No Arabic abstract
In a seminal paper (Page and Wootters 1983) Page and Wootters suggest time evolution could be described solely in terms of correlations between systems and clocks, as a means of dealing with the problem of time stemming from vanishing Hamiltonian dynamics in many theories of quantum gravity. Their approach to relational time centres around the existence of a Hamiltonian and the subsequent constraint on physical states. In this paper we present a state-centric reformulation of the Page and Wootters model better suited to theories which intrinsically lack Hamiltonian dynamics, such as Chern--Simons theories. We describe relational time by encoding logical clock qubits into anyons---the topologically protected degrees of freedom in Chern--Simons theories. The timing resolution of such anyonic clocks is determined by the universality of the anyonic braid group, with non-universal models naturally exhibiting discrete time. We exemplify this approach using SU(2)$_2$ anyons and discuss generalizations to other states and models.
Using an elementary example based on two simple harmonic oscillators, we show how a relational time may be defined that leads to an approximate Schrodinger dynamics for subsystems, with corrections leading to an intrinsic decoherence in the energy eigenstates of the subsystem.
Bipartite entanglement entropies, calculated from the reduced density matrix of a subsystem, provide a description of the resources available within a system for performing quantum information processing. However, these quantities are not uniquely defined on a system of non-Abelian anyons. This paper describes how reduced density matrices and bipartite entanglement entropies (such as the von Neumann and Renyi entropies) may be constructed for non-Abelian anyonic systems, in ways which reduce to the conventional definitions for systems with only local degrees of freedom.
Non-Hermitian Hamiltonians play an important role in many branches of physics, from quantum mechanics to acoustics. In particular, the realization of PT, and more recently -- anti-PT symmetries in optical systems has proved to be of great value from both the fundamental as well as the practical perspectives. Here, we study theoretically and demonstrate experimentally a novel anyonic-PT symmetry in a coupled lasers system. This is achieved using complex coupling -- of mixed dispersive and dissipative nature, which allows unprecedented control on the location in parameter space where the symmetry and symmetry-breaking occur. Moreover, our method allows us to realize the more familiar special cases of PT and anti-PT symmetries using the same physical system. In a more general perspective, we present and experimentally validate a new relation between laser synchronization and the symmetry of the underlying non-Hermitian Hamiltonian.
A study of the thermal properties of two-dimensional topological lattice models is presented. This work is relevant to assess the usefulness of these systems as a quantum memory. For our purposes, we use the topological mutual information $I_{mathrm{topo}}$ as a topological order parameter. For Abelian models, we show how $I_{mathrm{topo}}$ depends on the thermal topological charge probability distribution. More generally, we present a conjecture that $I_{mathrm{topo}}$ can (asymptotically) be written as a Kullback-Leitner distance between this probability distribution and that induced by the quantum dimensions of the model at hand. We also explain why $I_{mathrm{topo}}$ is more suitable for our purposes than the more familiar entanglement entropy $S_{mathrm{topo}}$. A scaling law, encoding the interplay of volume and temperature effects, as well as different limit procedures, are derived in detail. A non-Abelian model is next analysed and similar results are found. Finally, we also consider, in the case of a one-plaquette toric code, an environment model giving rise to a simulation of thermal effects in time.
We describe a continuous-variable scheme for simulating the Kitaev lattice model and for detecting statistics of abelian anyons. The corresponding quantum optical implementation is solely based upon Gaussian resource states and Gaussian operations, hence allowing for a highly efficient creation, manipulation, and detection of anyons. This approach extends our understanding of the control and application of anyons and it leads to the possibility for experimental proof-of-principle demonstrations of anyonic statistics using continuous-variable systems.