Spin-1/2 geometric phase driven by decohering quantum fields

Phase and Amplitude Modes in the Anisotropic Dicke Model with Matter Interactions

Phase and amplitude modes, also called polariton modes, are emergent phenomena that manifest across diverse physical systems, from condensed matter and particle physics to quantum optics. We study their behavior in an anisotropic Dicke model that includes collective matter interactions. We study the low-lying spectrum in the thermodynamic limit via the Holstein-Primakoff transformation and contrast the results with the semi-classical energy surface obtained via coherent states. We also explore the geometric phase for both boson and spin contours in the parameter space as a function of the phases in the system. We unveil novel phenomena due to the unique critical features provided by the interplay between the anisotropy and matter interactions. We expect our results to serve the observation of phase and amplitude modes in current quantum information platforms.

Optically tunable spin texture of the surface state for Bi2Se3 and SmB6 topological insulators

The spin texture of the surface state for topological insulators can be manipulated by the polarization of light, which might play a potential role in the applications in spintronics. However, the study so far in this direction mainly focuses on the classical light-topological-insulators interactions; TIs coupled to quantized light remains barely explored. In this paper, we develop a formalism to deal with this issue of spin texture of the surface state for topological insulators (for example Bi₂Se₃ and SmB₆) irradiated by a quantum field, and we find that the coupling between an electron and a single-mode quantum field modulates only the arrow length that represents the spin polarization of a topological surface state. Specifically, when the photon number of a single-mode quantum field is fixed, the azimuth angle between the quantum light and the material surface manipulates the spin textures along the constant energy contour rotating (clockwise or counterclockwise) around the high symmetry point, and the polar angle controls the magnitude of the spin polarization. These results are quite different from the situation where an external field is not applied to an electron in a crystal or where a classical external field is utilized to control the spin polarization of a photoemitted electron in a vacuum. Our results have potential applications in quantum optics and condensed-matter physics.

Observation of quantum interference as a function of Berry's phase in a complex Hadamard optical network

Emerging models of quantum computation driven by multiphoton quantum interference, while not universal, may offer an exponential advantage over classical computers for certain problems. Implementing these circuits via geometric phase gates could mitigate requirements for error correction to achieve fault tolerance while retaining their relative physical simplicity. We report an experiment in which a geometric phase is embedded in an optical network with no closed loops, enabling quantum interference between two photons as a function of the phase.

Geometric phase and nonadiabatic effects in an electronic harmonic oscillator

Steering a quantum harmonic oscillator state along cyclic trajectories leads to a path-dependent geometric phase. Here we describe its experimental observation in an electronic harmonic oscillator. We use a superconducting qubit as a nonlinear probe of the phase, which is otherwise unobservable due to the linearity of the oscillator. We show that the geometric phase is, for a variety of cyclic paths, proportional to the area enclosed in the quadrature plane. At the transition to the nonadiabatic regime, we study corrections to the phase and dephasing of the qubit caused by qubit-resonator entanglement. In particular, we identify parameters for which this dephasing mechanism is negligible even in the nonadiabatic regime. The demonstrated controllability makes our system a versatile tool to study geometric phases in open quantum systems and to investigate their potential for quantum information processing.

Absence of vacuum induced Berry phases without the rotating wave approximation in cavity QED

We revisit earlier studies on Berry phases suggested to appear in certain cavity QED settings. It has been especially argued that a nontrivial geometric phase is achievable even in the situation of no cavity photons. We, however, show that such results hinge on imposing the rotating wave approximation (RWA), while without the RWA no Berry phases occur in these schemes. A geometrical interpretation of our results is obtained by introducing semiclassical energy surfaces which in a simple way brings out the phase-space dynamics. With the RWA, a conical intersection between the surfaces emerges and encircling it gives rise to the Berry phase. Without the RWA, the conical intersection is absent and therefore the Berry phase vanishes. It is believed that this is a first example showing how the application of the RWA in the Jaynes-Cummings model may lead to false conclusions, regardless of the mutual strengths between the system parameters.

Geometric phase with nonunitary evolution in the presence of a quantum critical bath

Geometric phases, arising from cyclic evolutions in a curved parameter space, appear in a wealth of physical settings. Recently, and largely motivated by the need of an experimentally realistic definition for quantum computing applications, the quantum geometric phase was generalized to open systems. The definition takes a kinematical approach, with an initial state that is evolved cyclically but coupled to an environment--leading to a correction of the geometric phase with respect to the uncoupled case. We obtain this correction by measuring the nonunitary evolution of the reduced density matrix of a spin one-half coupled to an environment. In particular we are interested in baths near a quantum phase transition, which are known to induce strong decoherence. The experiments are done with a NMR quantum simulator, where we emulate qualitatively the influence of a critical environment using a simple one-qubit model.

Holonomic quantum computation in the presence of decoherence

We present a scheme to study non-Abelian adiabatic holonomies for open Markovian systems. As an application of our framework, we analyze the robustness of holonomic quantum computation against decoherence. We pinpoint the sources of error that must be corrected to achieve a geometric implementation of quantum computation completely resilient to Markovian decoherence.

Kinematic approach to the mixed state geometric phase in nonunitary evolution

A kinematic approach to the geometric phase for mixed quantal states in nonunitary evolution is proposed. This phase is manifestly gauge invariant and can be experimentally tested in interferometry. It leads to well-known results when the evolution is unitary.