Optimal Measurements for
Scalable Quantum Technologies

Highlights - Optimal Measurements for Scalable Quantum Technologies

08-27-2015: Chris Monroe’s work on many-body localization (MBL) now on the arxiv (to appear in Nature Physics)!

Link: Many-body localization in a quantum simulator with programmable random disorder

Abstract: When a system thermalizes it loses all local memory of its initial conditions. This is a general feature of open systems and is well described by equilibrium statistical mechanics. Even within a closed (or reversible) quantum system, where unitary time evolution retains all information about its initial state, subsystems can still thermalize using the rest of the system as an effective heat bath. Exceptions to quantum thermalization have been predicted and observed, but typically require inherent symmetries or noninteracting particles in the presence of static disorder. The prediction of many-body localization (MBL), in which disordered quantum systems can fail to thermalize in spite of strong interactions and high excitation energy, was therefore surprising and has attracted considerable theoretical attention. Here we experimentally generate MBL states by applying an Ising Hamiltonian with long-range interactions and programmably random disorder to ten spins initialized far from equilibrium. We observe the essential signatures of MBL: memory retention of the initial state, a Poissonian distribution of energy level spacings, and entanglement growth in the system at long times. Our platform can be scaled to higher numbers of spins, where detailed modeling of MBL becomes impossible due to the complexity of representing such entangled quantum states. Moreover, the high degree of control in our experiment may guide the use of MBL states as potential quantum memories in naturally disordered quantum systems.

10-24-2014: Quantum metrology with Dicke squeezed states by Z. Zhang and L.M. Duan has been published by the New Journal of Physics!

Link: Quantum metrology with Dicke squeezed states

Abstract: We introduce a new class of quantum many-particle entangled states, called the Dicke squeezed (or DS) states, which can be used to improve the precision in quantum metrology beyond the standard quantum limit. We show that the enhancement in measurement precision is characterized by a single experimentally detectable parameter, called the Dicke squeezing ${{\xi }_{D}}$, which also bounds the entanglement depth for this class of states. The measurement precision approaches the ultimate Heisenberg limit as ${{\xi }_{D}}$attains the minimum in an ideal Dicke state. Compared with other entangled states, we show that the DS states are more robust to decoherence and give better measurement precision under typical experimental noise.

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