No Arabic abstract
We study a method to simulate quantum many-body dynamics of spin ensembles using measurement-based feedback. By performing a weak collective measurement on a large ensemble of two-level quantum systems and applying global rotations conditioned on the measurement outcome, one can simulate the dynamics of a mean-field quantum kicked top, a standard paradigm of quantum chaos. We analytically show that there exists a regime in which individual quantum trajectories adequately recover the classical limit, and show the transition between noisy quantum dynamics to full deterministic chaos described by classical Lyapunov exponents. We also analyze the effects of decoherence, and show that the proposed scheme represents a robust method to explore the emergence of chaos from complex quantum dynamics in a realistic experimental platform based on an atom-light interface.
We consider the effective dynamics obtained by double-passing a far-detuned laser probe through a large atomic spin system. The net result of the atom-field interaction is a type of coherent positive feedback that amplifies the values of selected spin observables. An effective equation of motion for the atomic system is presented, and an approximate 2-parameter model of the dynamics is developed that should provide a viable approach to modeling even the extremely large spin systems, with N>>1 atoms, encountered under typical laboratory conditions. Combining the nonlinear dynamics that result from the positive feedback with continuous observation of the atomic spin offers an improvement in quantum parameter estimation. We explore the possibility of reaching the Heisenberg uncertainty scaling in atomic magnetometry without the need for any appreciable spin-squeezing by analyzing our system via the quantum Cramer-Rao inequality. Finally, we develop a realistic quantum parameter estimator for atomic magnetometry that is based on a two-parameter family of Gaussian states and investigate the performance of this estimator through numerical simulations. In doing so, we identify several issues, such as numerical convergence and the reduction of estimator bias, that must be addressed when incorporating our parameter estimation methods into an actual laboratory setting.
We demonstrate unconditional quantum-noise suppression in a collective spin system via feedback control based on quantum non-demolition measurement (QNDM). We perform shot-noise limited collective spin measurements on an ensemble of $3.7times 10^5$ laser-cooled 171Yb atoms in their spin-1/2 ground states. Correlation between two sequential QNDMs indicates $-0.80^{+0.11}_{-0.12},mathrm{dB}$ quantum noise suppression in a conditional manner. Our feedback control successfully converts the conditional quantum-noise suppression into the unconditional one without significant loss of the noise
A novel theory of hybrid quantum-classical systems is developed, utilizing the mathematical framework of constrained dynamical systems on the quantum-classical phase space. Both, the quantum and the classical descriptions of the respective parts of the hybrid system are treated as fundamental. Therefore, the description of the quantum-classical interaction has to be postulated, and includes the effects of neglected degrees of freedom. Dynamical law of the theory is given in terms of nonlinear stochastic differential equations with Hamiltonian and gradient terms. The theory provides a successful dynamical description of the collapse during quantum measurement.
The standard quantum formalism introduced at the undergraduate level treats measurement as an instantaneous collapse. In reality however, no physical process can occur over a truly infinitesimal time interval. A more subtle investigation of open quantum systems lead to the theory of continuous measurement and quantum trajectories, in which wave function collapse occurs over a finite time scale associated with an interaction. Within this formalism, it becomes possible to ask many new questions that would be trivial or even ill-defined in the context of the more basic measurement model. In this thesis, we investigate both theoretically and experimentally what fundamentally new capabilities arise when an experimental apparatus can resolve the continuous dynamics of a measurement. Theoretically, we show that when one can perform feedback operations on the timescale of the measurement process, the resulting tools provide significantly more control over entanglement generation, and in some settings can generate it optimally. We derive these results using a novel formalism which encompasses most known quantum feedback protocols. Experimentally, we show that continuous measurement allows one to observe the dynamics of a system undergoing simultaneous non-commuting measurements, which provides a reinterpretation of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Finally, we combine the theoretical focus on quantum feedback with the experimental capabilities of superconducting circuits to implement a feedback controlled quantum amplifier. The resulting system is capable of adaptive measurement, which we use to perform the first canonical phase measurement.
We present efficient quantum algorithms for simulating time-dependent Hamiltonian evolution of general input states using an oracular model of a quantum computer. Our algorithms use either constant or adaptively chosen time steps and are significant because they are the first to have time-complexities that are comparable to the best known methods for simulating time-independent Hamiltonian evolution, given appropriate smoothness criteria on the Hamiltonian are satisfied. We provide a thorough cost analysis of these algorithms that considers discretizion errors in both the time and the representation of the Hamiltonian. In addition, we provide the first upper bounds for the error in Lie-Trotter-Suzuki approximations to unitary evolution operators, that use adaptively chosen time steps.