Less Decoherence and More Coherence in Quantum Gravity, Inflationary Cosmology and Elsewhere
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The Theory of Quantum Coherence María García Díaz
ADVERTIMENT. Lʼaccés als continguts dʼaquesta tesi queda condicionat a lʼacceptació de les condicions dʼús establertes per la següent llicència Creative Commons: http://cat.creativecommons.org/?page_id=184 ADVERTENCIA. El acceso a los contenidos de esta tesis queda condicionado a la aceptación de las condiciones de uso establecidas por la siguiente licencia Creative Commons: http://es.creativecommons.org/blog/licencias/ WARNING. The access to the contents of this doctoral thesis it is limited to the acceptance of the use conditions set by the following Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/?lang=en Universitat Aut`onomade Barcelona The theory of quantum coherence by Mar´ıaGarc´ıaD´ıaz under supervision of Prof. Andreas Winter A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Unitat de F´ısicaTe`orica:Informaci´oi Fen`omensQu`antics Departament de F´ısica Facultat de Ci`encies Bellaterra, December, 2019 “The arts and the sciences all draw together as the analyst breaks them down into their smallest pieces: at the hypothetical limit, at the very quick of epistemology, there is convergence of speech, picture, song, and instigating force.” Daniel Albright, Quantum poetics: Yeats, Pound, Eliot, and the science of modernism Abstract Quantum coherence, or the property of systems which are in a superpo- sition of states yielding interference patterns in suitable experiments, is the main hallmark of departure of quantum mechanics from classical physics. Besides its fascinating epistemological implications, quantum coherence also turns out to be a valuable resource for quantum information tasks, and has even been used in the description of fundamental biological processes. -
Yes, More Decoherence: a Reply to Critics
Yes, More Decoherence: A Reply to Critics Elise M. Crull∗ Submitted 11 July 2017; revised 24 August 2017 1 Introduction A few years ago I published an article in this journal titled \Less interpretation and more decoherence in quantum gravity and inflationary cosmology" (Crull, 2015) that generated replies from three pairs of authors: Vassallo and Esfeld (2015), Okon and Sudarsky (2016) and Fortin and Lombardi (2017). As a philosopher of physics it is my chief aim to engage physicists and philosophers alike in deeper conversation regarding scientific theories and their implications. In as much as my earlier paper provoked a suite of responses and thereby brought into sharper relief numerous misconceptions regarding decoherence, I welcome the occasion provided by the editors of this journal to continue the discussion. In what follows, I respond to my critics in some detail (wherein the devil is often found). I must be clear at the outset, however, that due to the nature of these criticisms, much of what I say below can be categorized as one or both of the following: (a) a repetition of points made in the original paper, and (b) a reiteration of formal and dynamical aspects of quantum decoherence considered uncontroversial by experts working on theoretical and experimental applications of this process.1 I begin with a few paragraphs describing what my 2015 paper both was, and was not, about. I then briefly address Vassallo's and Esfeld's (hereafter VE) relatively short response to me, dedicating the bulk of my reply to the lengthy critique of Okon and Sudarsky (hereafter OS). -
Path Integrals in Quantum Mechanics
Path Integrals in Quantum Mechanics Dennis V. Perepelitsa MIT Department of Physics 70 Amherst Ave. Cambridge, MA 02142 Abstract We present the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics and demon- strate its equivalence to the Schr¨odinger picture. We apply the method to the free particle and quantum harmonic oscillator, investigate the Euclidean path integral, and discuss other applications. 1 Introduction A fundamental question in quantum mechanics is how does the state of a particle evolve with time? That is, the determination the time-evolution ψ(t) of some initial | i state ψ(t ) . Quantum mechanics is fully predictive [3] in the sense that initial | 0 i conditions and knowledge of the potential occupied by the particle is enough to fully specify the state of the particle for all future times.1 In the early twentieth century, Erwin Schr¨odinger derived an equation specifies how the instantaneous change in the wavefunction d ψ(t) depends on the system dt | i inhabited by the state in the form of the Hamiltonian. In this formulation, the eigenstates of the Hamiltonian play an important role, since their time-evolution is easy to calculate (i.e. they are stationary). A well-established method of solution, after the entire eigenspectrum of Hˆ is known, is to decompose the initial state into this eigenbasis, apply time evolution to each and then reassemble the eigenstates. That is, 1In the analysis below, we consider only the position of a particle, and not any other quantum property such as spin. 2 D.V. Perepelitsa n=∞ ψ(t) = exp [ iE t/~] n ψ(t ) n (1) | i − n h | 0 i| i n=0 X This (Hamiltonian) formulation works in many cases. -
Optimization of Transmon Design for Longer Coherence Time
Optimization of transmon design for longer coherence time Simon Burkhard Semester thesis Spring semester 2012 Supervisor: Dr. Arkady Fedorov ETH Zurich Quantum Device Lab Prof. Dr. A. Wallraff Abstract Using electrostatic simulations, a transmon qubit with new shape and a large geometrical size was designed. The coherence time of the qubits was increased by a factor of 3-4 to about 4 µs. Additionally, a new formula for calculating the coupling strength of the qubit to a transmission line resonator was obtained, allowing reasonably accurate tuning of qubit parameters prior to production using electrostatic simulations. 2 Contents 1 Introduction 4 2 Theory 5 2.1 Coplanar waveguide resonator . 5 2.1.1 Quantum mechanical treatment . 5 2.2 Superconducting qubits . 5 2.2.1 Cooper pair box . 6 2.2.2 Transmon . 7 2.3 Resonator-qubit coupling (Jaynes-Cummings model) . 9 2.4 Effective transmon network . 9 2.4.1 Calculation of CΣ ............................... 10 2.4.2 Calculation of β ............................... 10 2.4.3 Qubits coupled to 2 resonators . 11 2.4.4 Charge line and flux line couplings . 11 2.5 Transmon relaxation time (T1) ........................... 11 3 Transmon simulation 12 3.1 Ansoft Maxwell . 12 3.1.1 Convergence of simulations . 13 3.1.2 Field integral . 13 3.2 Optimization of transmon parameters . 14 3.3 Intermediate transmon design . 15 3.4 Final transmon design . 15 3.5 Comparison of the surface electric field . 17 3.6 Simple estimate of T1 due to coupling to the charge line . 17 3.7 Simulation of the magnetic flux through the split junction . -
It Is a Great Pleasure to Write This Letter on Behalf of Dr. Maria
Rigorous Quantum-Classical Path Integral Formulation of Real-Time Dynamics Nancy Makri Departments of Chemistry and Physics University of Illinois The path integral formulation of time-dependent quantum mechanics provides the ideal framework for rigorous quantum-classical or quantum-semiclassical treatments, as the spatially localized, trajectory-like nature of the quantum paths circumvents the need for mean-field-type assumptions. However, the number of system paths grows exponentially with the number of propagation steps. In addition, each path of the quantum system generally gives rise to a distinct classical solvent trajectory. This exponential proliferation of trajectories with propagation time is the quantum-classical manifestation of nonlocality. A rigorous real-time quantum-classical path integral (QCPI) methodology has been developed, which converges to the stationary phase limit of the full path integral with respect to the degrees of freedom comprising the system’s environment. The starting point is the identification of two components in the effects induced on a quantum system by a polyatomic environment. The first, “classical decoherence mechanism” is associated with phonon absorption and induced emission and is dominant at high temperature. Within the QCPI framework, the memory associated with classical decoherence is removable. A second, nonlocal in time, “quantum decoherence process”, which is associated with spontaneous phonon emission, becomes important at low temperatures and is responsible for detailed balance. The QCPI methodology takes advantage of the memory-free nature of system-independent solvent trajectories to account for all classical decoherence effects on the dynamics of the quantum system in an inexpensive fashion. Inclusion of the residual quantum decoherence is accomplished via phase factors in the path integral expression, which is amenable to large time steps and iterative decompositions. -
Implications of Perturbative Unitarity for Scalar Di-Boson Resonance Searches at LHC
Implications of perturbative unitarity for scalar di-boson resonance searches at LHC Luca Di Luzio∗1,2, Jernej F. Kameniky3,4, and Marco Nardecchiaz5,6 1Dipartimento di Fisica, Universit`adi Genova and INFN, Sezione di Genova, via Dodecaneso 33, 16159 Genova, Italy 2Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology, Department of Physics, Durham University, DH1 3LE, United Kingdom 3JoˇzefStefan Institute, Jamova 39, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia 4Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana, Jadranska 19, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia 5DAMTP, University of Cambridge, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge CB3 0WA, United Kingdom 6CERN, Theoretical Physics Department, Geneva, Switzerland Abstract We study the constraints implied by partial wave unitarity on new physics in the form of spin-zero di-boson resonances at LHC. We derive the scale where the effec- tive description in terms of the SM supplemented by a single resonance is expected arXiv:1604.05746v3 [hep-ph] 2 Apr 2019 to break down depending on the resonance mass and signal cross-section. Likewise, we use unitarity arguments in order to set perturbativity bounds on renormalizable UV completions of the effective description. We finally discuss under which condi- tions scalar di-boson resonance signals can be accommodated within weakly-coupled models. ∗[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] 1 Contents 1 Introduction3 2 Brief review on partial wave unitarity4 3 Effective field theory of a scalar resonance5 3.1 Scalar mediated boson scattering . .6 3.2 Fermion-scalar contact interactions . .8 3.3 Unitarity bounds . .9 4 Weakly-coupled models 12 4.1 Single fermion case . 15 4.2 Single scalar case . -
Quantum Circuits Synthesis Using Householder Transformations Timothée Goubault De Brugière, Marc Baboulin, Benoît Valiron, Cyril Allouche
Quantum circuits synthesis using Householder transformations Timothée Goubault de Brugière, Marc Baboulin, Benoît Valiron, Cyril Allouche To cite this version: Timothée Goubault de Brugière, Marc Baboulin, Benoît Valiron, Cyril Allouche. Quantum circuits synthesis using Householder transformations. Computer Physics Communications, Elsevier, 2020, 248, pp.107001. 10.1016/j.cpc.2019.107001. hal-02545123 HAL Id: hal-02545123 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02545123 Submitted on 16 Apr 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Quantum circuits synthesis using Householder transformations Timothée Goubault de Brugière1,3, Marc Baboulin1, Benoît Valiron2, and Cyril Allouche3 1Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, Laboratoire de recherche en informatique, 91405, Orsay, France 2Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, CentraleSupélec, Laboratoire de Recherche en Informatique, 91405, Orsay, France 3Atos Quantum Lab, Les Clayes-sous-Bois, France Abstract The synthesis of a quantum circuit consists in decomposing a unitary matrix into a series of elementary operations. In this paper, we propose a circuit synthesis method based on the QR factorization via Householder transformations. We provide a two-step algorithm: during the rst step we exploit the specic structure of a quantum operator to compute its QR factorization, then the factorized matrix is used to produce a quantum circuit. -
Path Integral for the Hydrogen Atom
Path Integral for the Hydrogen Atom Solutions in two and three dimensions Vägintegral för Väteatomen Lösningar i två och tre dimensioner Anders Svensson Faculty of Health, Science and Technology Physics, Bachelor Degree Project 15 ECTS Credits Supervisor: Jürgen Fuchs Examiner: Marcus Berg June 2016 Abstract The path integral formulation of quantum mechanics generalizes the action principle of classical mechanics. The Feynman path integral is, roughly speaking, a sum over all possible paths that a particle can take between fixed endpoints, where each path contributes to the sum by a phase factor involving the action for the path. The resulting sum gives the probability amplitude of propagation between the two endpoints, a quantity called the propagator. Solutions of the Feynman path integral formula exist, however, only for a small number of simple systems, and modifications need to be made when dealing with more complicated systems involving singular potentials, including the Coulomb potential. We derive a generalized path integral formula, that can be used in these cases, for a quantity called the pseudo-propagator from which we obtain the fixed-energy amplitude, related to the propagator by a Fourier transform. The new path integral formula is then successfully solved for the Hydrogen atom in two and three dimensions, and we obtain integral representations for the fixed-energy amplitude. Sammanfattning V¨agintegral-formuleringen av kvantmekanik generaliserar minsta-verkanprincipen fr˚anklassisk meka- nik. Feynmans v¨agintegral kan ses som en summa ¨over alla m¨ojligav¨agaren partikel kan ta mellan tv˚a givna ¨andpunkterA och B, d¨arvarje v¨agbidrar till summan med en fasfaktor inneh˚allandeden klas- siska verkan f¨orv¨agen.Den resulterande summan ger propagatorn, sannolikhetsamplituden att partikeln g˚arfr˚anA till B. -
On Coherence and the Transverse Spatial Extent of a Neutron Wave Packet
On coherence and the transverse spatial extent of a neutron wave packet C.F. Majkrzak, N.F. Berk, B.B. Maranville, J.A. Dura, Center for Neutron Research, and T. Jach Materials Measurement Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, MD 20899 (18 November 2019) Abstract In the analysis of neutron scattering measurements of condensed matter structure, it normally suffices to treat the incident and scattered neutron beams as if composed of incoherent distributions of plane waves with wavevectors of different magnitudes and directions which are taken to define an instrumental resolution. However, despite the wide-ranging applicability of this conventional treatment, there are cases in which the wave function of an individual neutron in the beam must be described more accurately by a spatially localized packet, in particular with respect to its transverse extent normal to its mean direction of propagation. One such case involves the creation of orbital angular momentum (OAM) states in a neutron via interaction with a material device of a given size. It is shown in the work reported here that there exist two distinct measures of coherence of special significance and utility for describing neutron beams in scattering studies of materials in general. One measure corresponds to the coherent superposition of basis functions and their wavevectors which constitute each individual neutron packet state function whereas the other measure can be associated with an incoherent distribution of mean wavevectors of the individual neutron packets in a beam. Both the distribution of the mean wavevectors of individual packets in the beam as well as the wavevector components of the superposition of basis functions within an individual packet can contribute to the conventional notion of instrumental resolution. -
Partial Coherence Effects on the Imaging of Small Crystals Using Coherent X-Ray Diffraction
INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS PUBLISHING JOURNAL OF PHYSICS: CONDENSED MATTER J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 13 (2001) 10593–10611 PII: S0953-8984(01)25635-5 Partial coherence effects on the imaging of small crystals using coherent x-ray diffraction I A Vartanyants1 and I K Robinson Department of Physics, University of Illinois, 1110 West Green Street, Urbana, IL 61801, USA Received 8 June 2001 Published 9 November 2001 Online at stacks.iop.org/JPhysCM/13/10593 Abstract Recent achievements in experimental and computational methods have opened up the possibility of measuring and inverting the diffraction pattern from a single-crystalline particle on the nanometre scale. In this paper, a theoretical approach to the scattering of purely coherent and partially coherent x-ray radiation by such particles is discussed in detail. Test calculations based on the iterative algorithms proposed initially by Gerchberg and Saxton and generalized by Fienup are applied to reconstruct the shape of the scattering crystals. It is demonstrated that partially coherent radiation produces a small area of high intensity in the reconstructed image of the particle. (Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version) 1. Introduction Even in the early years of x-ray studies [1–4] it was already understood that the diffraction pattern from small perfect crystals is directly connected with the shape of these crystals through Fourier transformation. Of course, in a real diffraction experiment on a ‘powder’ sample, where many particles with different shapes and orientations are illuminated by an incoherent beam, only an averaged shape of these particles can be obtained. -
Lecture 21 (Interference III Thin Film Interference and the Michelson Interferometer) Physics 2310-01 Spring 2020 Douglas Fields Thin Films
Lecture 21 (Interference III Thin Film Interference and the Michelson Interferometer) Physics 2310-01 Spring 2020 Douglas Fields Thin Films • We are all relatively familiar with the phenomena of thin film interference. • We’ve seen it in an oil slick or in a soap bubble. "Dieselrainbow" by John. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Commons - • But how is this https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dieselrainbow.jpg#/media/File:Diesel rainbow.jpg interference? • What are the two sources? • Why are there colors instead of bright and dark spots? "Thinfilmbubble" by Threetwoone at English Wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons.. Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thinfilmbubble.jpg#/media/File:Thinfilmb ubble.jpg The two sources… • In thin film interference, the two sources of coherent light come from reflections from two different interfaces. • Different geometries will provide different types of interference patterns. • The “thin film” could just be an air gap, for instance. Coherence and Thin Film Interference • Why “thin film”? • Generally, when talking about thin film interference, the source light is what we would normally call incoherent – sunlight or room light. • However, most light is coherent on a small enough distance/time scale… • The book describes it like this: Coherence - Wikipedia • Perfectly coherent: "Single frequency correlation" by Glosser.ca - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Single_frequency_correlation.svg#/media/File:Single_frequency_correlation.svg • Spatially partially coherent: "Spatial coherence finite" by Original uploader was J S Lundeen at en.wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia; transferred to Commons by User:Shizhao using CommonsHelper. -
A Numerical Study of Quantum Decoherence 1 Introduction
Commun. Comput. Phys. Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 85-108 doi: 10.4208/cicp.011010.010611a July 2012 A Numerical Study of Quantum Decoherence 1 2, Riccardo Adami and Claudia Negulescu ∗ 1 Dipartimento di Matematica e Applicazioni, Universit`adi Milano Bicocca, via R. Cozzi, 53 20125 Milano, Italy. 2 CMI/LATP (UMR 6632), Universit´ede Provence, 39, rue Joliot Curie, 13453 Marseille Cedex 13, France. Received 1 October 2010; Accepted (in revised version) 1 June 2011 Communicated by Kazuo Aoki Available online 19 January 2012 Abstract. The present paper provides a numerical investigation of the decoherence ef- fect induced on a quantum heavy particle by the scattering with a light one. The time dependent two-particle Schr¨odinger equation is solved by means of a time-splitting method. The damping undergone by the non-diagonal terms of the heavy particle density matrix is estimated numerically, as well as the error in the Joos-Zeh approxi- mation formula. AMS subject classifications: 35Q40, 35Q41, 65M06, 65Z05, 70F05 Key words: Quantum mechanics, Schr¨odinger equation, heavy-light particle scattering, interfer- ence, decoherence, numerical discretization, numerical analysis, splitting scheme. 1 Introduction Quantum decoherence is nowadays considered as the key concept in the description of the transition from the quantum to the classical world (see e.g. [6, 7, 9, 19, 20, 22, 24]). As it is well-known, the axioms of quantum mechanics allow superposition states, namely, normalized sums of admissible wave functions are once more admissible wave functions. It is then possible to construct non-localized states that lack a classical inter- pretation, for instance, by summing two states localized far apart from each other.