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Gustafsson MV, Santos PV, Johansson G, Delsing P. Local probing of propagating acoustic waves in a gigahertz echo chamber. Nat Phys. 2012;8(4):338–43.
Abstract: In the same way that micro-mechanical resonators resemble guitar strings and drums, surface acoustic waves resemble the sound these instruments produce, but moving over a solid surface rather than through air. In contrast with oscillations in suspended resonators, such propagating mechanical waves have not before been studied near the quantum mechanical limits. Here, we demonstrate local probing of surface acoustic waves with a displacement sensitivity of 30amRMSHz-1/2 and detection sensitivity on the single-phonon level after averaging, at a frequency of 932MHz. Our probe is a piezoelectrically coupled single-electron transistor, which is sufficiently fast, non-destructive and localized to enable us to track pulses echoing back and forth in a long acoustic cavity, self-interfering and ringing the cavity up and down. We project that strong coupling to quantum circuits will enable new experiments, and hybrids using the unique features of surface acoustic waves. Prospects include quantum investigations of phonon-phonon interactions, and acoustic coupling to superconducting qubits for which we present favourable estimates.
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Mariantoni M, Wang H, Bialczak RC, Lenander M, Lucero E, Neeley M, et al. Photon shell game in three-resonator circuit quantum electrodynamics. Nat Phys. 2011;7(4):287–93.
Abstract: The generation and control of quantum states of light constitute fundamental tasks in cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED). The superconducting realization of cavity QED, circuit QED (refs 11, 12, 13, 14), enables on-chip microwave photonics, where superconducting qubits control and measure individual photon states. A long-standing issue in cavity QED is the coherent transfer of photons between two or more resonators. Here, we use circuit QED to implement a three-resonator architecture on a single chip, where the resonators are interconnected by two superconducting phase qubits. We use this circuit to shuffle one- and two-photon Fock states between the three resonators, and demonstrate qubit-mediated vacuum Rabi swaps between two resonators. By shuffling superposition states we are also able to demonstrate the high-fidelity phase coherence of the transfer. Our results illustrate the potential for using multi-resonator circuits as photon quantum registers and for creating multipartite entanglement between delocalized bosonic modes.
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Clerk A. Quantum phononics: To see a SAW. Nat Phys. 2012;8(4):256–7.
Abstract: Mechanical oscillations of microscopic resonators have recently been observed in the quantum regime. This idea could soon be extended from localized vibrations to travelling waves thanks to a sensitive probe of so-called surface acoustic waves.
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Mineev VP. Superfluid helium: Order in disorder. Nat Phys. 2012;8:253–254.
Abstract: Confining liquid 3He in porous silica aerogel prepared with strong anisotropy stabilizes a state of axial superfluidity.
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Shor PW. Quantum information theory: The bits don't add up. Nat Phys. 2009;5:247–8.
Abstract: A counterexample to the 'additivity question', the most celebrated open problem in the mathematical theory of quantum information, casts doubt on the possibility of finding a simple expression for the information capacity of a quantum channel.
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Zurek WH. Quantum Darwinism. Nat Phys. 2009;5(3):181–8.
Abstract: Quantum Darwinism describes the proliferation, in the environment, of multiple records of selected states of a quantum system. It explains how the quantum fragility of a state of a single quantum system can lead to the classical robustness of states in their correlated multitude; shows how effective `wave-packet collapse' arises as a result of the proliferation throughout the environment of imprints of the state of the system; and provides a framework for the derivation of Born's rule, which relates the probabilities of detecting states to their amplitudes. Taken together, these three advances mark considerable progress towards settling the quantum measurement problem.
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Bozyigit D, Lang C, Steffen L, Fink JM, Eichler C, Baur M, et al. Antibunching of microwave-frequency photons observed in correlation measurements using linear detectors. Nat Phys. 2011;7(2):154–8.
Abstract: At optical frequencies the radiation produced by a source, such as a laser, a black body or a single-photon emitter, is frequently characterized by analysing the temporal correlations of emitted photons using single-photon counters. At microwave frequencies, however, there are no efficient single-photon counters yet. Instead, well-developed linear amplifiers allow for efficient measurement of the amplitude of an electromagnetic field. Here, we demonstrate first- and second-order correlation function measurements of a pulsed microwave-frequency single-photon source integrated on the same chip with a 50/50 beam splitter followed by linear amplifiers and quadrature amplitude detectors. We clearly observe single-photon coherence in first-order and photon antibunching in second-order correlation function measurements of the propagating fields.
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Bason MG, Viteau M, Malossi N, Huillery P, Arimondo E, Ciampini D, et al. High-fidelity quantum driving. Nat Phys. 2012;8(2):147–52.
Abstract: Accurately controlling a quantum system is a fundamental requirement in quantum information processing and the coherent manipulation of molecular systems. The ultimate goal in quantum control is to prepare a desired state with the highest fidelity allowed by the available resources and the experimental constraints. Here we experimentally implement two optimal high-fidelity control protocols using a two-level quantum system comprising Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices. The first is a short-cut protocol that reaches the maximum quantum-transformation speed compatible with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. In the opposite limit, we realize the recently proposed transitionless superadiabatic protocols in which the system follows the instantaneous adiabatic ground state nearly perfectly. We demonstrate that superadiabatic protocols are extremely robust against control parameter variations, making them useful for practical applications.
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Kim Y-S, Lee J-C, Kwon O, Kim Y-H. Protecting entanglement from decoherence using weak measurement and quantum measurement reversal. Nat Phys. 2012;8(2):117–20.
Abstract: Decoherence, often caused by unavoidable coupling with the environment, leads to degradation of quantum coherence. For a multipartite quantum system, decoherence leads to degradation of entanglement and, in certain cases, entanglement sudden death. Tackling decoherence, thus, is a critical issue faced in quantum information, as entanglement is a vital resource for many quantum information applications including quantum computing, quantum cryptography, quantum teleportation and quantum metrology. Here, we propose and demonstrate a scheme to protect entanglement from decoherence. Our entanglement protection scheme makes use of the quantum measurement itself for actively battling against decoherence and it can effectively circumvent even entanglement sudden death.
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Hollenberg LCL. Quantum control: Through the quantum chicane. Nat Phys. 2012;8(2):113–4.
Abstract: In quantum control there is an inherent tension between high fidelity requirements and the need for speed to avoid decoherence. A direct comparison of quantum control protocols at these two extremes indicates where the sweet spot may lie.
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