Quantum systems engineering

Abstract:

Recent experimental progress in magnetic atoms and polar molecules has created the prospect of simulating dipolar Hubbard models with off-site interactions. When applied to real-space cylindrical optical lattices, these anisotropic dipole-dipole interactions acquire a tunable spatially dependent component while they remain translationally invariant in the axial direction, creating a sublattice structure in the azimuthal direction. We numerically study how the coexistence of these classes of interactions affects the ground state of hard-core dipolar bosons at half filling in a finite-size cylindrical optical lattice with octagonal rings. When these two interaction classes cooperate, we find a solid state where the density order is determined by the azimuthal sublattice structure and builds smoothly as the interaction strength increases. For dipole polarizations where the axial interactions are sufficiently repulsive, the repulsion competes with the sublattice structure, significantly increasing entanglement and creating two distinct ordered density patterns. The spatially varying interactions cause the emergence of these ordered states in small lattices as a function of interaction strength to be staggered according to the azimuthal sublattices.

Abstract:

Synchronization is a phenomenon where interacting particles lock their motion and display non-trivial dynamics. Despite intense efforts studying synchronization in systems without clear classical limits, no comprehensive theory has been found. We develop such a general theory based on novel necessary and sufficient algebraic criteria for persistently oscillating eigenmodes (limit cycles) of time-independent quantum master equations. We show these eigenmodes must be quantum coherent and give an exact analytical solution for all such dynamics in terms of a dynamical symmetry algebra. Using our theory, we study both stable synchronization and metastable/transient synchronization. We use our theory to fully characterise spontaneous synchronization of autonomous systems. Moreover, we give compact algebraic criteria that may be used to prove absence of synchronization. We demonstrate synchronization in several systems relevant for various fermionic cold atom experiments.