high matter wave coherence of particle‐particle interactions in the zero‐temperature limit.     

Generation of light carrying orbital angular momentum via induced coherence grating in cold atoms

We report on the generation of light carrying orbital angular momentum through Bragg diffraction into an electromagnetically induced coherence grating in a degenerate two-level system of cold cesium atoms. The induced Zeeman coherence grating is shown to contain the spatial phase structure of the incident beams. The exchange of phase information between a light beam with orbital angular momentum and a long-lived atomic coherence opens up the way to process quantum information encoded in a multidimensional state space.     

Quantum coherence and correlation dynamics of two-qubit system in spin bath environment

The quantum entanglement,discord,and coherence dynamics of two spins in the model of a spin coupled to a spin bath through an intermediate spin are studied.The effects of the important physical parameters including the coupling strength of two spins,the interaction strength between the intermediate spin and the spin bath,the number of bath spins and the temperature of the system on quantum coherence and correlation dynamics are discussed in different cases.The frozen quantum discord can be observed whereas coherence does not when the initial state is the Bell-diagonal state.At finite temperature,we find that coherence is more robust than quantum discord,which is better than entanglement,in terms of resisting the influence of environment.Therefore,quantum coherence is more tenacious than quantum correlation as an important resource.     

Coherence length of cold exciton gases in coupled quantum wells

A Mach-Zehnder interferometer with spatial and spectral resolution was used to probe spontaneous coherence in cold exciton gases, which are implemented experimentally in the ring of indirect excitons in coupled quantum wells. A strong enhancement of the exciton coherence length is observed at temperatures below a few Kelvin. The increase of the coherence length is correlated with the macroscopic spatial ordering of excitons. The coherence length at the lowest temperature corresponds to a very narrow spread of the exciton momentum distribution, much smaller than that for a classical exciton gas.     

从离散Wigner函数的角度探讨量子相干性度量

量子相干性是量子信息处理的基本要素,在量子计算中扮演着重要的角色.为了便于讨论量子相干性在量子计算中的作用,本文从离散Wigner函数角度对量子相干性进行了探讨.首先对奇素数维量子系统的离散Wigner函数进行了分析,分离出表征相干性的部分,提出了一种可能的基于离散Wigner函数的量子相干性度量方法,并对其进行了量子相干性度量规范的分析;同时也比较了该度量与l_1范数相干性度量之间的关系.重要的是,这种度量方法能够明确给出量子相干性程度与衡量量子态量子计算加速能力的负性和之间不等式关系,由此可以解析地解释量子相干性仅是量子计算加速的必要条件.     

Fiber-based source of photon pairs at telecom band with high temporal coherence and brightness for quantum information processing

We experimentally demonstrate a bright pulsed source of correlated photon pairs at the 1550 nm telecom band by pumping 300 m dispersion-shifted fiber with a 4 ps pulse train. We investigate the coherence property of the source by measuring the second-order intensity correlation function g(2) of individual signal (idler) photons. A preliminary Hong-Ou-Mandel-type two-photon interference experiment with two such sources confirms the high temporal and spatial coherence of the source. The source is suitable for multiphoton quantum interference of independent sources, which is required in quantum information processing.     

Theory of decoherence due to scattering events and Lévy processes

A general connection between the characteristic function of a Lévy process and loss of coherence of the statistical operator describing the center of mass degrees of freedom of a quantum system interacting through momentum transfer events with an environment is established. The relationship with microphysical models and recent experiments is considered, focusing on the recently observed transition between a dynamics described by a compound Poisson process and a Gaussian process.     

An Operator Method of the Theory of Optical Coherence and Radiometry

This paper presents a quantum mechanical formalism of the classical coherence theory, within which the generalized radiance function defined in the time domain is regarded as a phase space representative of a time-dependent correlation operator of a polychromatic field. The theory deals with both stationary and nonstationary fields and, for a stationary field, provides a new operator formalism of the usual theory of optical coherence developed in the space-frequency domain. New results include an operator representation of the mutual coherence function, an operator version of the Wiener-Khintchine theorem, and an operator theorem that projects the correlation operator of a polychromatic field onto a particular spectral component. As illustrative examples, the previous formulas regarding the relationship between temporal coherence and spatial coherence, and the relationship between spectral properties and coherence properties are derived from the new operator formulas. The correspondence of the present formalism to the usual formalism using Dirac notation to describe the propagation of a stationary, partially coherent, quasi-monochromatic field is also considered.     

Bragg scattering as a probe of atomic wave functions and quantum phase transitions in optical lattices

We have observed Bragg scattering of photons from quantum degenerate ^{87}Rb atoms in a three-dimensional optical lattice. Bragg scattered light directly probes the microscopic crystal structure and atomic wave function whose position and momentum width is Heisenberg limited. The spatial coherence of the wave function leads to revivals in the Bragg scattered light due to the atomic Talbot effect. The decay of revivals across the superfluid to Mott insulator transition indicates the loss of superfluid coherence.     

Coherence migration in high-dimensional bipartite systems

The conservation law for first-order coherence and mutual correlation of a bipartite qubit state was firstly proposed by Svozilík et al., and their theories laid the foundation for the study of coherence migration under unitary transformations. In this paper, we generalize the framework of first-order coherence and mutual correlation to an arbitrary (m $\otimes$ n)-dimensional bipartite composite state by introducing an extended Bloch decomposition form of the state. We also generalize two kinds of unitary operators in high-dimensional systems, which can bring about coherence migration and help to obtain the maximum or minimum first-order coherence. Meanwhile, the coherence migration in open quantum systems is investigated. We take depolarizing channels as examples and establish that the reduced first-order coherence of the principal system over time is completely transformed into mutual correlation of the (2 $\otimes$ 4)-dimensional system-environment bipartite composite state. It is expected that our results may provide a valuable idea or method for controlling the quantum resource such as coherence and quantum correlations.     

Using Nonlocal Coherence to Quantify Quantum Correlation

We reexamine quantum correlation from the fundamental perspective of its consanguineous quantum property, the coherence. We emphasize the importance of specifying the tensor product structure of the total state space before discussing quantum correlation. A measure of quantum correlation for arbitrary dimension bipartite states using nonlocal coherence is proposed, and it can be easily generalized to the multipartite case. The quantification of non-entangled component within quantum correlation is investigated for certain states.     

Off-diagonal long-range order coherence,quantum chaos and nonself-averaging of the excitation function oscillations in dissipative heavy-ion collisions

We support a recent suggestion that the exit microchannel correlation in dissipative heavy-ion collisions indicates the off-diagonal long-range order coherence and quantum chaos. Such a correlation is revealed in the nonself-averaging of the excitation function oscillations observed in dissipative heavy-ion collisions. We present the results of an analysis of the data to demonstrate this correlation, and discuss a possible interconnection between quantum coherent motion and macroscopic phenomena.     

Spin manipulation of free two-dimensional electrons in Si/SiGe quantum wells

Understanding the mechanisms controlling the spin coherence of electrons in semiconductors is essential for designing structures for quantum computing applications. Using a pulsed electron paramagnetic resonance spectrometer, we measure spin echoes and deduce a spin coherence time (T2) of up to 3 mus for an ensemble of free two-dimensional electrons confined in a Si/SiGe quantum well. The decoherence can be understood in terms of momentum scattering causing fluctuating effective Rashba fields. Further confining the electrons into a nondegenerate (other than spin) ground state of a quantum dot can be expected to eliminate this decoherence mechanism.     

Atmospheric turbulence and orbital angular momentum of single photons for optical communication

The effects of propagation through random aberrations on coherence for single-photon communication systems based on orbital angular momentum states are quantified. A rotational coherence function is derived which leads to scattering equations for azimuthal modes of different orbital angular momentum states. The effect on a single-photon communication system is quantified using the channel capacity. The work shows that the decoherence effect of atmospheric turbulence on such systems is important even for weak turbulence.     

Measurements of the vertical coherence length in neutron interferometry

The study and use of macroscopic quantum coherence requires long coherence lengths. Here we describe an approach to measuring the vertical coherence length in neutron interferometry, along with improvements to the NIST interferometer that led to a measured coherence length of 790 A. The measurement is based on introducing a path separation and measuring the loss in contrast as this separation is increased. The measured coherence length is consistent with the momentum distribution of the neutron beam. Finally, we demonstrate that the loss in contrast with beam displacement in one leg of the interferometer can be recovered by introducing a corresponding displacement in the second leg.     

Quantum Coherence and Correlation in Spin Models with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction

We study quantum coherence and quantum correlation for detecting quantum phase transition (QPT) by means of quantum renormalization group (QRG) in various spin chain models with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction, including XXZ model with DM interaction, Ising model with DM interaction and XY model with DM interaction. It is found that through enough QRG iterations, l ₁ norm quantum coherence and one-norm geometric quantum discord can effectively characterize QPT. We also discuss the effect of DM interaction and anisotropy on quantum coherence and quantum correlation.