Quantum systems engineering

Abstract:

We show that low-lying excitations of a 2D Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer superconductor are significantly altered when coupled to an externally driven cavity, which induces controllable long-range attractive interactions between the electrons. We find that they combine nonlinearly with intrinsic local interactions to increase the Bogoliubov quasiparticle excitation energies, thus enlarging the superconducting gap. The long-range nature of the driven-cavity-induced attraction qualitatively changes the collective excitations of the superconductor. Specifically, they lead to the appearance of additional collective excitations of the excitonic modes. Furthermore, the Higgs mode is pushed into the gap and now lies below the Bogoliubov quasiparticle continuum such that it cannot decay into quasiparticles. This way, the Higgs mode's lifetime is greatly enhanced.

Abstract:

Single-shot images are the standard readout of experiments with ultracold atoms, the imperfect reflection of their many-body physics. The efficient extraction of observables from single-shot images is thus crucial. Here we demonstrate how artificial neural networks can optimize this extraction. In contrast to standard averaging approaches, machine learning allows both one- and two-particle densities to be accurately obtained from a drastically reduced number of single-shot images. Quantum fluctuations and correlations are directly harnessed to obtain physical observables for bosons in a tilted double-well potential at an extreme accuracy. Strikingly, machine learning also enables a reliable extraction of momentum-space observables from real-space single-shot images and vice versa. With this technique, the reconfiguration of the experimental setup between in situ and time-of-flight imaging is required only once to obtain training data, thus potentially granting an outstanding reduction in resources.

Abstract:

Many complex systems can spontaneously oscillate under nonperiodic forcing. Such self-oscillators are commonplace in biological and technological assemblies where temporal periodicity is needed, such as the beating of a human heart or the vibration of a cello string. While self-oscillation is well understood in classical nonlinear systems and their quantized counterparts, the spontaneous emergence of periodicity in quantum systems is more elusive. Here, we show that this behavior can emerge within the repeated-interaction description of open quantum systems. Specifically, we consider a many-body quantum system that undergoes dissipation due to sequential coupling with auxiliary systems at random times. We develop dynamical symmetry conditions that guarantee an oscillatory long-time state in this setting. Our rigorous results are illustrated with specific spin models, which could be implemented in trapped-ion quantum simulators.

Abstract:

We review recent results on an exactly solvable model of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, specifically the classical rule 54 reversible cellular automaton and some of its quantum extensions. We discuss the exact microscopic description of nonequilibrium dynamics as well as the equilibrium and nonequilibrium stationary states. This allows us to obtain a rigorous handle on the corresponding emergent hydrodynamic description, which is treated as well. Specifically, we focus on two different paradigms of rule 54 dynamics. Firstly, we consider a finite chain driven by stochastic boundaries, where we provide exact matrix product descriptions of the nonequilibrium steady state, most relevant decay modes, as well as the eigenvector of the tilted Markov chain yielding exact large deviations for a broad class of local and extensive observables. Secondly, we treat the explicit dynamics of macro-states on an infinite lattice and discuss exact closed form results for dynamical structure factor, multi-time-correlation functions and inhomogeneous quenches. Remarkably, these results prove that the model, despite its simplicity, behaves like a regular fluid with coexistence of ballistic (sound) and diffusive (heat) transport. Finally, we briefly discuss quantum interpretation of rule 54 dynamics and explicit results on dynamical spreading of local operators and operator entanglement.