Chung Hsien Chou

Surface plasmons in a metal nanowire coupled to colloidal quantum dots: Scattering properties and quantum entanglement

We investigate coherent single surface-plasmon transport in a metal nanowire strongly coupled to two colloidal quantum dots. Analytical expressions are obtained for the transmission and reflection coefficients by solving the corresponding eigenvalue equation. Remote entanglement of the wave functions of the two quantum dots can be created if the inter-dot distance is equal to a multiple half-wavelength of the surface plasmon. Furthermore, by applying classical laser pulses to the quantum dots, the entangled states can be stored in metastable states which are decoupled from the surface plasmons.

Disentanglement of two harmonic oscillators in relativistic motion

We study the dynamics of quantum entanglement between two Unruh-DeWitt detectors, one stationary (Alice), and another uniformly accelerating (Rob), with no direct interaction but coupled to a common quantum field in (3+1)D Minkowski space. We find that for all cases studied the initial entanglement between the detectors disappears in a finite time (sudden death). After the moment of total disentanglement the correlations between the two detectors remain nonzero until late times. The relation between the disentanglement time and Robs proper acceleration is observer dependent. The larger the acceleration is, the longer the disentanglement time in Alices coordinate, but the shorter in Robs coordinate.

Quantum entanglement and entropy in particle creation

We investigate the basic theoretical issues in the quantum entanglement of particle pairs created from the vacuum in a time-dependent background field or spacetime. Similar to entropy generation from these processes which depends on the choice of physical variables and how certain information is coarse grained, entanglement dynamics hinges on the choice of measurable quantities and how the two parties are selected as well as the background dynamics of the field or spacetime. We discuss the conditions of separability of quantum states in particle creation processes and point out the differences in how the von Neumann entropy is used as a measure of entropy generation versus for entanglement dynamics. We show by an explicit construction that adoption of a different set of physical variables yields a different entanglement entropy. As an application of these theoretical considerations we show how the particle number and the quantum phase enter the entanglement dynamics in cosmological particle production.

Quantum teleportation between moving detectors

We consider the quantum teleportation of continuous variables modeled by Unruh-DeWitt detectors coupled to a common quantum field initially in the Minkowski vacuum. An unknown coherent state of an Unruh-DeWitt detector is teleported from one inertial agent (Alice) to an almost uniformly accelerated agent (Rob, for relativistic motion), using a detector pair initially entangled and shared by these two agents. The averaged physical fidelity of quantum teleportation, which is independent of the observers frame, always drops below the best fidelity value from classical teleportation before the detector pair becomes disentangled with the measure of entanglement evaluated around the future lightcone of the joint measurement event by Alice. The distortion of the quantum state of the entangled detector pair from the initial state can suppress the fidelity significantly even when the detectors are still strongly entangled around the lightcone. We point out that the dynamics of entanglement of the detector pair observed in Minkowski frame or in quasi-Rindler frame are not directly related to the physical fidelity of quantum teleportation in our setup. These results are useful as a guide to making judicious choices of states and parameter ranges and estimation of the efficiency of quantum teleportation in relativistic quantum systems under environmental influences.

Decoherence patterns of topological qubits from Majorana modes

We investigate the decoherence patterns of topological qubits in contact with the environment using a novel way of deriving the open system dynamics, rather than using the Feynman?Vernon approach. Each topological qubit is made up of two Majorana modes of a 1D Kitaev chain. These two Majorana modes interact with the environment in an incoherent way which yields peculiar decoherence patterns of the topological qubit. More specifically, we consider the open system dynamics of topological qubits which are weakly coupled to fermionic/bosonic Ohmic-like environments. We find atypical patterns of quantum decoherence. In contrast to the case for non-topological qubits?which always decohere completely in all Ohmic-like environments?topological qubits decohere completely in Ohmic and sub-Ohmic environments but not in super-Ohmic ones. Moreover, we find that the fermion parities of the topological qubits, though they cannot prevent the qubit states from exhibiting decoherence in sub-Ohmic environments, can prevent thermalization turning the state into a Gibbs state. We also study the cases in which each Majorana mode can couple to different Ohmic-like environments, and the time dependence of concurrence for two topological qubits.

Macroscopic quantum phenomena from the large N perspective

Macroscopic quantum phenomena (MQP) is a relatively new research venue, with exciting ongoing experiments and bright prospects, yet with surprisingly little theoretical activity. What makes MQP intellectually stimulating is because it is counterpoised against the traditional view that macroscopic means classical. In this series of papers we report on a systematic investigation into some key foundational issues of MQP, with the hope of constructing a viable theoretical framework for this new endeavour. The three major themes discussed in these three essays are the large N expansion, the correlation hierarchy and quantum entanglement for systems of `large sizes, with many components or degrees of freedom. In this paper we use different theories in a variety of contexts to examine the conditions or criteria whereby a macroscopic quantum system may take on classical attributes, and, more interestingly, that it keeps some of its quantum features. The theories we consider here are, the O(N) quantum mechanical model, semiclassical stochastic gravity and gauge / string theories; the contexts include that of a `quantum roll in inflationary cosmology, entropy generation in quantum Vlasov equation for plasmas, the leading order and next-to-leading order large N behaviour, and hydrodynamic / thermodynamic limits. By examining different representative systems where detailed theoretical analysis has been carried out, we find that there is no a priori good reason why quantum phenomena in macroscopic objects cannot exist.

Macroscopic Quantum Phenomena from the Correlation, Coupling and Criticality Perspectives

In this sequel paper we explore how macroscopic quantum phenomena can be measured or understood from the behavior of quantum correlations which exist in a quantum system of many particles or components and how the interaction strengths change with energy or scale, under ordinary situations and when the system is near its critical point. We use the nPI (master) effective action related to the Boltzmann-BBGKY / Schwinger-Dyson hierarchy of equations as a tool for systemizing the contributions of higher order correlation functions to the dynamics of lower order correlation functions. Together with the large N expansion discussed in our first paper [1] we explore 1) the conditions whereby an H-theorem is obtained, which can be viewed as a signifier of the emergence of macroscopic behavior in the system. We give two more examples from past work: 2) the nonequilibrium dynamics of N atoms in an optical lattice under the large (field components), 2PI and second order perturbative expansions, illustrating how N and enter in these three aspects of quantum correlations, coherence and coupling strength. 3) the behavior of an interacting quantum system near its critical point, the effects of quantum and thermal fluctuations and the conditions under which the system manifests infrared dimensional reduction. We also discuss how the effective field theory concept bears on macroscopic quantum phenomena: the running of the coupling parameters with energy or scale imparts a dynamical-dependent and an interaction-sensitive definition of macroscopia.

Entanglement dynamics of detectors in an Einstein cylinder

A bstractWe investigate how nontrivial topology affects the entanglement dynamics between a detector and a quantum field and between two detectors mediated by a quantum field. Nontrivial topology refers to both that of the base space and that of the bundle. Using a derivative-coupling Unruh-DeWitt-like detector model interacting with a quantum scalar field in an Einstein cylinder S1 (space) × R1 (time), we see the beating behaviors in the dynamics of the detector-field entanglement and the detector-detector entanglement, which distinguish from the results in the non-compact (1+1) dimensional Minkowski space. The beat patterns of entanglement dynamics in a normal and a twisted field with the same parameter values are different because of the difference in the spectrum of the field modes. In terms of the kinetic momentum of the detectors, we find that the contribution by the zero mode in a normal field to entanglement dynamics has no qualitative difference from those by the nonzero modes.

Quantum thermodynamics from the nonequilibrium dynamics of open systems: Energy, heat capacity, and the third law

In a series of papers, we intend to take the perspective of open quantum systems and examine from their nonequilibrium dynamics the conditions when the physical quantities, their relations, and the laws of thermodynamics become well defined and viable for quantum many-body systems. We first describe how an open-system nonequilibrium dynamics (ONEq) approach is different from the closed combined systemxa0+ xa0environment in a global thermal state (CGTs) setup. Only after the open system equilibrates will it be amenable to conventional thermodynamics descriptions, thus quantum thermodynamics (QTD) comes at the end rather than assumed in the beginning. The linkage between the two comes from the reduced density matrix of ONEq in that stage having the same form as that of the system in the CGTs. We see the open-system approach having the advantage of dealing with nonequilibrium processes as many experiments in the near future will call for. Because it spells out the conditions of QTDs existence, it can also aid us in addressing the basic issues in quantum thermodynamics from first principles in a systematic way. We then study one broad class of open quantum systems where the full nonequilibrium dynamics can be solved exactly, that of the quantum Brownian motion of N strongly coupled harmonic oscillators, interacting strongly with a scalar-field environment. In this paper, we focus on the internal energy, heat capacity, and the third law. We show for this class of physical models, amongst other findings, the extensive property of the internal energy, the positivity of the heat capacity, and the validity of the third law from the perspective of the behavior of the heat capacity toward zero temperature. These conclusions obtained from exact solutions and quantitative analysis clearly disprove claims of negative specific heat in such systems and dispel allegations that in such systems the validity of the third law of thermodynamics relies on quantum entanglement. They are conceptually and factually unrelated issues. Entropy and entanglement will be the main theme of our second paper on this subject matter.

Supremum of block entanglement for symmetric Gaussian states

For a system composed of permutationally symmetric Gaussian modes, by identifying the boundary of valid states and making necessary change of variables, the existence and exact value of the supremum of logarithmic negativity (and negativity likewise) between any two blocks can be shown analytically. Involving only the total number of interchangeable modes and the sizes of respective blocks, this result is general and easy to be applied for such a class of states.