The concept of supersymmetry developed in particle physics has been applied to various fields of modern physics. In quantum mechanics, the supersymmetric systems refer to the systems involving two supersymmetric partner Hamiltonians, whose energy lev
els are degeneracy except one of the systems has an extra ground state possibly, and the eigenstates of the partner systems can be mapped onto each other. Recently, an interferometric scheme has been proposed to show this relationship in ultracold atoms [Phys. Rev.A 96, 043624 (2017)]. Here this approach is generalized to linear optics for observing the supersymmetric dynamics with photons. The time evolution operator is simulated approximately via Suzuki-Trotter expansion with considering the realization of the kinetic and potential terms separately. The former is realized through the diffraction nature of light and the later is implemented using phase plate. Additionally, we propose an interferometric approach which can be implemented perfectly using amplitude alternator to realize the non-unitary operator. The numerical results show that our scheme is universal and can be realized with current technologies.
We report the first implementation of the von Neumann instantaneous measurements of nonlocal variables which becomes possible due to technological achievements in creating hyperentangled photons. Tests of reliability and of the nondemolition property
of the measurements have been performed with high precision showing the suitability of the scheme as a basic ingredient of numerous quantum information protocols. The method allows to demonstrate for the first time with strong measurements a special feature of pre- and postselected quantum systems: the failure of the product rule. It has been verified experimentally that for a particular pre- and postselected pair of particles a single measurement on particle $A$ yields with certainty $sigma_x^A=-1$, a single measurement on particle $B$ yields with certainty $sigma_y^B=-1$, and a single nonlocal measurement on particles $A$ and $B$ yields with certainty $sigma_x^A sigma_y^B=-1$.
Entanglement generation in discrete time quantum walks is deemed to be another key property beyond the transport behaviors. The latter has been widely used in investigating the localization or topology in quantum walks. However, there are few experim
ents involving the former for the challenges in full reconstruction of the final wave function. Here, we report an experiment demonstrating the enhancement of the entanglement in quantum walks using dynamic disorder. Through reconstructing the local spinor state for each site, von Neumann entropy can be obtained and used to quantify the coin-position entanglement. We find that the enhanced entanglement in the dynamically disordered quantum walks is independent of the initial state, which is different from the entanglement generation in the Hadamard quantum walks. Our results are inspirational for achieving quantum computing based on quantum walks.
We report the experimental measurement of the winding number in an unitary chiral quantum walk. Fundamentally, the spin-orbit coupling in discrete time quantum walks is implemented via birefringent crystal collinearly cut based on time-multiplexing s
cheme. Our protocol is compact and avoids extra loss, making it suitable for realizing genuine single-photon quantum walks at a large-scale. By adopting heralded single-photon as the walker and with a high time resolution technology in single-photon detection, we carry out a 50-step Hadamard discrete-time quantum walk with high fidelity up to 0.948$pm$0.007. Particularly, we can reconstruct the complete wave-function of the walker that starts the walk in a single lattice site through local tomography of each site. Through a Fourier transform, the wave-function in quasi-momentum space can be obtained. With this ability, we propose and report a method to reconstruct the eigenvectors of the system Hamiltonian in quasi-momentum space and directly read out the winding numbers in different topological phases (trivial and non-trivial) in the presence of chiral symmetry. By introducing nonequivalent time-frames, we show that the whole topological phases in periodically driven system can also be characterized by two different winding numbers. Our method can also be extended to the high winding number situation.
Quantum processes of inherent dynamical nature, such as quantum walks (QWs), defy a description in terms of an equilibrium statistical physics ensemble. Up to now, it has remained a key challenge to identify general principles behind the underlying u
nitary quantum dynamics. Here, we show and experimentally observe that split-step QWs admit a characterization in terms of a dynamical topological order parameter (DTOP). This integer-quantized DTOP measures, at a given time, the winding of the geometric phase accumulated by the wave-function during the QW. We observe distinct dynamical regimes in our experimentally realized QWs each of which can be attributed to a qualitatively different temporal behavior of the DTOP. Upon identifying an equivalent many-body problem, we reveal an intriguing connection between the nonanalytic changes of the DTOP in QWs and the occurrence of dynamical quantum phase transitions.
