Sequential nonideal measurements of quantum oscillators: Statistical characterization with and without environmental coupling

A one-dimensional quantum oscillator is monitored by taking repeated position measurements. As a first con- tribution, it is shown that, under a quantum nondemolition measurement scheme applied to a system initially at the ground state, (i) the observed sequence of measurements (quantum tracks) corresponding to a single experiment converges to a limit point, and that (ii) the limit point is random over the ensemble of the experiments, being distributed as a zero-mean Gaussian random variable with a variance at most equal to the ground-state variance. As a second contribution, the richer scenario where the oscillator is coupled with a frozen (i.e., at the ground state) ensemble of independent quantum oscillators is considered. A sharply different behavior emerges: under the same measurement scheme, here we observe that the measurement sequences are essentially divergent. Such a rigorous statistical analysis of the sequential measurement process might be useful for characterizing the main quantities that are currently used for inference, manipulation, and monitoring of many quantum systems. Several interesting properties of the quantum tracks evolution, as well as of the associated (quantum) threshold crossing times, are discussed and the dependence upon the main system parameters (e.g., the choice of the measurement sampling time, the degree of interaction with the environment, the measurement device accuracy) is elucidated. At a more fundamental level, it is seen that, as an application of basic quantum mechanics principles, a sharp difference exists between the intrinsic randomness unavoidably present in any quantum system, and the extrinsic randomness arising from the environmental coupling, i.e., the randomness induced by an external source of disturbance.Comment: pages 16 Figures

The CMS Pixel Detector: from production to commissioning

The CMS experiment at the LHC includes a hybrid silicon pixel detector for the reconstruction of charged tracks and of the interaction vertices. The detector is made of three barrel layers and two disks at each end of the barrel. Detector modules consist of thin, segmented silicon sensors with highly integrated readout chips connected by the bump bonding technique. In this paper we report on the progress of the detector construction and testing. In addition, first results from the commissioning systems at CERN and PSI are presented.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures. Presented at the 10th ICATPP conference, Villa Olmo, Como (Italy), 8-12 October, 200

An algebraic condition for the Bisognano-Wichmann Property

The Bisognano-Wichmann property for local, Poincar\'e covariant nets of standard subspaces is discussed. We present a sufficient algebraic condition on the covariant representation ensuring Bisognano-Wichmann and Duality properties without further assumptions on the net. Our modularity condition holds for direct integrals of scalar massive and massless representations. We conclude that in these cases the Bisognano-Wichmann property is much weaker than the Split property. Furthermore, we present a class of massive modular covariant nets not satisfying the Bisognano-Wichmann property.Comment: Invited contribution to the Proceedings of the 14th Marcel Grossmann Meeting - MG14 (Rome, 2015

Spontaneous symmetry breaking in a quadratically-driven nonlinear photonic lattice

We investigate the occurrence of a phase transition, characterized by the spontaneous breaking of a discrete symmetry, in a driven-dissipative Bose-Hubbard lattice in presence of two-photon coherent driving. The driving term does not lift the original $U(1)$ symmetry completely and a discrete $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry is left. When driving the bottom of the Bose-Hubbard band, a mean-field analysis of the steady state reveals a second-order transition from a symmetric phase to a quasi-coherent state with a finite expectation value of the Bose field. For larger driving frequency, the phase diagram shows a third region, where both phases are stable and the transition becomes of first order.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, version accepted for publicatio

Infinitely many periodic solutions for a class of fractional Kirchhoff problems

We prove the existence of infinitely many nontrivial weak periodic solutions for a class of fractional Kirchhoff problems driven by a relativistic Schr\"odinger operator with periodic boundary conditions and involving different types of nonlinearities

Effect of interface disorder on quantum well excitons and microcavity polaritons

The theory of the linear optical response of excitons in quantum wells and polaritons in planar semiconductor microcavities is reviewed, in the light of the existing experiments. For quantum well excitons, it is shown that disorder mainly affects the exciton center-of-mass motion and is modeled by an effective Schroedinger equation in two dimensions. For polaritons, a unified model accounting for quantum well roughness and fluctuations of the microcavity thickness is developed. Numerical results confirm that polaritons are mostly affected by disorder acting on the photon component, thus confirming existing studies on the influence of exciton disorder. The polariton localization length is estimated to be in the few-micrometer range, depending on the amplitude of disorder, in agreement with recent experimental findings.Comment: To appear in Journal of Physics: Condensed Matte

Analogue algorithm for parallel factorization of an exponential number of large integers I. Theoretical description

We describe a novel analogue algorithm that allows the simultaneous factorization of an exponential number of large integers with a polynomial number of experimental runs. It is the interference-induced periodicity of "factoring" interferograms measured at the output of an analogue computer that allows the selection of the factors of each integer [1,2,3,4]. At the present stage the algorithm manifests an exponential scaling which may be overcome by an extension of this method to correlated qubits emerging from n-order quantum correlations measurements. We describe the conditions for a generic physical system to compute such an analogue algorithm. A particular example given by an "optical computer" based on optical interference will be addressed in the second paper of this series [5].Comment: to be published in Quantum Information Processing (QIP

The Bisognano-Wichmann property on nets of standard subspaces, some sufficient conditions

We discuss the Bisognano-Wichmann property for local Poincar\'e covariant nets of standard subspaces. We give a sufficient algebraic condition on the covariant representation ensuring the Bisognano-Wichmann and Duality properties without further assumptions on the net called modularity condition. It holds for direct integrals of scalar massive and massless representations. We present a class of massive modular covariant nets not satisfying the Bisognano-Wichmann property. Furthermore, we give an outlook in the standard subspace setting on the relation between the Bisognano-Wichmann property and the Split property.Comment: Final version. To appear in Annales Henri Poincar\'