We discuss the role of quantum coherence in the energy fluctuations of open quantum systems. To this aim, we introduce a protocol, to which we refer to as the end-point-measurement scheme, allowing to define the statistics of energy changes as a func
tion of energy measurements performed only after the evolution of the initial state. At the price of an additional uncertainty on the initial energies, this approach prevents the loss of initial quantum coherences and enables the estimation of their effects on energy fluctuations. We demonstrate our findings by running an experiment on the IBM Quantum Experience superconducting qubit platform.
We discuss the role of quantum coherence in the energy fluctuations of open quantum systems. To this aim, we introduce an operational protocol, to which we refer to as the end-point-measurement scheme, allowing to define the statistics of energy chan
ges as a function of energy measurements performed only after its evolution. At the price of an additional uncertainty on the value of the initial energies, this approach prevents the loss of initial quantum coherences and enables the estimation of their effects on energy fluctuations. We illustrate our findings using a three-level quantum system in interaction with thermal reservoirs.
We identify the families of states that maximise some recently proposed quantifiers of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) steering and the volume of the Quantum Steering Ellipsoid (QSE). The optimal measurements which maximise genuine EPR steering measure
s are discussed and we develop a novel way to find them using the QSE. We thus explore the links between genuine EPR steering and the QSE and introduce states that can be the most useful for one-sided device-independent quantum cryptography for a given amount of noise.
Considering stationary states of continuous-variable systems undergoing an open dynamics, we unveil the connection between properties and symmetries of the latter and the dynamical parameters. In particular, we explore the relation between the Lyapun
ov equation for dynamical systems and the steady-state solutions of a time-independent Lindblad master equation for bosonic modes. Exploiting bona-fide relations that characterize some genuine quantum properties (entanglement, classicality, and steerability), we obtain conditions on the dynamical parameters for which the system is driven to a steady-state possessing such properties. We also develop a method to capture the symmetries of a steady state based on symmetries of the Lyapunov equation. All the results and examples can be useful for steady-state engineering process.
We introduce an optomechanical scheme for the probabilistic preparation of single-phonon Fock states of mechanical modes based on photo-subtraction. The quality of the produced mechanical state is confirmed by a number of indicators, including phonon
statistics and conditional fidelity. We assess the detrimental effect of parameters such as the temperature of the mechanical system and address the feasibility of the scheme with state-of-the-art technology.
Enforcing a non-classical behavior in mesoscopic systems is important for the study of the boundaries between quantum and classical world. Recent experiments have shown that optomechanical devices are promising candidates to pursue such investigation
s. Here we consider two different setups where the indirect coupling between a three-level atom and the movable mirrors of a cavity is achieved. The resulting dynamics is able to conditionally prepare a non-classical state of the mirrors by means of projective measurements operated over a pure state of the atomic system. The non-classical features are persistent against incoherent thermal preparation of the mechanical systems and their dissipative dynamics.
The information encoded in a quantum system is generally spoiled by the influences of its environment, leading to a transition from pure to mixed states. Reducing the mixedness of a state is a fundamental step in the quest for a feasible implementati
on of quantum technologies. Here we show that it is impossible to transfer part of such mixedness to a trash system without losing some of the initial information. Such loss is lower-bounded by a value determined by the properties of the initial state to purify. We discuss this interesting phenomenon and its consequences for general quantum information theory, linking it to the information theoretical primitive embodied by the quantum state-merging protocol and to the behaviour of general quantum correlations.
Starting from a four-partite photonic hyper-entangled Dicke resource, we report the full tomographic characterization of three-, two-, and one-qubit states obtained by projecting out part of the computational register. The reduced states thus obtaine
d correspond to fidelities with the expected states larger than 87%, therefore certifying the faithfulness of the entanglement-sharing structure within the original four-qubit resource. The high quality of the reduced three-qubit state allows for the experimental verification of the Koashi-Winter relation for the monogamy of correlations within a tripartite state. We show that, by exploiting the symmetries of the three-qubit state obtained upon projection over the four-qubit Dicke resource, such relation can be experimentally fully characterized using only 5 measurement settings. We highlight the limitations of such approach and sketch an experimentally-oriented way to overcome them.
We study the dissipative dynamics of two independent arrays of many-body systems, locally driven by a common entangled field. We show that in the steady state the entanglement of the driving field is reproduced in an arbitrarily large series of inter
-array entangled pairs over all distances. Local nonclassical driving thus realizes a scale-free entanglement replication and long-distance entanglement distribution mechanism that has immediate bearing on the implementation of quantum communication networks.
We present a scheme to prepare quantum correlated states of two mechanical systems based on the pouring of pre-available all-optical entanglement into the state of two micro-mirrors belonging to remote and non-interacting optomechanical cavities. We
show that, under realistic experimental conditions, the protocol allows for the preparation of a genuine quantum state of a composite mesoscopic system whose non-classical features extend far beyond the occurrence of entanglement. We finally discuss a way to access such mechanical correlations.
