Separability criteria via some classes of measurements

Mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) and symmetric informationally complete (SIC) positive operator-valued measurements (POVMs) are two related topics in quantum information theory. They are generalized to mutually unbiased measurements (MUMs) and general symmetric informationally complete (GSIC) measurements, respectively, that are both not necessarily rank 1. We study the quantum separability problem by using these measurements and present separability criteria for bipartite systems with arbitrary dimensions and multipartite systems of multi-level subsystems. These criteria are proved to be more effective than previous criteria especially when the dimensions of the subsystems are different. Furthermore, full quantum state tomography is not needed when these criteria are implemented in experiment.     

Quantum semi-Markov processes

We construct a large class of non-Markovian master equations that describe the dynamics of open quantum systems featuring strong memory effects, which relies on a quantum generalization of the concept of classical semi-Markov processes. General conditions for the complete positivity of the corresponding quantum dynamical maps are formulated. The resulting non-Markovian quantum processes allow the treatment of a variety of physical systems, as is illustrated by means of various examples and applications, including quantum optical systems and models of quantum transport.     

Interplay between classical and quantum signals: partial trace and measurement channels

We continue the study of similarities between quantum information theory and theory of classical Gaussian signals. The possibility of using quantum entropy for classical Gaussian signals was explored a long time ago. Recently we demonstrated that some basic quantum channels can be represented as linear transforms of classical Gaussian signals. Here we consider bipartite quantum systems and show that an important quantum channel given by the partial trace operation has a simple classical representation, namely, a coordinate projection of a classical “prequantum signal.” We also consider the classical signal realization of quantum channels corresponding to state transforms in the process of measurement. The latter induces a difficult interpretational problem — the output signal corresponding to one system depends on a measurement that has been done on the second system. This situation might be interpreted as a sign of quantum nonlocality, action at a distance. Although we do not exclude such a possibility, i.e., that, in complete accordance with Bell, the creation of a realistic prequantum model is impossible without action at a distance, we found another interpretation of this situation that is not related to quantum nonlocality.     

Contravariant densities, complete distancesand relative fidelities for quantum channels

Introducing contravariant trace densities for quantum states, we restore one-to-one correspondencebetween quantum operations described by normal CP maps and their trace densities as Hermitian-positive operator-valued contravariant kernels. The CB-norm distance between two quantum operations is explicitly expressed in terms of these densities as the supremum over the input states. A larger C-distance is given as the natural norm distance for the channel densities, and another, Helinger type complete distance (CH distance), related to the minimax mean square fidelity optimization problem by purification of quantum channels, is also introduced and evaluated in terms of their contravariant trace densities. It is proved that the CH distance between two channels is equivalent to the CB distance. An operational meaning for these distances and relative complete fidelity for quantum channels is given in terms of quantum encodings producing optimal entanglements of quantum states for an opposite and output systems.     

Fast quantum search driven by environmental engineering

Studies have demonstrated that a joined complete graph is a typical mathematical model that can support a fast quantum search. In this paper, we study the implementation of joined complete graphs in atomic systems and realize a quantum search of runtime $O(\sqrt{N})$ based on this implementation with a success probability of 50%. Even though the practical systems inevitably interact with the surrounding environment, we reveal that a successful quantum search can be realized through delicately engineering the environment itself. We consider that our study will bring about a feasible way to realize quantum information processing including quantum algorithms in reality.     

Deformation Quantization of a Certain Type of Open Systems

We give an approach to open quantum systems based on formal deformation quantization. It is shown that classical open systems of a certain type can be systematically quantized into quantum open systems preserving the complete positivity of the open time evolution. The usual example of linearly coupled harmonic oscillators is discussed.     

Deterministic chaos in entangled eigenstates

We investigate the problem of deterministic chaos in connection with entangled states using the Bohmian formulation of quantum mechanics. We show for a two particle system in a harmonic oscillator potential, that in a case of entanglement and three energy eigen-values the maximum Lyapunov-parameters of a representative ensemble of trajectories for large times develops to a narrow positive distribution, which indicates nearly complete chaotic dynamics. We also present in short results from two time-dependent systems, the anisotropic and the Rabi oscillator.     

Foundations of the quantum statistics of systems in equilibrium: A measuretheoretic approach

The fundamental equations of equilibrium quantum statistical mechanics are derived in the context of a measure-theoretic approach to the quantum mechanical ergodic problem. The method employed is an extension, to quantum mechanical systems, of the techniques developed by R. M. Lewis for establishing the foundations of classical statistical mechanics. The existence of a complete set of commuting observables is assumed, but no reference is made a priori to probability or statistical ensembles. Expressions for infinite-time averages in the microcanonical, canonical, and grand canonical ensembles are developed which reduce to conventional quantum statistical mechanics for systems in equilibrium when the total energy is the only conserved quantity. No attempt is made to extend the formalism at this time to deal with the difficult problem of the approach to equilibrium.     

Quantum speed limit for qubit systems: Exact results

Given an initial state, a target state, and a driving Hamiltonian, how fast can the initial state evolve into the target state according to the Schröchinger dynamics? This problem arises in a variety of contexts such as quantum computation, quantum control, and in particular, the problem of maximum information processing rate of quantum systems, and has been studied extensively due to its fundamental importance. In this paper, we purse further the study in the qubit case in which the particular structure admits stronger results. We use the quantum fidelity as well as relative entropy as a figure of merit to characterize the closeness between a fixed initial qubit state and another one undergoing unitary evolution. We work out explicitly maximal and minimal fidelity and relative entropy by determining the closest and the farthest states to the target state and show that these results are unique for qubit systems. We also determine the minimal time for a state to evolve to the extremal states (that is, the farthest one evolved from the initial state in the sense of minimal fidelity or maximal relative entropy), which generalizes the celebrated Mandelstam–Tamm bound and the Margolus–Levitin bound for qubit systems. We further reveal an interesting fact that this minimal time is independent of the initial states.     

Loss of entanglement in quantum mechanics due to the use of realistic measuring rods

We show that the use of real measuring rods in quantum mechanics places a fundamental gravitational limit to the level of entanglement that one can ultimately achieve in quantum systems. The result can be seen as a direct consequence of the fundamental gravitational limitations in the measurements of length and time in realistic physical systems. The effect may have implications for long distance teleportation and the measurement problem in quantum mechanics.     

Fractional recurrence in discrete-time quantum walk

Quantum recurrence theorem holds for quantum systems with discrete energy eigenvalues and fails to hold in general for systems with continuous energy. We show that during quantum walk process dominated by interference of amplitude corresponding to different paths fail to satisfy the complete quantum recurrence theorem. Due to the revival of the fractional wave packet, a fractional recurrence characterized using quantum Pólya number can be seen.     

Resolving the measurement problem: reply to Allen Stairs

We defend an account of quantum measurement as a species of selective interactions, an account that gets beyond the insolubility theorem to resolve the quantum measurement problem. In the course of the defense we propose a novel analysis of inexact measurements and discuss the problem of how to treat the states and selective interactions of composite systems.     

Wave attenuation model for dephasing and measurement of conditional times

Inelastic scattering induces dephasing in mesoscopic systems. An analysis of previous models to simulate inelastic scattering in such systems is presented and a relatively new model based on wave attenuation is introduced. The problem of Aharonov-Bohm (AB) oscillations in conductance of a mesoscopic ring is studied. We show that the conductance is symmetric under flux reversal and the visibility of AB oscillations decays to zero as a function of the incoherence parameter, signaling dephasing. Further the wave attenuation model is applied to a fundamental problem in quantum mechanics, that of the conditional (reflection/transmission) times spent in a given region of space by a quantum particle before scattering off from that region.     

Operational representation of quantum states based on interference

We describe a real-valued and periodic representation of quantum states. This representation can be defined operationally using generalized position and momentum measurements on coupled systems. It turns out that the emerging quantum interference terms encode the complete state information and also allow us to formulate quantum dynamics. We discuss the close connection to the theory of analytic functions.     

Device-independent tests of classical and quantum dimensions

We address the problem of testing the dimensionality of classical and quantum systems in a "black-box" scenario. We develop a general formalism for tackling this problem. This allows us to derive lower bounds on the classical dimension necessary to reproduce given measurement data. Furthermore, we generalize the concept of quantum dimension witnesses to arbitrary quantum systems, allowing one to place a lower bound on the Hilbert space dimension necessary to reproduce certain data. Illustrating these ideas, we provide simple examples of classical and quantum dimension witnesses.     

Entanglement sudden death in qubit-qutrit systems

We demonstrate the existence of entanglement sudden death (ESD), the complete loss of entanglement in finite time, in qubit-qutrit systems. In particular, ESD is shown to occur in such systems initially prepared in a one-parameter class of entangled mixed states and then subjected to local dephasing noise. Together with previous results, this proves the existence of ESD for some states in all quantum systems for which rigorously defined mixed-state entanglement measures have been identified. We conjecture that ESD exists in all quantum systems prepared in appropriate bipartite states.     

Imprinting complete information about a quantum channel on its output state

We introduce a novel property of bipartite quantum states, which we call faithfulness, and we say that a state is faithful when acting with a channel on one of the two quantum systems; the output state carries complete information about the channel. The concept of faithfulness can also be extended to sets of states, when the output states altogether carry a complete imprinting of the channel. Measures of degrees of faithfulness are proposed.     

Harnessing symmetry to control quantum transport

Controlling transport in quantum systems holds the key to many promising quantum technologies. Here we review the power of symmetry as a resource to manipulate quantum transport and apply these ideas to engineer novel quantum devices. Using tools from open quantum systems and large deviation theory, we show that symmetry-mediated control of transport is enabled by a pair of twin dynamic phase transitions in current statistics, accompanied by a coexistence of different transport channels. By playing with the symmetry decomposition of the initial state, one can modulate the importance of the different transport channels and hence control the flowing current. Motivated by the problem of energy harvesting, we illustrate these ideas in open quantum networks, an analysis that leads to the design of a symmetry-controlled quantum thermal switch. We review an experimental setup recently proposed for symmetry-mediated quantum control in the lab based on a linear array of atom-doped optical cavities, and the possibility of using transport as a probe to uncover hidden symmetries, as recently demonstrated in molecular junctions, is also discussed. Other symmetry-mediated control mechanisms are also described. Overall, these results demonstrate the importance of symmetry not only as an organizing principle in physics but also as a tool to control quantum systems.     

Complete reduction of integrals in two-loop five-light-parton scattering amplitudes

We reduce all the most complicated Feynman integrals in two-loop five-light-parton scattering amplitudes to basic master integrals, while other integrals can be reduced even easier. Our results are expressed as systems of linear relations in the block-triangular form, very efficient for numerical calculations. Our results are crucial for complete next-to-next-to-leading order quantum chromodynamics calculations for three-jet, photon, and/or hadron production at hadron colliders. To determine the block-triangular relations, we develop an efficient and general method, which may provide a practical solution to the bottleneck problem of reducing multiloop multiscale integrals.