Topological entanglement entropy

We formulate a universal characterization of the many-particle quantum entanglement in the ground state of a topologically ordered two-dimensional medium with a mass gap. We consider a disk in the plane, with a smooth boundary of length L, large compared to the correlation length. In the ground state, by tracing out all degrees of freedom in the exterior of the disk, we obtain a marginal density operator rho for the degrees of freedom in the interior. The von Neumann entropy of rho, a measure of the entanglement of the interior and exterior variables, has the form S(rho) = alphaL - gamma + ..., where the ellipsis represents terms that vanish in the limit L --> infinity. We show that - gamma is a universal constant characterizing a global feature of the entanglement in the ground state. Using topological quantum field theory methods, we derive a formula for gamma in terms of properties of the superselection sectors of the medium.     

Transition from Abelian to non-Abelian FQHE states

We study the transition from the Abelian multi-component (3, 3, 1) quantum Hall state to the non-Abelian one component Pfaffian state in bilayer two dimensional electron systems. We show that tunneling between layers can induce this transition. At the transition points part of the degrees of freedom that describe the (3, 3, 1) state disappear from the spectrum, and the system is correctly described by the Pfaffian state, with quasi-particles that satisfy non-Abelian statistics. The mechanism described in this work provides for a physical Hamiltonian interpretation of the algebraic projection from the (3, 3, 1) to the Pfaffian state that has been discussed in the literature. Received 12 September 2000     

Bridge between Abelian and non-Abelian fractional quantum Hall states

We propose a scheme to construct the most prominent Abelian and non-Abelian fractional quantum Hall states from K-component Halperin wave functions. In order to account for a one-component quantum Hall system, these SU(K) colors are distributed over all particles by an appropriate symmetrization. Numerical calculations corroborate the picture that K-component Halperin wave functions may be a common basis for both Abelian and non-Abelian trial wave functions in the study of one-component quantum Hall systems.     

Topological quantum liquids with quaternion non-Abelian statistics

Noncollinear magnetic order is typically characterized by a tetrad ground state manifold (GSM) of three perpendicular vectors or nematic directors. We study three types of tetrad orders in two spatial dimensions, whose GSMs are SO(3) = S(3)/Z(2), S(3)/Z(4), and S(3)/Q(8), respectively. Q(8) denotes the non-Abelian quaternion group with eight elements. We demonstrate that after quantum disordering these three types of tetrad orders, the systems enter fully gapped liquid phases described by Z(2), Z(4), and non-Abelian quaternion gauge field theories, respectively. The latter case realizes Kitaev's non-Abelian toric code in terms of a rather simple spin-1 SU(2) quantum magnet. This non-Abelian topological phase possesses a 22-fold ground state degeneracy on the torus arising from the 22 representations of the Drinfeld double of Q(8).     

Topological Quantum Field Theory on non-Abelian gerbes

The infinitesimal symmetries of a fully decomposed non-Abelian gerbe can be generated in terms of a nilpotent BRST operator, which is here constructed. The appearing fields find a natural interpretation in terms of the universal gerbe, a generalisation of the universal bundle. We comment on the construction of observables in the arising Topological Quantum Field Theory. It is also shown how the BRST operator and the trace part of a suitably truncated set of fields on the non-Abelian gerbe reduce directly to the coboundary operator and the pertinent cochains of the underlying ?ech–de Rham complex.     

Topological degeneracy of non-Abelian states for dummies

We present a physical construction of degenerate groundstates of the Moore-Read Pfaffian states, which exhibits non-Abelian statistics, on general Riemann surface with genus g. The construction is given by a generalization of the recent argument [M.O., T. Senthil, Phys. Rev. Lett. 96 (2006) 060601] which relates fractionalization and topological order. The nontrivial groundstate degeneracy obtained by Read and Green [Phys. Rev. B 61 (2000) 10267] based on differential geometry is reproduced exactly. Some restrictions on the statistics, due to the fractional charge of the quasiparticle are also discussed. Furthermore, the groundstate degeneracy of the p + ip superconductor in two dimensions, which is closely related to the Pfaffian states, is discussed with a similar construction.     

Field theoretic description of the Abelian and non-Abelian Josephson effect

We formulate the Josephson effect in a field theoretic language which affords a straightforward generalization to the non-Abelian case. Our formalism interprets Josephson tunneling as the excitation of pseudo Goldstone bosons. We demonstrate the formalism through the consideration of a single junction separating two regions with a purely non-Abelian order parameter and a sandwich of three regions where the central region is in a distinct phase. Applications to various non-Abelian symmetry breaking systems in particle and condensed matter physics are given.     

Simulating Dirac fermions with Abelian and non-Abelian gauge fields in optical lattices

In this work we present an optical lattice setup to realize a full Dirac Hamiltonian in 2+1 dimensions. We show how all possible external potentials coupled to the Dirac field can arise from perturbations of the existing couplings of the honeycomb lattice pattern. This greatly simplifies the proposed implementations, requiring only spatial modulations of the intensity of the laser beams to induce complex non-Abelian potentials. We finally suggest several experiments to observe the properties of the quantum field theory in the setup.     

Topological estimator of block entanglement for Heisenberg antiferromagnets

We introduce a computable estimator of block entanglement entropy for many-body spin systems admitting total singlet ground states. Building on a simple geometrical interpretation of entanglement entropy of the so-called valence bond states, this estimator is defined as the average number of common singlets to two subsystems of spins. We show that our estimator possesses the characteristic scaling properties of the block entanglement entropy in critical and noncritical one-dimensional Heisenberg systems. We invoke this new measure to examine entanglement scaling in the two-dimensional Heisenberg model on a square lattice revealing an "area law" for the gapped phase and a logarithmic correction to this law in the gapless phase.     

Topological and geometrical entanglement in a model of circular DNA undergoing denaturation

The linking number (topological entanglement) and the writhe (geometrical entanglement) of a model of circular double stranded DNA undergoing a thermal denaturation transition are investigated by Monte Carlo simulations. By allowing the linking number to fluctuate freely in equilibrium we see that the linking probability undergoes an abrupt variation (first-order) at the denaturation transition, and stays close to 1 in the whole native phase. The average linking number is almost zero in the denatured phase and grows as the square root of the chain length, N, in the native phase. The writhe of the two strands grows as in both phases. Received 8 May 2002 Published online 13 August 2002     

Collective excitation and photon entanglement in double-$sf Lambda $ atomic ensemble

We investigate a double-Λ atomic ensemble trapped in a cavity and deduce the five species of polaritons. By analysing the analytic expression, we show the exchange of the two mode fields as well as frequency conversion. By studying the entanglement between the two mode fields, we exhibit the role of the five species of polaritons in entanglement creation. We also show the influence of the field and atomic decay on entanglement.     

Topological order,entanglement, and quantum memory at finite temperature

We compute the topological entropy of the toric code models in arbitrary dimension at finite temperature. We find that the critical temperatures for the existence of full quantum (classical) topological entropy correspond to the confinement–deconfinement transitions in the corresponding ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ gauge theories. This implies that the thermal stability of topological entropy corresponds to the stability of quantum (classical) memory. The implications for the understanding of ergodicity breaking in topological phases are discussed.     

Quantum gates and multiparticle entanglement by Rydberg excitation blockade and adiabatic passage

We propose to apply stimulated adiabatic passage to transfer atoms from their ground state into Rydberg excited states. Atoms a few micrometers apart experience a dipole-dipole interaction among Rydberg states that is strong enough to shift the atomic resonance and inhibit excitation of more than a single atom. We show that the adiabatic passage in the presence of this interaction between two atoms leads to robust creation of maximally entangled states and to two-bit quantum gates. For many atoms, the excitation blockade leads to an effective implementation of collective-spin and Jaynes-Cummings-like Hamiltonians, and we show that the adiabatic passage can be used to generate collective J_{x}=0 eigenstates and Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states of tens of atoms.     

Skein theory and topological quantum registers: Braiding matrices and topological entanglement entropy of non-Abelian quantum Hall states

We study topological properties of quasi-particle states in the non-Abelian quantum Hall states. We apply a skein-theoretic method to the Read-Rezayi state whose effective theory is the SU(2)_K Chern-Simons theory. As a generalization of the Pfaffian (K = 2) and the Fibonacci (K = 3) anyon states, we compute the braiding matrices of quasi-particle states with arbitrary spins. Furthermore we propose a method to compute the entanglement entropy skein-theoretically. We find that the entanglement entropy has a nontrivial contribution called the topological entanglement entropy which depends on the quantum dimension of non-Abelian quasi-particle intertwining two subsystems.     

Radiation field eigenstates and its unitary equivalence to coordinate eigenstates

In this paper, we reconstruct the explicit representation of the radiation field eigenstates in Fock space by decomposing the normally ordered Gaussian operator. Then with the help of the technique of integration within an ordered product of operators, the phase-shifting operator in quantum optics has been expressed through the Dirac's representation theory. In addition, the unitarily equivalent relation between the radiation field eigenstates and the coordinate eigenstates has been naturally established by the phase-shifting operator in quantum optics. These results deepen people's understanding to the radiation field eigenstates and phase-shifting operator in quantum optics.     

Direct measurement of decoherence for entanglement between a photon and stored atomic excitation

Violations of a Bell inequality are reported for an experiment where one of two entangled qubits is stored in a collective atomic memory for a user-defined time delay. The atomic qubit is found to preserve the violation of a Bell inequality for storage times up to 21 micros, 700 times longer than the duration of the excitation pulse that creates the entanglement. To address the question of the security of entanglement-based cryptography implemented with this system, an investigation of the Bell violation as a function of the cross correlation between the generated nonclassical fields is reported, with saturation of the violation close to the maximum value allowed by quantum mechanics.