Analytical model of non-Markovian decoherence in donor-based charge quantum bits

We develop an analytical model for describing the dynamics of a donor-based charge quantum bit (qubit). As a result, the quantum decoherence of the qubit is analytically obtained and shown to reveal non-Markovian features: The decoherence rate varies with time and even attains negative values, generating a non-exponential decay of the electronic coherence and a later recoherence. The resulting coherence time is inversely proportional to the temperature, thus leading to low decoherence below a material dependent characteristic temperature.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figure

Renormalization of Optical Excitations in Molecules near a Metal Surface

The lowest electronic excitations of benzene and a set of donor-acceptor molecular complexes are calculated for the gas phase and on the Al(111) surface using the many-body Bethe-Salpeter equation (BSE). The energy of the charge-transfer excitations obtained for the gas phase complexes are found to be around 10% lower than the experimental values. When the molecules are placed outside the surface, the enhanced screening from the metal reduces the exciton binding energies by several eVs and the transition energies by up to 1 eV depending on the size of the transition-generated dipole. As a striking consequence we find that close to the metal surface the optical gap of benzene can exceed its quasiparticle gap. A classical image charge model for the screened Coulomb interaction can account for all these effects which, on the other hand, are completely missed by standard time-dependent density functional theory.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; revised versio

Abrupt Changes in the Dynamics of Quantum Disentanglement

Entanglement evolution in high dimensional bipartite systems under dissipation is studied. Discontinuities for the time derivative of the lower bound of entanglement of formation is found depending on the initial conditions for entangled states. This abrupt changes along the evolution appears as precursors of entanglement sudden death.Comment: 4 pages and 6 figures, submitted for publicatio

Graphene on metals: a Van der Waals density functional study

We use density functional theory (DFT) with a recently developed van der Waals density functional (vdW-DF) to study the adsorption of graphene on Al, Cu, Ag, Au, Pt, Pd, Co and Ni(111) surfaces. In constrast to the local density approximation (LDA) which predicts relatively strong binding for Ni,Co and Pd, the vdW-DF predicts weak binding for all metals and metal-graphene distances in the range 3.40-3.72 \AA. At these distances the graphene bandstructure as calculated with DFT and the many-body G$_0$W$_0$ method is basically unaffected by the substrate, in particular there is no opening of a band gap at the $K$-point.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Entanglement properties in the Inhomogeneous Tavis-Cummings model

In this work we study the properties of the atomic entanglement in the eigenstates spectrum of the inhomogeneous Tavis-Cummings Model. The inhomogeneity is present in the coupling among the atoms with quantum electromagnetic field. We calculate analytical expressions for the concurrence and we found that this exhibits a strong dependence on the inhomogeneity.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Towards an analytical description of active microswimmers in clean and in surfactant-covered drops

Geometric confinements are frequently encountered in the biological world and strongly affect the stability, topology, and transport properties of active suspensions in viscous flow. Based on a far-field analytical model, the low-Reynolds-number locomotion of a self-propelled microswimmer moving inside a clean viscous drop or a drop covered with a homogeneously distributed surfactant, is theoretically examined. The interfacial viscous stresses induced by the surfactant are described by the well-established Boussinesq-Scriven constitutive rheological model. Moreover, the active agent is represented by a force dipole and the resulting fluid-mediated hydrodynamic couplings between the swimmer and the confining drop are investigated. We find that the presence of the surfactant significantly alters the dynamics of the encapsulated swimmer by enhancing its reorientation. Exact solutions for the velocity images for the Stokeslet and dipolar flow singularities inside the drop are introduced and expressed in terms of infinite series of harmonic components. Our results offer useful insights into guiding principles for the control of confined active matter systems and support the objective of utilizing synthetic microswimmers to drive drops for targeted drug delivery applications.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures. Regular article contributed to the Topical Issue of the European Physical Journal E entitled "Physics of Motile Active Matter" edited by Gerhard Gompper, Clemens Bechinger, Holger Stark, and Roland G. Winkle