Controllable nonlinear quantum interactions are a much sought after target for modern quantum technologies. They are typically difficult and costly to engineer for bespoke purposes. However controllable nonlinearities may have always been in reach via the natural and fundamental forces between quantum particles. The Coulomb interaction between charged particles is the simplest example. We show that after eliminating the harmonic part of the Coulomb force by an auxiliary linear force, the remaining reciprocal nonlinear part results in a directly observable non-reciprocal nonlinear effect: increase of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the coherent displacement of one particle, driven by the position noise, or uncertainty in quantum regime, in another particle. This essential evidence of nonlinear forces is present across large ranges of trap frequency and mass scales, as well as visible in both stochastic and quantum regimes.
Building upon the work of Hu, Paz, and Zhang [1,2] on open quantum systems we consider the quantum Brownian motion (QBM) model with one oscillator (position variable
x) as the system, {\it nonlinearly} coupled to an environment of
N harmonic oscillators (with mass
mn, natural frequency
ωn, position
qn and momentum
pn variables) in the form
∑n(vn1(x)qnk+vn2(x)pnl) where
k,l are integers (the present work only considers the
k=l=2 cases). The vertex functions $v_{n1}, v_{n2} $ are of the form
vn1=λCn1f(x),vn2(x)=−λCn2mn−2ωn−2f(x) where
Cn1,2 are the coupling constants with the
nth oscillator,
f(x) is any arbitrary function of
x, and
λ is a dimensionless constant. Employing the closed-time-path formalism the influence action
SIF is calculated using a perturbative expansion in
λ. It is possible to identify the terms in
SIF quadratic or higher in
Δ(s)≡f(x+(s))−f(x−(s)) to constitute the noise kernel, while terms linear in
Δ to that of the dissipation kernel. The non-Gaussian noise kernel gives rise to non-zero three-point correlation function of the corresponding stochastic force. The pathway presented here should be useful for the exploration of \textit{non-Gaussian properties of systems nonlinearly coupled with their environments}; examples in early universe cosmology and in quantum optomechanics (QOM) are mentioned. A modified fluctuation-dissipation relation (FDR) is also established, which ensures the consistency of the model and the accuracy of results even at higher perturbative orders. Another result of significance is the derivation of a nonlinear Langevin equation which is expected to be useful for many open quantum system applications.
Linear quantum amplifiers are indispensable tools for quantum technologies, yet their performance is fundamentally limited by quantum noise, precluding any signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) enhancement unless supplemented by post-selection or non-classical resources. To surpass this limitation, we propose a nonlinear quantum amplification strategy that exploits the interplay between a gain-stabilized bright eigenmode of a coupled two-mode bosonic system and Kerr nonlinearity. We demonstrate that this interplay enables the signal gain to surpass the noise gain in a selected quadrature, leading to a net increase in the SNR beyond the quantum limits of conventional linear amplifiers. Our work thus establishes a novel nonlinear amplification paradigm capable of enhancing the SNR, with promising applications across quantum information processing, quantum communications, and quantum metrology.
Interaction is so ubiquitous that imaging a world free from it is a difficult fantasy exercise. At the same time, in understanding any complex physical system, our ability of accounting for the mutual interaction of its constituents is often insufficient when not the restraining factor. Many strategies have been devised to control particle-particle interaction and explore the diverse regimes, from weak to strong interaction. Beautiful examples of these achievements are the experiments on Bose condensates, or the recent experiments on the dynamics of spin chains. Here I introduce another possibility, namely replacing the particle-particle interaction with an external stochastic field, and once again reducing the dynamics of a many-body system to the dynamics of single-particle systems. The theory is exact, in the sense that no approximations are introduced in decoupling the many-body system in its non-interacting sub-parts. Moreover, the equations of motion are linear, and no unknown external potential is inserted.
Coherently displaced number states of a harmonically bound ion can be coupled to two internal states of the ion by a laser-induced motional sideband interaction. The internal states can subsequently be read out in a projective measurement via state-dependent fluorescence, with near-unit fidelity. This leads to a rich set of line shapes when recording the internal-state excitation probability after a sideband excitation, as a function of the frequency detuning of the displacement drive with respect to the ion's motional frequency. We precisely characterize the coherent displacement based on the resulting line shapes, which exhibit sharp features that are useful for oscillator frequency determination from the single quantum regime up to very large coherent states with average occupation numbers of several hundred. We also introduce a technique based on multiple coherent displacements and free precession for characterizing noise on the trapping potential in the frequency range of 500 Hz–400 kHz. Signals from the ion are directly used to find and eliminate sources of technical noise in this typically unaccessed part of the spectrum.
Nonlinear friction forces are a problem in classical Brownian motion for a long time [1]. They are described either by Langevin or by Fokker-Planck equations [2-4]. However, the rigorous generalized Langevin equation is linear, which points out that nonlinear friction forces possess a macroscopic hydrodynamic origin [1]. For this reason, they are not present in the modern quantum theory of open systems [5]. The scope of the present paper is to investigate the nonlinear friction effect on quantum mechanics. The analysis is based on a dissipative Madelung quantum hydrodynamics. Thus, the nonlinear friction is a result of nonlinear non-equilibrium thermodynamics in contrast to the traditional mechanical nonlinear friction forces. A quantum particle in vacuum is described by the Schrodinger equation
The vast majority of the literature dealing with quantum dynamics is concerned with linear evolution of the wave function or the density matrix. A complete dynamical description requires a full understanding of the evolution of measured quantum systems, necessary to explain actual experimental results. The dynamics of such systems is intrinsically nonlinear even at the level of distribution functions, both classically as well as quantum mechanically. Aside from being physically more complete, this treatment reveals the existence of dynamical regimes, such as chaos, that have no counterpart in the linear case. Here, we present a short introductory review of some of these aspects, with a few illustrative results and examples.