Low-temperature thermodynamics with quantum coherence

Diamond with Sp2-Sp3 composite phase for thermometry at Millikelvin temperatures

Temperature is one of the seven fundamental physical quantities. The ability to measure temperatures approaching absolute zero has driven numerous advances in low-temperature physics and quantum physics. Currently, millikelvin temperatures and below are measured through the characterization of a certain thermal state of the system as there is no traditional thermometer capable of measuring temperatures at such low levels. In this study, we develop a kind of diamond with sp2-sp3 composite phase to tackle this problem. The synthesized composite phase diamond (CPD) exhibits a negative temperature coefficient, providing an excellent fit across a broad temperature range, and reaching a temperature measurement limit of 1 mK. Additionally, the CPD demonstrates low magnetic field sensitivity and excellent thermal stability, and can be fabricated into probes down to 1 micron in diameter, making it a promising candidate for the manufacture of next-generation cryogenic temperature sensors. This development is significant for the low-temperature physics researches, and can help facilitate the transition of quantum computing, quantum simulation, and other related technologies from research to practical applications.

Experimental demonstration of classical analogous time-dependent superposition of states

One of the quantum theory concepts on which quantum information processing stands is superposition. Here we provide experimental evidence for the existence of classical analogues to the coherent superposition of energy states, which is made possible by the Hertz-type nonlinearity of the granules together with the external driving field. The granules' nonlinear vibrations are projected into the linear modes of vibration, which depend on one another through the phase and form a coherent superposition. We show that the amplitudes of the coherent states form the components of a state vector that spans a two-dimensional Hilbert space, and time enables the system to span its Hilbert space parametrically. Thus, the superposition of states can be exploited in two-state quantum-like computations without decoherence and wave function collapse. Finally, we demonstrate the experimental realization of applying a reversible Hadamard gate to a pure base state that brings the state into a superposition.

Operational Interpretation of Quantum Fisher Information in Quantum Thermodynamics

In the framework of quantum thermodynamics preparing a quantum system in a general state requires the consumption of two distinct resources, namely, work and energetic coherence. It has been shown that the work cost of preparing a quantum state is determined by its free energy. Considering a similar setting, here we determine the coherence cost of preparing a general state when there are no restrictions on work consumption. More precisely, the coherence cost is defined as the minimum rate of consumption of systems in a pure coherent state, that is needed to prepare copies of the desired system. We show that the coherence cost of any system is determined by its quantum Fisher information about the time parameter, hence introducing a new operational interpretation of this central quantity of quantum metrology. Our resource-theoretic approach also reveals a previously unnoticed connection between two fundamental properties of quantum Fisher information.

Heat engines with single-shot deterministic work extraction

We introduce heat engines working in the nanoregime that allow one to extract a finite amount of deterministic work. Using the resource theory approach to themodynamics, we show that the efficiency of these cycles is strictly smaller than Carnot's, and we associate this difference with a fundamental irreversibility that is present in single-shot transformations. When fluctuations in the extracted work are allowed there is a trade-off between their size and the efficiency. As the size of fluctuations increases so does the efficiency and optimal efficiency is attained for unbounded fluctuations, while a certain amount of deterministic work is drawn from the cycle. Finally, we show that when the working medium is composed of many particles, by creating an amount of correlations between the subsystems that scale logarithmically with their number, Carnot's efficiency can also be approached in the asymptotic limit along with deterministic work extraction.

Quantum Incoherence Based Simultaneously on k Bases

Quantum coherence is known as an important resource in many quantum information tasks, which is a basis-dependent property of quantum states. In this paper, we discuss quantum incoherence based simultaneously on k bases using Matrix Theory Method. First, by defining a correlation function m(e,f) of two orthonormal bases e and f, we investigate the relationships between sets I(e) and I(f) of incoherent states with respect to e and f. We prove that I(e)=I(f) if and only if the rank-one projective measurements generated by e and f are identical. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for the intersection I(e)⋂I(f) to include a state except the maximally mixed state. Especially, if two bases e and f are mutually unbiased, then the intersection has only the maximally mixed state. Secondly, we introduce the concepts of strong incoherence and weak coherence of a quantum state with respect to a set B of k bases and propose a measure for the weak coherence. In the two-qubit system, we prove that there exists a maximally coherent state with respect to B when k=2 and it is not the case for k=3.

Pairwise quantum criteria and teleportation in a spin square complex

Thermal non-classical correlations quantified by concurrence entanglement, local quantum uncertainty, and quantum coherence in a four-qubit square chain are exactly examined. The influences of the Hamiltonian parameters on the mentioned pairwise quantum criteria and fidelity of teleportation are studied, and the most interesting findings are discussed in detail. It is found that the tuning anisotropy results in enhancing the thermal quantum correlations and coherence as well as average fidelity until achieving maximum values. We persuasively deduce that quantum coherence is a more efficient criterion than that of concurrence and local quantum uncertainty to detect the quantumness of a thermal state.

The Tightness of Multipartite Coherence from Spectrum Estimation

Detecting multipartite quantum coherence usually requires quantum state reconstruction, which is quite inefficient for large-scale quantum systems. Along this line of research, several efficient procedures have been proposed to detect multipartite quantum coherence without quantum state reconstruction, among which the spectrum-estimation-based method is suitable for various coherence measures. Here, we first generalize the spectrum-estimation-based method for the geometric measure of coherence. Then, we investigate the tightness of the estimated lower bound of various coherence measures, including the geometric measure of coherence, the l1-norm of coherence, the robustness of coherence, and some convex roof quantifiers of coherence multiqubit GHZ states and linear cluster states. Finally, we demonstrate the spectrum-estimation-based method as well as the other two efficient methods. We observe that the spectrum-estimation-based method outperforms other methods in various coherence measures, which significantly enhances the accuracy of estimation.

Common Coherence Witnesses and Common Coherent States

We show the properties and characterization of coherence witnesses. We show methods for constructing coherence witnesses for an arbitrary coherent state. We investigate the problem of finding common coherence witnesses for certain class of states. We show that finitely many different witnesses W1,W2,⋯,Wn can detect some common coherent states if and only if ∑i=1ntiWi is still a witnesses for any nonnegative numbers ti(i=1,2,⋯,n). We show coherent states play the role of high-level witnesses. Thus, the common state problem is changed into the question of when different high-level witnesses (coherent states) can detect the same coherence witnesses. Moreover, we show a coherent state and its robust state have no common coherence witness and give a general way to construct optimal coherence witnesses for any comparable states.

The tight Second Law inequality for coherent quantum systems and finite-size heat baths

In classical thermodynamics, the optimal work is given by the free energy difference, what according to the result of Skrzypczyk et al. can be generalized for individual quantum systems. The saturation of this bound, however, requires an infinite bath and ideal energy storage that is able to extract work from coherences. Here we present the tight Second Law inequality, defined in terms of the ergotropy (rather than free energy), that incorporates both of those important microscopic effects - the locked energy in coherences and the locked energy due to the finite-size bath. The former is solely quantified by the so-called control-marginal state, whereas the latter is given by the free energy difference between the global passive state and the equilibrium state. Furthermore, we discuss the thermodynamic limit where the finite-size bath correction vanishes, and the locked energy in coherences takes the form of the entropy difference. We supplement our results by numerical simulations for the heat bath given by the collection of qubits and the Gaussian model of the work reservoir.

Coherence distillation machines are impossible in quantum thermodynamics

The role of coherence in quantum thermodynamics has been extensively studied in the recent years and it is now well-understood that coherence between different energy eigenstates is a resource independent of other thermodynamics resources, such as work. A fundamental remaining open question is whether the laws of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics allow the existence of a coherence distillation machine, i.e., a machine that, by possibly consuming work, obtains pure coherent states from mixed states, at a nonzero rate. This is related to another fundamental question: Starting from many copies of noisy quantum clocks which are (approximately) synchronized with a reference clock, can one distill synchronized clocks in pure states, at a non-zero rate? Surprisingly, we find that the answer to both questions is negative for generic (full-rank) mixed states. However, at the same time, it is possible to distill a sub-linear number of pure coherent states with a vanishing error.

An introductory review of the resource theory approach to thermodynamics

I give a self-contained introduction to the resource theory approach to quantum thermodynamics. I will introduce in an elementary manner the technical machinery necessary to unpack and prove the core statements of the theory. The topics covered include the so-called 'many second laws of thermodynamics', thermo-majorisation and symmetry constraints on the evolution of quantum coherence. Among the elementary applications, I explicitly work out the bounds on deterministic work extraction and formation, discuss the complete solution of the theory for a single qubit and present the irreversibility of coherence transfers. The aim is to facilitate the task of those researchers interested in engaging and contributing to this topic, presenting scope and motivation of its core assumptions and discussing the relation between the resource theory and complementary approaches.

Correlations as a resource in quantum thermodynamics

The presence of correlations in physical systems can be a valuable resource for many quantum information tasks. They are also relevant in thermodynamic transformations, and their creation is usually associated to some energetic cost. In this work, we study the role of correlations in the thermodynamic process of state formation in the single-shot regime, and find that correlations can also be viewed as a resource. First, we show that the energetic cost of creating multiple copies of a given state can be reduced by allowing correlations in the final state. We obtain the minimum cost for every finite number of subsystems, and then we show that this feature is not restricted to the case of copies. More generally, we demonstrate that in the asymptotic limit, by allowing a logarithmic amount of correlations, we can recover standard results where the free energy quantifies this minimum cost.

Correlations in quantum thermodynamics are usually regarded as a useful but expensive resource. Here, the authors prove that the work cost of generating multiple copies of a state is lower if the copies are correlated, pointing out at the irreversibility of the process in the single-shot regime.

Quantifying Memory Capacity as a Quantum Thermodynamic Resource

The information-carrying capacity of a memory is known to be a thermodynamic resource facilitating the conversion of heat to work. Szilard's engine explicates this connection through a toy example involving an energy-degenerate two-state memory. We devise a formalism to quantify the thermodynamic value of memory in general quantum systems with nontrivial energy landscapes. Calling this the thermal information capacity, we show that it converges to the nonequilibrium Helmholtz free energy in the thermodynamic limit. We compute the capacity exactly for a general two-state (qubit) memory away from the thermodynamic limit, and find it to be distinct from known free energies. We outline an explicit memory-bath coupling that can approximate the optimal qubit thermal information capacity arbitrarily well.

Quantum majorization and a complete set of entropic conditions for quantum thermodynamics

What does it mean for one quantum process to be more disordered than another? Interestingly, this apparently abstract question arises naturally in a wide range of areas such as information theory, thermodynamics, quantum reference frames, and the resource theory of asymmetry. Here we use a quantum-mechanical generalization of majorization to develop a framework for answering this question, in terms of single-shot entropies, or equivalently, in terms of semi-definite programs. We also investigate some of the applications of this framework, and remarkably find that, in the context of quantum thermodynamics it provides the first complete set of necessary and sufficient conditions for arbitrary quantum state transformations under thermodynamic processes, which rigorously accounts for quantum-mechanical properties, such as coherence. Our framework of generalized thermal processes extends thermal operations, and is based on natural physical principles, namely, energy conservation, the existence of equilibrium states, and the requirement that quantum coherence be accounted for thermodynamically.

Quantifying Resources in General Resource Theory with Catalysts

A question that is commonly asked in all areas of physics is how a certain property of a physical system can be used to achieve useful tasks and how to quantify the amount of such a property in a meaningful way. We answer this question by showing that, in a general resource-theoretic framework that allows the use of free states as catalysts, the amount of "resources" contained in a given state, in the asymptotic scenario, is equal to the regularized relative entropy of a resource of that state. While we need to place a few assumptions on our resource-theoretical framework, it is still sufficiently general, and its special cases include quantum resource theories of entanglement, coherence, asymmetry, athermality, nonuniformity, and purity. As a by-product, our result also implies that the amount of noise one has to inject locally to erase all the entanglement contained in an entangled state is equal to the regularized relative entropy of entanglement.

Experimental Observation of a Generalized Thouless Pump with a Single Spin

Adiabatic cyclic modulation of a one-dimensional periodic potential will result in quantized charge transport, which is termed the Thouless pump. In contrast to the original Thouless pump restricted by the topology of the energy band, here we experimentally observe a generalized Thouless pump that can be extensively and continuously controlled. The extraordinary features of the new pump originate from interband coherence in nonequilibrium initial states, and this fact indicates that a quantum superposition of different eigenstates individually undergoing quantum adiabatic following can also be an important ingredient unavailable in classical physics. The quantum simulation of this generalized Thouless pump in a two-band insulator is achieved by applying delicate control fields to a single spin in diamond. The experimental results demonstrate all principal characteristics of the generalized Thouless pump. Because the pumping in our system is most pronounced around a band-touching point, this work also suggests an alternative means to detect quantum or topological phase transitions.

Coherence measure in terms of the Tsallis relative α entropy

Coherence is the most fundamental quantum feature of the nonclassical systems. The understanding of coherence within the resource theory has been attracting increasing interest among which the quantification of coherence is an essential ingredient. A satisfactory measure should meet certain standard criteria. It seems that the most crucial criterion should be the strong monotonicity, that is, average coherence doesn’t increase under the (sub-selective) incoherent operations. Recently, the Tsallis relative α entropy has been tried to quantify the coherence. But it was shown to violate the strong monotonicity, even though it can unambiguously distinguish the coherent and the incoherent states with the monotonicity. Here we establish a family of coherence quantifiers which are closely related to the Tsallis relative α entropy. It proves that this family of quantifiers satisfy all the standard criteria and particularly cover several typical coherence measures.

Quantum coherence of the Heisenberg spin models with Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya interactions

We study quantum coherence in a spin chain with both symmetric exchange and antisymmetric Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya couplings. Quantum coherence is quantified using the recently introduced quantum Jensen-Shannon divergence, which has the property that it is easily calculable and has several desirable mathematical properties. We calculate exactly the coherence for arbitrary number of spins at zero temperature in various limiting cases. The σ^zσ^z interaction tunes the amount of coherence in the system, and the antisymmetric coupling changes the nature of the coherence. We also investigate the effect of non-zero temperature by looking at a two-spin system and find similar behavior, with temperature dampening the coherence. The characteristic behavior of coherence resembles that of entanglement and is opposite to that of discord. The distribution of the coherence on the spins is investigated and found that it arises entirely due to the correlations between the spins.

Bounds for coherence of quantum superpositions in high dimension

Quantum coherence plays a major role in the promotion for quantum information processing and designing quantum technology. Since coherence is rooted in superposition principle, it is vital to understand the coherence change with respect to superpositions. Here we study the bounds for coherence of quantum superpositions in high dimension. We consider three most frequently used measures of coherence, i.e. the relative entropy of coherence, l₁ norm of coherence and robustness of coherence. For a quantum state (an arbitrary dimension) and its arbitrary decomposition, we give the upper and lower bounds for coherence of the superposition state in terms of the coherence of the states being superposed.

The classical correlation limits the ability of the measurement-induced average coherence

Coherence is the most fundamental quantum feature in quantum mechanics. For a bipartite quantum state, if a measurement is performed on one party, the other party, based on the measurement outcomes, will collapse to a corresponding state with some probability and hence gain the average coherence. It is shown that the average coherence is not less than the coherence of its reduced density matrix. In particular, it is very surprising that the extra average coherence (and the maximal extra average coherence with all the possible measurements taken into account) is upper bounded by the classical correlation of the bipartite state instead of the quantum correlation. We also find the sufficient and necessary condition for the null maximal extra average coherence. Some examples demonstrate the relation and, moreover, show that quantum correlation is neither sufficient nor necessary for the nonzero extra average coherence within a given measurement. In addition, the similar conclusions are drawn for both the basis-dependent and the basis-free coherence measure.

The complementarity relations of quantum coherence in quantum information processing

We establish two complementarity relations for the relative entropy of coherence in quantum information processing, i.e., quantum dense coding and teleportation. We first give an uncertainty-like expression relating local quantum coherence to the capacity of optimal dense coding for bipartite system. The relation can also be applied to the case of dense coding by using unital memoryless noisy quantum channels. Further, the relation between local quantum coherence and teleportation fidelity for two-qubit system is given.

Directly Measuring the Degree of Quantum Coherence using Interference Fringes

Quantum coherence is the most distinguished feature of quantum mechanics. It lies at the heart of the quantum-information technologies as the fundamental resource and is also related to other quantum resources, including entanglement. It plays a critical role in various fields, even in biology. Nevertheless, the rigorous and systematic resource-theoretic framework of coherence has just been developed recently, and several coherence measures are proposed. Experimentally, the usual method to measure coherence is to perform state tomography and use mathematical expressions. Here, we alternatively develop a method to measure coherence directly using its most essential behavior-the interference fringes. The ancilla states are mixed into the target state with various ratios, and the minimal ratio that makes the interference fringes of the "mixed state" vanish is taken as the quantity of coherence. We also use the witness observable to witness coherence, and the optimal witness constitutes another direct method to measure coherence. For comparison, we perform tomography and calculate l_{1} norm of coherence, which coincides with the results of the other two methods in our situation. Our methods are explicit and robust, providing a nice alternative to the tomographic technique.

Relating the Resource Theories of Entanglement and Quantum Coherence

Quantum coherence and quantum entanglement represent two fundamental features of nonclassical systems that can each be characterized within an operational resource theory. In this Letter, we unify the resource theories of entanglement and coherence by studying their combined behavior in the operational setting of local incoherent operations and classical communication (LIOCC). Specifically, we analyze the coherence and entanglement trade-offs in the tasks of state formation and resource distillation. For pure states we identify the minimum coherence-entanglement resources needed to generate a given state, and we introduce a new LIOCC monotone that completely characterizes a state's optimal rate of bipartite coherence distillation. This result allows us to precisely quantify the difference in operational powers between global incoherent operations, LIOCC, and local incoherent operations without classical communication. Finally, a bipartite mixed state is shown to have distillable entanglement if and only if entanglement can be distilled by LIOCC, and we strengthen the well-known Horodecki criterion for distillability.

Evolution equation for quantum coherence

The estimation of the decoherence process of an open quantum system is of both theoretical significance and experimental appealing. Practically, the decoherence can be easily estimated if the coherence evolution satisfies some simple relations. We introduce a framework for studying evolution equation of coherence. Based on this framework, we prove a simple factorization relation (FR) for the l1 norm of coherence, and identified the sets of quantum channels for which this FR holds. By using this FR, we further determine condition on the transformation matrix of the quantum channel which can support permanently freezing of the l1 norm of coherence. We finally reveal the universality of this FR by showing that it holds for many other related coherence and quantum correlation measures.

Robustness of Coherence: An Operational and Observable Measure of Quantum Coherence

Quantifying coherence is an essential endeavor for both quantum foundations and quantum technologies. Here, the robustness of coherence is defined and proven to be a full monotone in the context of the recently introduced resource theories of quantum coherence. The measure is shown to be observable, as it can be recast as the expectation value of a coherence witness operator for any quantum state. The robustness of coherence is evaluated analytically on relevant classes of states, and an efficient semidefinite program that computes it on general states is given. An operational interpretation is finally provided: the robustness of coherence quantifies the advantage enabled by a quantum state in a phase discrimination task.

Distribution of Quantum Coherence in Multipartite Systems

The distribution of coherence in multipartite systems is examined. We use a new coherence measure with entropic nature and metric properties, based on the quantum Jensen-Shannon divergence. The metric property allows for the coherence to be decomposed into various contributions, which arise from local and intrinsic coherences. We find that there are trade-off relations between the various contributions of coherence, as a function of parameters of the quantum state. In bipartite systems the coherence resides on individual sites or is distributed among the sites, which contribute in a complementary way. In more complex systems, the characteristics of the coherence can display more subtle changes with respect to the parameters of the quantum state. In the case of the XXZ Heisenberg model, the coherence changes from a monogamous to a polygamous nature. This allows us to define the shareability of coherence, leading to monogamy relations for coherence.

Quantum coherence of steered states

Lying at the heart of quantum mechanics, coherence has recently been studied as a key resource in quantum information theory. Quantum steering, a fundamental notion originally considered by Schödinger, has also recently received much attention. When Alice and Bob share a correlated quantum system, Alice can perform a local measurement to 'steer' Bob's reduced state. We introduce the maximal steered coherence as a measure describing the extent to which steering can remotely create coherence; more precisely, we find the maximal coherence of Bob's steered state in the eigenbasis of his original reduced state, where maximization is performed over all positive-operator valued measurements for Alice. We prove that maximal steered coherence vanishes for quantum-classical states whilst reaching a maximum for pure entangled states with full Schmidt rank. Although invariant under local unitary operations, maximal steered coherence may be increased when Bob performs a channel. For a two-qubit state we find that Bob's channel can increase maximal steered coherence if and only if it is neither unital nor semi-classical, which coincides with the condition for increasing discord. Our results show that the power of steering for coherence generation, though related to discord, is distinct from existing measures of quantum correlation.

Stochastic Independence as a Resource in Small-Scale Thermodynamics

It is well known in thermodynamics that the creation of correlations costs work. It seems then a truism that if a thermodynamic transformation A→B is impossible, so will be any transformation that in sending A to B also correlates among them some auxiliary systems C. Surprisingly, we show that this is not the case for nonequilibrium thermodynamics of microscopic systems. On the contrary, the creation of correlations greatly extends the set of accessible states, to the point that we can perform on individual systems and in a single shot any transformation that would otherwise be possible only if the number of systems involved was very large. We also show that one only ever needs to create a vanishingly small amount of correlations (as measured by mutual information) among a small number of auxiliary systems (never more than three). The many, severe constraints of microscopic thermodynamics are reduced to the sole requirement that the nonequilibrium free energy decreases in the transformation. This shows that, in principle, reliable extraction of work equal to the free energy of a system can be performed by microscopic engines.