No Arabic abstract
We investigate the statistics of the first detected passage time of a quantum walk. The postulates of quantum theory, in particular the collapse of the wave function upon measurement, reveal an intimate connection between the wave function of a process free of measurements, i.e. the solution of the Schrodinger equation, and the statistics of first detection events on a site. For stroboscopic measurements a quantum renewal equation yields basic properties of quantum walks. For example, for a tight binding model on a ring we discover critical sampling times, diverging quantities such as the mean time for first detection, and an optimal detection rate. For a quantum walk on an infinite line the probability of first detection decays like $(mbox{time})^{-3}$ with a superimposed oscillation, critical behavior for a specific choice of sampling time, and vanishing amplitude when the sampling time approaches zero due to the quantum Zeno effect.
How long does it take a quantum particle to return to its origin? As shown previously under repeated projective measurements aimed to detect the return, the closed cycle yields a geometrical phase which shows that the average first detected return time is quantized. For critical sampling times or when parameters of the Hamiltonian are tuned this winding number is modified. These discontinuous transitions exhibit gigantic fluctuations of the return time. While the general formalism of this problem was studied at length, the magnitude of the fluctuations, which is quantitatively essential, remains poorly characterized. Here, we derive explicit expressions for the variance of the return time, for quantum walks in finite Hilbert space. A classification scheme of the diverging variance is presented, for four different physical effects: the Zeno regime, when the overlap of an energy eigenstate and the detected state is small and when two or three phases of the problem merge. These scenarios present distinct physical effects which can be analyzed with the fluctuations of return times investigated here, leading to a topology-dependent time-energy uncertainty principle.
Stability is an important property of small thermal machines with fluctuating power output. We here consider a finite-time quantum Carnot engine based on a degenerate multilevel system and study the influence of its finite Hilbert space structure on its stability. We optimize in particular its relative work fluctuations with respect to level degeneracy and level number. We find that its optimal performance may surpass those of nondegenerate two-level engines or harmonic oscillator motors. Our results show how to realize high-performance, high-stability cyclic quantum heat engines.
We investigate the effects of dissipation on the quantum dynamics of many-body systems at quantum transitions, especially considering those of the first order. This issue is studied within the paradigmatic one-dimensional quantum Ising model. We analyze the out-of-equilibrium dynamics arising from quenches of the Hamiltonian parameters and dissipative mechanisms modeled by a Lindblad master equation, with either local or global spin operators acting as dissipative operators. Analogously to what happens at continuous quantum transitions, we observe a regime where the system develops a nontrivial dynamic scaling behavior, which is realized when the dissipation parameter $u$ (globally controlling the decay rate of the dissipation within the Lindblad framework) scales as the energy difference $Delta$ of the lowest levels of the Hamiltonian, i.e., $usim Delta$. However, unlike continuous quantum transitions where $Delta$ is power-law suppressed, at first-order quantum transitions $Delta$ is exponentially suppressed with increasing the system size (provided the boundary conditions do not favor any particular phase).
We analyze the scaling behavior of the fidelity, and the corresponding susceptibility, emerging in finite-size many-body systems whenever a given control parameter $lambda$ is varied across a quantum phase transition. For this purpose we consider a finite-size scaling (FSS) framework. Our working hypothesis is based on a scaling assumption of the fidelity in terms of the FSS variables associated to $lambda$ and to its variation $delta lambda$. This framework entails the FSS predictions for continuous transitions, and meanwhile enables to extend them to first-order transitions, where the FSS becomes qualitatively different. The latter is supported by analytical and numerical analyses of the quantum Ising chain along its first-order quantum transition line, driven by an external longitudinal field.
Levy walks define a fundamental concept in random walk theory which allows one to model diffusive spreading that is faster than Brownian motion. They have many applications across different disciplines. However, so far the derivation of a diffusion equation for an n-dimensional correlated Levy walk remained elusive. Starting from a fractional Klein-Kramers equation here we use a moment method combined with a Cattaneo approximation to derive a fractional diffusion equation for superdiffusive short range auto-correlated Levy walks in the large time limit, and solve it. Our derivation discloses different dynamical mechanisms leading to correlated Levy walk diffusion in terms of quantities that can be measured experimentally.