Physics Commons^™

A Cavity-Cooper Pair Transistor Scheme For Investigating Quantum Optomechanics In The Ultra-Strong Coupling Regime, A. J. Rimberg, M. P. Blencowe, A. D. Armour, P. D. Nation

Dartmouth Scholarship

We propose a scheme involving a Cooper pair transistor (CPT) embedded in a superconducting microwave cavity, where the CPT serves as a charge tunable quantum inductor to facilitate ultra-strong coupling between photons in the cavity and a nano- to meso-scale mechanical resonator. The mechanical resonator is capacitively coupled to the CPT, such that mechanical displacements of the resonator cause a shift in the CPT inductance and hence the cavity's resonant frequency. The amplification provided by the CPT is sufficient for the zero point motion of the mechanical resonator alone to cause a significant change in the cavity resonance. Conversely, a …

Exact And Approximate Solutions For The Quantum Minimum-Kullback-Entropy Estimation Problem, Carlo Sparaciari, Stefano Olivares, Francesco Ticozzi, Matteo G. A. Paris

Dartmouth Scholarship

The minimum-Kullback-entropy principle (mKE) is a useful tool to estimate quantum states and operations from incomplete data and prior information. In general, the solution of an mKE problem is analytically challenging and an approximate solution has been proposed and employed in different contexts. Recently, the form and a way to compute the exact solution for finite dimensional systems has been found, and a question naturally arises on whether the approximate solution could be an effective substitute for the exact solution, and in which regimes this substitution can be performed. Here, we provide a systematic comparison between the exact and the …

Majorana Flat Bands In S -Wave Gapless Topological Superconductors, Shusa Deng, Gerardo Ortiz, Amrit Poudel, Lorenza Viola

Dartmouth Scholarship

We demonstrate how the nontrivial interplay between spin-orbit coupling and nodeless s-wave superconductivity can drive a fully gapped two-band topological insulator into a time-reversal invariant gapless topological superconductor supporting symmetry-protected Majorana flat bands. We characterize topological phase diagrams by a Z2×Z2 partial Berry-phase invariant, and show that, despite the trivial crystal geometry, no unique bulk-boundary correspondence exists. We trace this behavior to the anisotropic quasiparticle bulk gap closing, linear vs quadratic, and argue that this provides a unifying principle for gapless topological superconductivity. Experimental implications for tunneling conductance measurements are addressed, relevant for lead chalcogenide materials.

Hamiltonian Quantum Simulation With Bounded-Strength Controls, Adam D. Bookatz, Pawel Wocjan, Lorenza Viola

Dartmouth Scholarship

We propose dynamical control schemes for Hamiltonian simulation in many-body quantum systems that avoid instantaneous control operations and rely solely on realistic bounded-strength control Hamiltonians. Each simulation protocol consists of periodic repetitions of a basic control block, constructed as a modification of an 'Eulerian decoupling cycle,' that would otherwise implement a trivial (zero) target Hamiltonian. For an open quantum system coupled to an uncontrollable environment, our approach may be employed to engineer an effective evolution that simulates a target Hamiltonian on the system while suppressing unwanted decoherence to the leading order, thereby allowing for dynamically corrected simulation. We …

Gravitational Origin Of The Weak Interaction's Chirality, Stephon Alexander, Antonino Marcianò, Lee Smolin

Dartmouth Scholarship

We present a new unification of the electro-weak and gravitational interactions based on the joining the weak SU(2) gauge fields with the left handed part of the space- time connection, into a single gauge field valued in the complexification of the local Lorentz group. Hence, the weak interactions emerge as the right handed chiral half of the space-time connection, which explains the chirality of the weak interaction. This is possible, because, as shown by Plebanski, Ashtekar, and others, the other chiral half of the space-time connection is enough to code the dynamics of the gravitational degrees of freedom. This unification …

Universal Quantum Fluctuations Of A Cavity Mode Driven By A Josephson Junction, A. D. Armour, M. P. Blencowe, E. Brahimi, A. J. Rimberg

Dartmouth Scholarship

We analyze the quantum dynamics of a superconducting cavity coupled to a voltage-biased Josephson junction. The cavity is strongly excited at resonances where the voltage energy lost by a Cooper pair traversing the circuit is a multiple of the cavity photon energy. We find that the resonances are accompanied by substantial squeezing of the quantum fluctuations of the cavity over a broad range of parameters and are able to identify regimes where the fluctuations in the system take on universal values.

Asymmetric Architecture For Heralded Single-Photon Sources, Luca Mazzarella, Francesco Ticozzi, Alexander V. Sergienko, Giuseppe Vallone, Paolo Villoresi

Dartmouth Scholarship

Single-photon sources represent a fundamental building block for optical implementations of quantum information tasks ranging from basic tests of quantum physics to quantum communication and high-resolution quantum measurement. In this paper, in order to compare the effectiveness of different designs, we introduce a single-photon source performance index, based on the maximum probability of generating a single photon that still guarantees a given signal-to-noise ratio. We then investigate the performance of a multiplexed system based on asymmetric configuration of multiple heralded single-photon sources. The performance and scalability comparison with both currently existing multiple-source architectures and faint laser configurations reveals an advantage …

Designing A Practical High-Fidelity Long-Time Quantum Memory, Kaveh Khodjasteh, Jarrah Sastrawan, David Hayes, Todd J. Green, Michael J. Biercuk, Lorenza Viola

Dartmouth Scholarship

Quantum memory is a central component for quantum information processing devices, and will be required to provide high-fidelity storage of arbitrary states, long storage times and small access latencies. Despite growing interest in applying physical-layer error-suppression strategies to boost fidelities, it has not previously been possible to meet such competing demands with a single approach. Here we use an experimentally validated theoretical framework to identify periodic repetition of a high-order dynamical decoupling sequence as a systematic strategy to meet these challenges. We provide analytic bounds—validated by numerical calculations—on the characteristics of the relevant control sequences and show that a ‘stroboscopic …

Discontinuities And Alfvenic Fluctuations In The Solar Wind, G. Paschmann, S. Haaland, B. Sonnerup, T. Knetter

Dartmouth Scholarship

We examine the Alfvenicity of a set of 188 solar wind directional discontinuities (DDs) identified in the Cluster data from 2003 by Knetter (2005), with the objective of separating rotational discontinuities (RDs) from tangential ones (TDs). The DDs occurred over the full range of solar wind velocities and magnetic shear angles. By performing the Walen test in the de Hoffmann–Teller (HT) frame, we show that 77 of the 127 crossings for which a good HT frame was found had plasma flow speeds exceeding 80 % of the Alfven speed at an average angular deviation of 7.7◦; 33 cases had speeds …

Multiband S -Wave Topological Superconductors: Role Of Dimensionality And Magnetic Field Response, Shusa Deng, Gerardo Ortiz, Lorenza Viola

Dartmouth Scholarship

We further investigate a class of time-reversal-invariant two-band s-wave topological superconductors introduced earlier [Deng, Viola, and Ortiz, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 036803 (2012)]. Provided that a sign reversal between the two superconducting pairing gaps is realized, the topological phase diagram can be determined exactly (within mean field) in one and two dimensions as well as in three dimensions upon restricting to the excitation spectrum of time-reversal-invariant momentum modes. We show how, in the presence of time-reversal symmetry, Z2 invariants that distinguish between trivial and nontrivial quantum phases can be constructed by considering only one of the Kramers’ sectors …

A Gamos Plug-In For Geant4 Based Monte Carlo Simulation Of Radiation-Induced Light Transport In Biological Media, Adam K. Glaser, Stephen C. Kanick, Rongxiao Zhang, Pedro Arce, Brian W. Pogue

Dartmouth Scholarship

We describe a tissue optics plug-in that interfaces with the GEANT4/GAMOS Monte Carlo (MC) architecture, providing a means of simulating radiation-induced light transport in biological media for the first time. Specifically, we focus on the simulation of light transport due to the Čerenkov effect (light emission from charged particle's traveling faster than the local speed of light in a given medium), a phenomenon which requires accurate modeling of both the high energy particle and subsequent optical photon transport, a dynamic coupled process that is not well-described by any current MC framework. The results of validation simulations show excellent agreement with …

Inflation In (Super-)Renormalizable Gravity, Fabio Briscese, Antonino Marcianò, Leonardo Modesto, Emmanuel N. Saridakis

Dartmouth Scholarship

We investigate a (super-)renormalizable and ghost-free theory of gravity, showing that under a natural (exponential) ansatz of the form factor and a suitable truncation it can give rise to the Starobinsky inflationary theory in cosmological frameworks, and thus offering a theoretical justification of its origin. We study the corresponding inflationary evolution and we examine the generation of curvature perturbations, adapting the f(R)-like equations in a symmetry-reduced FLRW metric. Furthermore, we analyze how the ultraviolet regime of a simply renormalizable and unitary theory of gravity is also compatible with the Starobinsky action, and hence we show that such a theory could …

Effective Field Theory Approach To Gravitationally Induced Decoherence, M. P. Blencowe

Dartmouth Scholarship

Adopting the viewpoint that the standard perturbative quantization of general relativity provides an effective description of quantum gravity that is valid at ordinary energies, we show that gravity as an environment induces the rapid decoherence of stationary matter superposition states when the energy differences in the superposition exceed the Planck energy scale.

Gauge Field Preheating At The End Of Inflation, J. Tate Deskins, John T. Giblin Jr., Robert R. Caldwell

Dartmouth Scholarship

Here we consider the possibility of preheating the Universe via the parametric amplification of a massless, U(1) abelian gauge field. We assume that the gauge field is coupled to the inflaton via a conformal factor with one free parameter. We present the results of high-resolution three-dimensional simulations of this model and show this mechanism efficiently preheats the Universe to a radiation-dominated final state.

Measures Of Centrality Based On The Spectrum Of The Laplacian, Scott D. Pauls, Daniel Remondini

Dartmouth Scholarship

We introduce a family of new centralities, the k-spectral centralities. k-Spectral centrality is a measurement of importance with respect to the deformation of the graph Laplacian associated with the graph. Due to this connection, k-spectral centralities have various interpretations in terms of spectrally determined information.

We explore this centrality in the context of several examples. While for sparse unweighted net- works 1-spectral centrality behaves similarly to other standard centralities, for dense weighted net- works they show different properties. In summary, the k-spectral centralities provide a novel and useful measurement of relevance (for single network elements as well as whole subnetworks) …

Intrinsic Rotation Of Toroidally Confined Magnetohydrodynamics, Jorge A. Morales, Wouter J. T. T. Bos, Kai Schneider, David C. Montgomery

Dartmouth Scholarship

The spatiotemporal self-organization of viscoresistive magnetohydrodynamics in a toroidal geometry is studied. Curl-free toroidal magnetic and electric fields are imposed. It is observed in our simulations that a flow is generated, which evolves from dominantly poloidal to toroidal when the Lundquist numbers are increased. It is shown that this toroidal organization of the flow is consistent with the tendency of the velocity field to align with the magnetic field. Up-down asymmetry of the geometry causes the generation of a nonzero toroidal angular momentum.

Automated Synthesis Of Dynamically Corrected Quantum Gates, Kaveh Khodjasteh, Hendrik Bluhm, Lorenza Viola

Dartmouth Scholarship

Dynamically corrected gates are extended to non-Markovian open quantum systems where limitations on the available controls and/or the presence of control noise make existing analytical approaches unfeasible. A computational framework for the synthesis of dynamically corrected gates is formalized that allows sensitivity against non-Markovian decoherence and control errors to be perturbatively minimized via numerical search, resulting in robust gate implementations. Explicit sequences for achieving universal high-fidelity control in a singlet-triplet spin qubit subject to realistic system and control constraint are provided, which simultaneously cancel to the leading order the dephasing due to non-Markovian nuclear-bath dynamics and voltage noise affecting the …

Electron Loss And Meteoric Dust In The Mesosphere, M. Friedrich, M. Rapp, T. Blix, U. P. Hoppe, K. Torkar, S. Robertson, S. Dickson, Kristina Lynch

Dartmouth Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Nanomechanical Resonator Coupled Linearly Via Its Momentum To A Quantum Point Contact, Latchezar L. Benatov, Miles P. Blencowe

Dartmouth Scholarship

We use a Born-Markov approximated master equation approach to study the symmetrized-in-frequency current noise spectrum and the oscillator steady state of a nanoelectromechanical system where a nanoscale resonator is coupled linearly via its momentum to a quantum point contact (QPC). Our current noise spectra exhibit clear signatures of the quantum correlations between the QPC current and the back-action force on the oscillator at a value of the relative tunneling phase (η=−π/2) where such correlations are expected to be maximized. We also show that the steady state of the oscillator obeys a classical Fokker-Planck equation, but can experience thermomechanical noise squeezing …

Information Content Of Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking, Marcelo Gleiser, Nikitas Stamatopoulos

Dartmouth Scholarship

We propose a measure of order in the context of nonequilibrium field theory and argue that this measure, which we call relative configurational entropy (RCE), may be used to quantify the emergence of coherent low-entropy configurations, such as time-dependent or time-independent topological and nontopological spatially extended structures. As an illustration, we investigate the nonequilibrium dynamics of spontaneous symmetry breaking in three spatial dimensions. In particular, we focus on a model where a real scalar field, prepared initially in a symmetric thermal state, is quenched to a broken-symmetric state. For a certain range of initial temperatures, spatially localized, long-lived structures known …

Deformed Lorentz Symmetry And Relative Locality In A Curved/Expanding Spacetime, Giovanni Amelino-Camelia, Antonino Marcianò, Marco Matassa, Giacomo Rosati

Dartmouth Scholarship

The interest of part of the quantum-gravity community in the possibility of Planck-scale-deformed Lorentz symmetry is also fueled by the opportunities for testing the relevant scenarios with analyses, from a signal-propagation perspective, of observations of bursts of particles from cosmological distances. In this respect the fact that so far the implications of deformed Lorentz symmetry have been investigated only for flat (Minkowskian) spacetimes represents a very significant limitation, since for propagation over cosmological distances the curvature/expansion of spacetime is evidently tangible. We here provide a significant step toward filling this gap by exhibiting an explicit example of Planck-scale-deformed relativistic symmetries …

More About Arc-Polarized Structures In The Solar Wind, S A. Haaland, B Sonnerup, G Paschmann

Dartmouth Scholarship

We report results from a Cluster-based study of the properties of 28 arc-polarized magnetic structures (also called rotational discontinuities) in the solar wind. These Alfve ́nic events were selected from the database created and analyzed by Knetter (2005) by use of criteria chosen to elim- inate ambiguous cases. His studies showed that standard, four-spacecraft timing analysis in most cases lacks sufficient accuracy to identify the small normal magnetic field compo- nents expected to accompany such structures, leaving unan- swered the question of their existence. Our study aims to break this impasse. By careful application of minimum vari- ance analysis of …

Magnetic Field Amplification In Electron Phase-Space Holes And Related Effects, R. A. Treumann, W. Baumjohann

Dartmouth Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Non-Equilibrium Landauer Transport Model For Hawking Radiation From A Black Hole, P. D. Nation, M. P. Blencowe, Franco Nori

Dartmouth Scholarship

We propose that the Hawking radiation energy and entropy flow rates from a black hole can be viewed as a one-dimensional (1D), non-equilibrium Landauer transport process. Support for this viewpoint comes from previous calculations invoking conformal symmetry in the near-horizon region, which give radiation rates that are identical to those of a single 1D quantum channel connected to a thermal reservoir at the Hawking temperature. The Landauer approach shows in a direct way the particle statistics independence of the energy and entropy fluxes of a black hole radiating into vacuum, as well as one near thermal equilibrium with its environment. …

Majorana Modes In Time-Reversal Invariant S -Wave Topological Superconductors, Shusa Deng, Lorenza Viola, Gerardo Ortiz

Dartmouth Scholarship

We present a time-reversal invariant s-wave superconductor supporting Majorana edge modes. The multiband character of the model together with spin-orbit coupling are key to realizing such a topological superconductor. We characterize the topological phase diagram by using a partial Chern number sum, and show that the latter is physically related to the parity of the fermion number of the time-reversal invariant modes. By taking the self-consistency constraint on the s-wave pairing gap into account, we also establish the possibility of a direct topological superconductor-to-topological insulator quantum phase transition.

Electron-Cylotron Maser Radiation From Electron Holes: Downward Current Region, R A. Treumann, W Baumjohann, R Pottelette

Dartmouth Scholarship

The electron-cyclotron maser emission theory from electron holes is applied to holes generated in the down- ward current region of the aurora. It is argued that the main background auroral kilometric radiation source may still be located in the upward current region electron-ring (horseshoe) distribution while the fine structure is caused by electron holes predominantly in the downward current re- gion. There the existence of electron holes is well established and electron densities are high enough for substantial maser growth rates. Trapping of radiation by the holes provides strong amplification. Upward motion of holes favours the escape of radiation both, …

Colloquium : Stimulating Uncertainty: Amplifying The Quantum Vacuum With Superconducting Circuits, P. D. Nation, J. R. Johansson, M. P. Blencowe, Franco Nori

Dartmouth Scholarship

The ability to generate particles from the quantum vacuum is one of the most profound consequences of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Although the significance of vacuum fluctuations can be seen throughout physics, the experimental realization of vacuum amplification effects has until now been limited to a few cases. Superconducting circuit devices, driven by the goal to achieve a viable quantum computer, have been used in the experimental demonstration of the dynamical Casimir effect, and may soon be able to realize the elusive verification of analog Hawking radiation. This Colloquium article describes several mechanisms for generating photons from the quantum vacuum and …

Second-Order Weak Lensing From Modified Gravity, R. Ali Vanderveld, Robert R. Caldwell, Jason Rhodes

Dartmouth Scholarship

We explore the sensitivity of weak gravitational lensing to second-order corrections to the spacetime metric within a cosmological adaptation of the parametrized post-Newtonian framework. Whereas one might expect nonlinearities of the gravitational field to introduce non-Gaussianity into the statistics of the lensing convergence field, we show that such corrections are actually always small within a broad class of scalar-tensor theories of gravity. We show this by first computing the weak lensing convergence within our parametrized framework to second order in the gravitational potential, and then computing the relevant post-Newtonian parameters for scalar-tensor gravity theories. In doing so we show that …

Experimental Characterization Of Coherent Magnetization Transport In A One-Dimensional Spin System, Chandrasekhar Ramanathan, Paola Cappellaro, Lorenza Viola, David G. Cory

Dartmouth Scholarship

We experimentally characterize the non-equilibrium, room-temperature magnetization dynamics of a spin chain evolving under an effective double-quantum (DQ) Hamiltonian. We show that the Liouville space operators corresponding to the magnetization and the two-spin correlations evolve 90 degrees out of phase with each other, and drive the transport dynamics. For a nearest-neighbor-coupled N-spin chain, the dynamics are found to be restricted to a Liouville operator space whose dimension scales only as N², leading to a slow growth of multi-spin correlations. Even though long-range couplings are present in the real system, we find excellent agreement between the analytical predictions …

Approach To Accurately Measuring The Speed Of Optical Precursors, Chuan-Feng Li, Zong-Quan Zhou, Heejeong Jeong, Guang-Can Guo

Dartmouth Scholarship

Precursors can serve as a bound on the speed of information with dispersive medium. We propose a method to identify the speed of optical wavefronts using polarization-based interference in a solid-state device, which can bound the accuracy of the speed of wavefronts to less than 10−4 with conventional experimental conditions. Our proposal may have important implications for optical communications and fast information processing.