No Arabic abstract
Repeated measurements on a part of a bipartite system strongly affect the other part not measured, whose dynamics is regulated by an effective contracted evolution operator. When the spectrum of this operator is discrete, the latter system is driven into a pure state irrespective of the initial state, provided the spectrum satisfies certain conditions. We here show that even in the case of continuous spectrum an effective distillation can occur under rather general conditions. We confirm it by applying our formalism to a simple model.
A recently proposed purification method, in which the Zeno-like measurements of a subsystem can bring about a distillation of another subsystem in interaction with the former, is utilized to yield entangled states between distant systems. It is shown that the measurements of a two-level system locally interacting with other two spatially separated not coupled subsystems, can distill entangled states from the latter irrespectively of the initial states of the two subsystems.
We investigate the effect of conditional null measurements on a quantum system and find a rich variety of behaviors. Specifically, quantum dynamics with a time independent $H$ in a finite dimensional Hilbert space are considered with repeated strong null measurements of a specified state. We discuss four generic behaviors that emerge in these monitored systems. The first arises in systems without symmetry, along with their associated degeneracies in the energy spectrum, and hence in the absence of dark states as well. In this case, a unique final state can be found which is determined by the largest eigenvalue of the survival operator, the non-unitary operator encoding both the unitary evolution between measurements and the measurement itself. For a three-level system, this is similar to the well known shelving effect. Secondly, for systems with built-in symmetry and correspondingly a degenerate energy spectrum, the null measurements dynamically select the degenerate energy levels, while the non-degenerate levels are effectively wiped out. Thirdly, in the absence of dark states, and for specific choices of parameters, two or more eigenvalues of the survival operator match in magnitude, and this leads to an oscillatory behavior controlled by the measurement rate and not solely by the energy levels. Finally, when the control parameters are tuned, such that the eigenvalues of the survival operator all coalesce to zero, one has exceptional points that corresponds to situations that violate the null measurement condition, making the conditional measurement process impossible.
Entanglement distillation is an essential ingredient for long distance quantum communications. In the continuous variable setting, Gaussian states play major roles in quantum teleportation, quantum cloning and quantum cryptography. However, entanglement distillation from Gaussian states has not yet been demonstrated. It is made difficult by the no-go theorem stating that no Gaussian operation can distill Gaussian states. Here we demonstrate the entanglement distillation from Gaussian states by using measurement-induced non-Gaussian operations, circumventing the fundamental restriction of the no-go theorem. We observed a gain of entanglement as a result of conditional local subtraction of a single photon or two photons from a two-mode Gaussian state. Furthermore we confirmed that two-photon subtraction also improves Gaussian-like entanglement as specified by the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) correlation. This distilled entanglement can be further employed to downstream applications such as high fidelity quantum teleportation and a loophole-free Bell test.
We consider the general physical situation of a quantum system $H_0$ interacting with a chain of exterior systems $bigotimes_N H$, one after the other, during a small interval of time $h$ and following some Hamiltonian $H$ on $H_0 otimes H$. We discuss the passage to the limit to continuous interactions ($h to 0$) in a setup which allows to compute the limit of this Hamiltonian evolution in a single state space: a continuous field of exterior systems $otimes_{R} H$. Surprisingly, the passage to the limit shows the necessity for 3 different time scales in $H$. The limit evolution equation is shown to spontaneously produce quantum noises terms: we obtain a quantum Langevin equation as limit of the Hamiltonian evolution. For the very first time, these quantum Langevin equations are obtained as the effective limit from repeated to continuous interactions and not only as a model. These results justify the usual quantum Langevin equations considered in continual quantum measurement or in quantum optics. We show that the three time scales correspond to the normal regime, the weak coupling limit and the low density limit. Our approach allows to consider these two physical limits altogether for the first time. Their combination produces an effective Hamiltonian on the small system, which had never been described before. We apply these results to give an Hamiltonian description of the von Neumann measurement. We also consider the approximation of continuous time quantum master equations by discrete time ones. In particular we show how any Lindblad generator is obtained as the limit of completely positive maps.
In contrast to classical systems, actual implementation of non-Hermitian Hamiltonian dynamics for quantum systems is a challenge because the processes of energy gain and dissipation are based on the underlying Hermitian system-environment dynamics that is trace preserving. Recently, a scheme for engineering non-Hermitian Hamiltonians as a result of repetitive measurements on an anicillary qubit has been proposed. The induced conditional dynamics of the main system is described by the effective non-Hermitian Hamiltonian arisng from the procedure. In this paper we demonstrate the effectiveness of such a protocol by applying it to physically relevant multi-spin models, showing that the effective non-Hermitian Hamiltonian drives the system to a maximally entangled stationary state. In addition, we report a new recipe to construct a physical scenario where the quantum dynamics of a physical system represented by a given non-Hermitian Hamiltonian model may be simulated. The physical implications and the broad scope potential applications of such a scheme are highlighted.