QUROPE Quantum Information Processing and Communication in Europe

We propose a scheme involving cold atoms trapped in optical lattices to observe different phenomena traditionally linked to quantum-optical systems. The basic idea consists of connecting the trapped atomic state to a non-trapped state through a Raman scheme. The coupling between these two types of atoms (trapped and free) turns out to be similar to that describing light–matter interaction within the rotating-wave approximation, the role of matter and photons being played by the trapped and free atoms, respectively.

We review quantum information processing with cold neutral particles, that is, atoms or polar molecules. First, we analyze the best suited degrees of freedom of these particles for storing quantum information, and then we discuss both single- and two-qubit gate implementations. We focus our discussion mainly on collisional quantum gates, which are best suited for atom-chip-like devices, as well as on gate proposals conceived for optical lattices.

A universal quantum simulator is a controlled quantum device that reproduces the dynamics of any other many-particle quantum system with short-range interactions. This dynamics can refer to both coherent Hamiltonian and dissipative open-system evolution. Here we propose that laser-excited Rydberg atoms in large-spacing optical or magnetic lattices provide an efficient implementation of a universal quantum simulator for spin models involving n-body interactions, including such of higher order.

Recent experimental progress with Alkaline-Earth atoms has opened the door to quantum computing schemes in which qubits are encoded in long-lived nuclear spin states, and the metastable electronic states of these species are used for manipulation and readout of the qubits. Here we discuss a variant of these schemes, in which gate operations are performed in nuclear-spin-dependent optical lattices, formed by near-resonant coupling to the metastable excited state. This provides an alternative to a previous scheme [A. J. Daley, M. M. Boyd, J. Ye, and P. Zoller, Phys. Rev.

Ultracold atoms in optical lattices provide a versatile tool with which to investigate fundamental properties of quantum many-body systems. In particular, the high degree of control of experimental parameters has allowed the study of many interesting phenomena, such as quantum phase transitions and quantum spin dynamics. Here we demonstrate how such control can be implemented at the most fundamental level of a single spin at a specific site of an optical lattice.

 We propose a scheme involving cold atoms trapped in optical lattices to observe different phenomena traditionally linked to quantum–optical systems. The basic idea consists of connecting the trapped atomic state to a non-trapped state through a Raman scheme. The coupling between these two types of atoms (trapped and free) turns out to be similar to that describing light–matter interaction within the rotating–wave approximation, the role of matter and photons being played by the trapped and free atoms, respectively.

We study two many-body systems of bosons interacting via an infinite three-body contact repulsion in a lattice: a pairs quasicondensate induced by correlated hopping and the discrete version of the Pfaffian wave function. We propose to experimentally realize systems characterized by such interaction by means of a proper spin-1 lattice Hamiltonian: spin degrees of freedom are locally mapped into occupation numbers of emerging bosons, in a fashion similar to spin-1/2 and hardcore bosons. Such a system can be realized with ultracold spin-1 atoms in a Mott insulator with a filling factor of 1.

We study the ground-state properties of ultracold bosons in an optical lattice in the regime of strong interactions. The system is described by a non-standard Bose-Hubbard model with both occupation-dependent tunneling and on-site interaction parameters. We find that for sufficiently strong coupling, the system features a phase-transition from a Mott insulator with one particle per site to a superfluid of spatially extended particle pairs living on top of the Mott background.