QUROPE Quantum Information Processing and Communication in Europe

When classical degrees of freedom and quantum degrees of freedom are consistently coupled, the former diffuse, while the latter undergo decoherence. Here, we construct a theory of quantum matter fields and Nordstrom gravity in which the space-time metric is treated classically. The dynamics is constructed via the classical-quantum path integral and is completely positive, trace preserving (CPTP), and respects the classical-quantum split. The weak field limit of the model matches the Newtonian limit of the full covariant path integral but it is easier to show that the theory is both diffeomorphism invariant, CPTP, and has the appropriate classical limit.

The concept of weak value exhibits numerous intriguing characteristics, leading to unexpected and potentially advantageous phenomena. In this paper, we analyze, from a computational perspective, the performance of the weak measurement protocol for measuring the weak value within various noise channels. A mathematical framework is developed for addressing the less explored case of noise acting on the primary rather than probe system. We pinpoint specific instances where the sensitivity to noise is reduced quadratically with the weak measurement protocol while this cannot be achieved with the standard measurement protocol. Specifically, when confronted with the challenge of learning an operator under the influence of either a Pauli noise channel, a unital noise channel, or an amplitude and phase damping channel, the weak measurement of the weak value can yield significant benefits. Notably, in the first two cases, and especially in the context of the unital noise channel, initializing the system in the maximally mixed state (but postselecting it in a pure state) has proven to be particularly advantageous.

Parameterized Quantum Circuits (PQC) have obtained increasing popularity thanks to their great potential for near-term Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) computers. Achieving quantum advantages usually requires a large number of qubits and quantum circuits with enough capacity. However, limited coherence time and massive quantum noises severely constrain the size of quantum circuits that can be executed reliably on real machines. To address these two pain points, we propose QuantumSEA, an in-time sparse exploration for noise-adaptive quantum circuits, aiming to achieve two key objectives: (1) implicit circuits capacity during training - by dynamically exploring the circuit's sparse connectivity and sticking a fixed small number of quantum gates throughout the training which satisfies the coherence time and enjoy light noises, enabling feasible executions on real quantum devices; (2) noise robustness - by jointly optimizing the topology and parameters of quantum circuits under real device noise models. In each update step of sparsity, we leverage the moving average of historical gradients to grow necessary gates and utilize salience-based pruning to eliminate insignificant gates. Extensive experiments are conducted with 7 Quantum Machine Learning (QML) and Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) benchmarks on 6 simulated or real quantum computers, where QuantumSEA consistently surpasses noise-aware search, human-designed, and randomly generated quantum circuit baselines by a clear performance margin. For example, even in the most challenging on-chip training regime, our method establishes state-of-the-art results with only half the number of quantum gates and ~2x time saving of circuit executions. Codes are available at https://github.com/VITA-Group/QuantumSEA.

The quantum Rabi model is essential for understanding interacting quantum systems. It serves as the simplest non-integrable yet solvable model describing the interaction between a two-level system and a single mode of a bosonic field. In this study, we delve into the exploration of the generalized quantum Rabi model, wherein the bosonic mode of the field undergoes squeezing. Utilizing the Segal-Bargmann representation of the infinite-dimensional Hilbert space, we demonstrate that the energy spectrum of the generalized quantum Rabi model, when both the Rabi coupling strength and the squeezing strength are not significantly large compared to the field mode frequency, can be analytically determined by a bi-confluent Fuchsian equation with two regular singularities at 0 and 1 and an irregular singularity of rank two at infinity.

We experimentally demonstrate the optical frequency tuning of a squeezed vacuum state generated from an optical parametric oscillator by using an acousto-optic modulator based bi-frequency interferometer. The systematic efficiency of the frequency tuning device is $91\%$, which is only confined by the optical transmission efficiency of the acousto-optic modulators. The amount of frequency tuning is 80 MHz, which is orders of magnitude larger than the line-width of the laser used to generate the squeezed state, and can in principle be further extended to GHz range. Our investigation shows the interferometric enhanced Bragg diffraction effect can be applied to a variety of other quantum optical states as well, and will serve as a handy tool for quantum network.

The popular qubit framework has dominated recent work on quantum kernels, with results characterising expressability, learnability and generalisation. As yet, there is no comparative framework to understand these concepts for continuous variable (CV) quantum computing platforms. In this paper we represent CV quantum kernels as holomorphic functions and use this representation to provide several important theoretical insights. The approach permits a general closed form solution for all CV quantum kernels and shows every such kernel can be expressed as the product of Gaussian and polynomial terms. Furthermore, it enables quantification of a quantum-classical separation for all such kernels via a notion of "stellar rank", and provides intuition for how bandwidth hyper-parameter tuning results in trades-off between learnability and efficient classical simulability.

In this work, we discuss properties with no static counterpart arising in Floquet topological insulators with a dynamical chiral symmetry (DCS), i.e., a chiral symmetry which is present while driving. We explore the topological properties of Floquet insulators possessing a DCS which either does or does not survive upon taking the static limit. We consider the case of harmonic drives and employ a general framework using the quasi-energy operator in frequency space. We find that for a DCS with no static analog, the presence of driving has a negligible impact on the topological phases associated with zero quasi-energy. In stark contrast, topological gaps can open at $\pi$ quasi-energy and mainly occur at momenta where the driving perturbation vanishes. We confirm the above general predictions for an extended Kitaev chain model in the BDI symmetry class. Another possibility that opens up when adding the drive, while preserving chiral symmetry, is symmetry-class conversion. We demonstrate such an effect for a static CI class Hamiltonian which is topologically trivial in 1D. By considering a suitable driving, we obtain a CI$\rightarrow$AIII transition, which now enables the system to harbor topological $\pi$-modes. Notably, the arising topological phases strongly depend on whether the DCS has a static analog or not. Our results bring Floquet insulators with nonstandard DCS forward as ideal candidate platforms for engineering and manipulating topological $\pi$-modes.

In [1], Collins et al. showed that the quantum entropy of random graph states satisfies the so-called area law as the local dimension tends to be large. In this paper, we continue to study the fluctuation of the convergence and thus prove the area law holds almost surely.

A full-fledged quantum network relies on the formation of entangled links between remote location with the help of quantum repeaters. The famous Duan-Lukin-Cirac-Zoller quantum repeater protocol is based on long distance single-photon interference, which not only requires high phase stability but also cannot generate maximally entangled state. Here, we propose a quantum repeater protocol using the idea of post-matching, which retains the same efficiency as the single-photon interference protocol, reduces the phase-stability requirement and can generate maximally entangled state in principle. Numerical simulations show that our protocol has its superiority by comparing with existing protocols under a generic noise model. Our work provides a promising solution to a long-distance quantum communication link. We believe this represents a crucial step towards the construction of a fully-connected quantum network.

The no-go theorem regarding unconditionally secure Quantum Bit Commitment protocols is a relevant result in quantum cryptography. Such result has been used to prove the impossibility of unconditional security for other protocols, such as Quantum Oblivious Transfer or One-Sided Two Party Computation. In this paper, we formally define two non-deterministic versions of Quantum Private Queries, a protocol addressing the Symmetric-Private Information Retrieval problem. We show that the strongest variant of such scheme is formally equivalent to Quantum Bit Commitment, Quantum Oblivious Transfer and One-Sided Two Party Computation protocols. This equivalence serves as conclusive evidence of the impracticality of achieving unconditionally secure Strong Probabilistic Quantum Private Queries.

Quantum control techniques represent one of the most efficient tools to attain high-fidelity quantum operations and a convenient approach for quantum sensing and quantum noise spectroscopy. In this work, we investigate dynamical decoupling while processing an entangling two-qubit gate based on an Ising-xx interaction, each qubit being affected by pure dephasing classical correlated 1/ f -noises. To evaluate the gate error, we used the Magnus expansion introducing generalized filter functions that describe decoupling while processing and allow us to derive an approximate analytic expression as a hierarchy of nested integrals of noise cumulants. The error is separated in contributions of Gaussian and non-Gaussian noise, the corresponding generalized filter functions being calculated up to the fourth order. By exploiting the properties of selected pulse sequences, we show that it is possible to extract the second-order statistics (spectrum and cross-spectrum) and to highlight non-Gaussian features contained in the fourth-order cumulant. We discuss the applicability of these results to state-of-the-art small networks based on solid-state platforms.

In this paper we establish almost-optimal stability estimates in quantum optimal transport pseudometrics for the semiclassical limit of the Hartree dynamics to the Vlasov-Poisson equation, in the regime where the solutions have bounded densities. We combine Golse and Paul's method from [Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 223:57-94, 2017], which uses a semiclassical version of the optimal transport distance and which was adapted to the case of the Coulomb and gravitational interactions by the second author in [J. Stat. Phys. 177:20-60, 2019], with a new approach developed by the first author in [Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 244:27-50, 2022] to quantitatively improve stability estimates in kinetic theory.

We explore the spatial features of various orders of Fraunhofer diffraction patterns in a four-level N-type atomic system. The system interacts with a weak probe light, a standing wave (SW) coupling field in the x-direction, and a cylindrical beam of composite optical vortex type. We derive the first-order linear and third-order cross-Kerr nonlinear parts of the probe susceptibility by expanding the probe susceptibility of the system into the second order of the SW beam. This allows us to solve the integral equation of Fraunhofer diffraction, decoding its varying degrees to specific degrees of Bessel functions containing the nonlinear susceptibility. Notably, the nonlinear susceptibility exhibits dependence on the Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM) of the light beam, leading to spatial variations in the Bessel functions and, consequently, in the different orders of Fraunhofer diffraction. Leveraging the manipulation of OAM, we achieve precise control over the spatial mapping of diverse diffraction orders at various locations. Our research sheds new light on the spatial behavior of Fraunhofer diffraction in complex atomic systems. It presents exciting prospects for harnessing the OAM characteristics of light in future optical technologies.

The Mpemba effect is a counter-intuitive phenomena in which a hot system reaches a cold temperature faster than a colder system, under otherwise identical conditions. Here we propose a quantum analog of the Mpemba effect, on the simplest quantum system, a qubit. Specifically, we show it exhibits an inverse effect, in which a cold qubit reaches a hot temperature faster than a hot qubit. Furthermore, in our system a cold qubit can heat up exponentially faster, manifesting the strong version of the effect. This occurs only for sufficiently coherent systems, making this effect quantum mechanical, i.e. due to interference effects. We experimentally demonstrate our findings on a single $^{88}\text{Sr}^+$ trapped ion qubit.

The quantum wave nature of matter is a cornerstone of modern physics, which has been demonstrated for a wide range of fundamental and composite particles. While diffraction at nanomechanical masks is usually regarded to be independent of atomic or molecular internal states, the particles' polarisabilities and dipole moments lead to dispersive interactions with the grating surface. In prior experiments, such forces largely prevented matter-wave experiments with polar molecules, as they led to dephasing of the matter wave in the presence of randomly distributed charges incorporated into the grating. Here we show that ion-beam milling using neon facilitates the fabrication of lowly-charged nanomasks in gold-capped silicon nitride membranes. This allows us to observe the diffraction of polar molecules with a four times larger electric dipole moment than in previous experiments. This new capability opens a path to the assessment of the structure of polar molecules in matter-wave diffraction experiments.

Searching for exotic spin-dependent interactions that beyond the standard model has been of interest for past decades and is crucial for unraveling the mysteries of the universe. Previous laboratory searches primarily focus on searching for either static or modulated energy-level shifts caused by exotic spin-dependent interactions. Here, we introduce a theoretical model based on thermal motion of particles, providing another efficient way to search for exotic spin-dependent interactions. The theoretical model indicates that as the exotic spin-dependent interactions are related with the relative displacements and velocities of atoms, atoms undergoing thermal motion would experience a fluctuating energy-level shift induced by the exotic interactions. Moreover, the resulting exotic energy-level shift noise could be sensed by high-sensitivity instruments. By using the model and taking the high-sensitivity atomic magnetometer as an example, we set the most stringent laboratory experiment constraints on eight different kinds of exotic spin- and velocity-dependent interactions, with five of which at the force range below 1 cm have not been covered previously. Furthermore, this theoretical model can be easily applied in other fields of quantum sensing, such as atomic clocks, atom interferometers and NV-diamond sensors, to further improve the laboratory constraints on exotic spin-dependent interactions.

Grover's quantum search algorithm promises a quadratic speedup for unstructured search over its classical counterpart. But this advantage is gradually reduced with noise acting on the search space. In this article, we demonstrate that a quantum switch can act as a resource operation in mitigating the effect of the noise in the search space. In this scenario, fault-tolerant model quantum computing is costly. In addition to the noise modeled by a depolarizing channel, which coherently acts on the entire quantum register, such an error correction method can not be trivially implemented. We show that a quantum switch can significantly add value by reducing this error. In particular, we propose two frameworks for the application of switches. In the first framework, we apply the superposition of channels' orders in the form of a switch and do a post-selection at every iteration of the applications of the Grover operator. In the second framework, we delay the post-selection until the very end. In other words, if we want to look at the switch's action at the kth step, we already have k-1 post-selection measurements in place for the first framework. In the second case, we only have a single measurement. The number of post selections is minimal in the second scenario, so its effect is more credited to the switch. It also gives a significant advantage regarding the success probability of Grover's algorithm. We take the success probability as the sole quantifier of the switch's action in diminishing the effect of noise in search space.

The aim of the channel estimation is to estimate the parameters encoded in a quantum channel. For this aim, it is allowed to choose the input state as well as the measurement to get the outcome. Various precision bounds are known for the state estimation. For the channel estimation, the respective bounds are determined depending on the choice of the input state. However, determining the optimal input probe state and the corresponding precision bounds in estimation is a non-trivial problem, particularly in the multi-parameter setting, where parameters are often incompatible. In this paper, we present a conic programming framework that allows us to determine the optimal probe state for the corresponding multi-parameter precision bounds. The precision bounds we consider include the Holevo-Nagaoka bound and the tight precision bound that give the optimal performances of correlated and uncorrelated measurement strategies, respectively. Using our conic programming framework, we discuss the optimality of a maximally entangled probe state in various settings. We also apply our theory to analyze the canonical field sensing problem using entangled quantum probe states.

The nuclear-polarization corrections to the energy levels of highly charged ions are systematically investigated to leading order in the fine-structure constant. To this end, the notion of effective photon propagators with nuclear-polarization insertions is employed, where the nuclear excitation spectrum is calculated by means of the Hartree-Fock-based random-phase approximation. The effective Skyrme force is used to describe the interaction between nucleons, and the model dependence is analyzed. To leading order, the formalism predicts two contributions given by the effective vacuum-polarization and self-energy diagrams. The existing ambiguity around the vacuum-polarization term is resolved by demonstrating that it is effectively absorbed in the standard finite-nuclear-size correction. The self-energy part is evaluated with the full electromagnetic electron-nucleus interaction taken into account, where the importance of the effects of the nuclear three-currents is emphasized.

Driving a quantum many-body system across the quantum phase transition (QPT) in finite time has been concerned in different branches of physics to explore various fundamental questions. Here, we analyze how the underlying QPT affects the work distribution, when the controlling parameter of a ferromagnetic spinor Bose-Einstein condensates is tuned through the critical point in finite time.We show that the work distribution undergoes a dramatic change with increasing the driving time $\tau$, which is further captured by employing the entropy of the work distribution.We observe three distinct regions in the evolution of entropy as a function of $\tau$.Specifically, the entropy is insensitive to the driving time in the region of very short $\tau$. However, in the region with intermediate value of $\tau$, it exhibits a universal power-law decay consistent with the well-known Kibble-Zurek mechanism. For the region with large $\tau$, the validity of the adiabatic perturbation theory leads to the entropy decay as $\tau^{-2}\ln\tau$. Our results verify the usefulness of the entropy of the work distribution for understanding the critical dynamics and provide an alternative way to experimentally study nonequilibrium properties in quantum many-body systems.