Dielectric Breakdown of a Mott Insulator

We study the nonequilibrium steady state of a Mott insulator coupled to a thermostat and driven by a constant electric field, starting from weak fields, until the dielectric breakdown, and beyond. We find that the conventional Zener picture does not describe the steady-state physics. In particular, the current at weak field is found to be controlled by the dissipation. Moreover, in connection with the electric-field-driven dimensional crossover, we find that the dielectric breakdown occurs when the field strength is on the order of the Mott gap of the corresponding lower-dimensional system. We also report a resonance and the meltdown of the quasiparticle peak when the field strength is half of this Mott gap.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures. v2: references adde

All (qubit) decoherences: Complete characterization and physical implementation

We investigate decoherence channels that are modelled as a sequence of collisions of a quantum system (e.g., a qubit) with particles (e.g., qubits) of the environment. We show that collisions induce decoherence when a bi-partite interaction between the system qubit and an environment (reservoir) qubit is described by the controlled-U unitary transformation (gate). We characterize decoherence channels and in the case of a qubit we specify the most general decoherence channel and derive a corresponding master equation. Finally, we analyze entanglement that is generated during the process of decoherence between the system and its environment.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

Helicity, anisotropies and their competition in a multiferroic magnet: insight from the phase diagram

Motivated by the complex phase diagram of MnWO4, we investigate competition between anisotropy, magnetic field, and helicity for the anisotropic next-nearest-neighbor Heisenberg model. Apart from two competing exchanges, which favor a spiral magnetic structure, the model features the bi-axial single-ion anisotropy. The model is treated in the real-space mean-field approximation and the phase diagram containing various incommensurate and commensurate states is obtained for different field orientations. We discuss similarities and differences of the theoretical phase diagram and the experimental diagram of MnWO4.Comment: 5 pages, as accepte

Negative effective mass transition and anomalous transport in power-law hopping bands

We study the stability of spinless Fermions with power law hopping $H_{ij} \propto |i - j|^{-\alpha}$. It is shown that at precisely $\alpha_c =2$, the dispersive inflection point coalesces with the band minimum and the charge carriers exhibit a transition into negative effective mass regime, $m_\alpha^* < 0$ characterized by retarded transport in the presence of an electric field. Moreover, bands with $\alpha < 2$ must be accompanied by counter-carriers with $m_\alpha^* > 0$, having a positive band curvature, thus stabilizing the system in order to maintain equilibrium conditions and a proper electrical response. We further examine the semi-classical transport and response properties, finding an infrared divergent conductivity for 1/r hopping($\alpha =1$). The analysis is generalized to regular lattices in dimensions $d$ = 1, 2, and 3.Comment: 6 pages. 2 figure

Approximate programmable quantum processors

A quantum processor is a programmable quantum circuit in which both the data and the program, which specifies the operation that is carried out on the data, are quantum states. We study the situation in which we want to use such a processor to approximate a set of unitary operators to a specified level of precision. We measure how well an operation is performed by the process fidelity between the desired operation and the operation produced by the processor. We show how to find the program for a given processor that produces the best approximation of a particular unitary operation. We also place bounds on the dimension of the program space that is necessary to approximate a set of unitary operators to a specified level of precision.Comment: 8 page

Concurrence vs. purity: Influence of local channels on Bell states of two qubits

We analyze how a maximally entangled state of two-qubits (e.g., the singlet $\psi_s$) is affected by action of local channels described by completely positive maps \cE . We analyze the concurrence and the purity of states \varrho_\cE=\cE\otimes\cI[\psi_s].Using the concurrence-{\it vs}-purity phase diagram we characterize local channels \cE by their action on the singlet state $\psi_s$. We specify a region of the concurrence-{\it vs.}-purity diagram that is achievable from the singlet state via the action of unital channels. We show that even most general (including non-unital) local channels acting just on a single qubit of the original singlet state cannot generate the maximally entangled mixed states (MEMS). We study in detail various time evolutions of the original singlet state induced by local Markovian semigroups. We show that the decoherence process is represented in the concurrence-{\it vs.}-purity diagram by a line that forms the lower bound of the achievable region for unital maps. On the other hand, the depolarization process is represented by a line that forms the upper bound of the region of maps induced by unital maps.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure

Possible d0 ferromagnetism in MgO doped with nitrogen

We study the possibility of d0 ferromagnetism in the compound MgO doped with nitrogen (N). The Haldane-Anderson impurity model is formulated within the tight-binding approximation for determining the host band-structure and the impurity-host hybridization. Using the quantum Monte Carlo technique, we observe a finite local moment for an N impurity, and long-range ferromagnetic correlations between two N impurities. The ferromagnetic correlations are strongly influenced by the impurity bound state. When the ferromagnetic correlation between a pair of impurities is mapped onto the isotropic Heisenberg model for two spin-1/2 particles, the effective exchange constant J12 is found to increase with increasing temperature. Similar temperature dependence of J12 is also obtained in other diluted magnetic semiconductors, such as zincblende ZnO doped with Mn. The temperature dependence of J12 suggests that the mapping of the full Hamiltonian onto the spin Hamiltonian cannot fully describe the magnetic correlations for the diluted magnetic semiconductors at least in the limit of low impurity spin.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure

Disorder induced transition into a one-dimensional Wigner glass

The destruction of quasi-long range crystalline order as a consequence of strong disorder effects is shown to accompany the strict localization of all classical plasma modes of one-dimensional Wigner crystals at T=0. We construct a phase diagram that relates the structural phase properties of Wigner crystals to a plasmon delocalization transition recently reported. Deep inside the strictly localized phase of the strong disorder regime, we observe ``glass-like'' behavior. However, well into the critical phase with a plasmon mobility edge, the system retains its crystalline composition. We predict that a transition between the two phases occurs at a critical value of the relative disorder strength. This transition has an experimental signature in the AC conductivity as a local maximum of the largest spectral amplitude as a function of the relative disorder strength.Comment: 5 pages, revtex. Typo regarding localization length exponent corrected. Should read 1 / \delt

Simulation of indivisible qubit channels in collision models

A sequence of controlled collisions between a quantum system and its environment (composed of a set of quantum objects) naturally simulates (with arbitrary precision) any Markovian quantum dynamics of the system under consideration. In this paper we propose and study the problem of simulation of an {\it arbitrary} quantum channel via collision models. We show that a correlated environment is capable to simulate {\it non-Markovian} evolutions leading to any indivisible qubit channel. In particular, we derive the corresponding master equation generating a continuous time non-Markovian dynamics implementing the universal NOT gate being an example of the most non-Markovian quantum channels.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, submitted to JP