This thesis consists of theoretical studies of superconducting qubits, and trapped bosons and fermions at ultracold temperature. In superconducting qubits I analyze the resonant properties and decoherence behavior of dc SQUID phase qubits, in which one junction acts as a phase qubit and the rest of the device provides isolation from dissipation and noise in the bias lead. Typically qubit states in phase qubits are detected by tunneling it to the voltage state. I propose an alternate non-destructive readout mechanism which relies on the difference in the magnetic flux through the SQUID loop due to state of the qubit. I also study decoherence effects in a dc SQUID phase qubit caused by the isolation circuit. When the frequency of the qubit is at least two times larger than the resonance frequency of the isolation circuit, I find that the decoherence time of the qubit is two orders of magnitude larger than the typical ohmic regime, where the frequency of the qubit is much smaller than the resonance frequency of the isolation circuit. This theory is extended to other similar superconducting quantum devices and has been applied to experiments from the group at the University of Maryland. I also demonstrate, theoretically, vacuum Rabi oscillations, analogous to circuit-QED, in superconducting qubits coupled to an environment with resonance. The result obtained gives an exact analytical expression for coherent oscillation of state between the system (the qubit) and the environment with resonance. Next I investigate ultracold atoms in harmonically confined optical lattices. They exhibit a `wedding cake structure' of alternating Mott shells with different number of bosons per site. In regions between the Mott shells, a superfluid phase emerges at low temperatures which at higher temperatures becomes a normal Bose liquid. Using finite-temperature quantum field theoretic techniques, I find analytically the properties of the superfluid, Bose liquid, and Mott insulating regions. This includes the finite temperature order parameter equation for the superfluid phase, excitation spectrum, Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition temperature and vortex-antivortex pair formation (in the two dimensional case), finite temperature compressibility and density - density correlation function. I also study interacting mixtures of ultracold bosonic and fermionic atoms in harmonically confined optical lattices. For a suitable choice of parameters I find emergence of superfluid and Fermi liquid (non-insulating) regions out of Bose-Mott and Fermi-band insulators, due to finite boson and fermion hopping. I also propose a possible experiment for the detection of superfluid and Fermi liquid shells through the use of Gauss-Laguerre and Gaussian beams followed by Bragg spectroscopy. Another area I explore is ultracold heteronuclear molecules such as KRb, RbCs and NaCs. I obtain the finite and zero-temperature phase diagram of bosons interacting via short range repulsive interactions and long-ranged isotropic dipolar interactions in two-dimensions. I build an analytical model for such systems that describes a first order quantum phase transition at zero temperature from a triangular crystalline phase (analogous to Wigner crystal phase of electrons) to superfluid phase. At finite temperature the crystalline phase melts, due to topological defects, to a hexatic phase where translational order is destroyed but hexagonal orientational order is preserved. Further temperature increase leads to the melting of the hexatic phase into a normal dipolar Bose liquid.
This thesis consists of theoretical studies of superconducting qubits, and trapped bosons and fermions at ultracold temperature. In superconducting qubits I analyze the resonant properties and decoherence behavior of dc SQUID phase qubits, in which one junction acts as a phase qubit and the rest of the device provides isolation from dissipation and noise in the bias lead. Typically qubit states in phase qubits are detected by tunneling it to the voltage state. I propose an alternate non-destructive readout mechanism which relies on the difference in the magnetic flux through the SQUID loop due to state of the qubit. I also study decoherence effects in a dc SQUID phase qubit caused by the isolation circuit. When the frequency of the qubit is at least two times larger than the resonance frequency of the isolation circuit, I find that the decoherence time of the qubit is two orders of magnitude larger than the typical ohmic regime, where the frequency of the qubit is much smaller than the resonance frequency of the isolation circuit. This theory is extended to other similar superconducting quantum devices and has been applied to experiments from the group at the University of Maryland. I also demonstrate, theoretically, vacuum Rabi oscillations, analogous to circuit-QED, in superconducting qubits coupled to an environment with resonance. The result obtained gives an exact analytical expression for coherent oscillation of state between the system (the qubit) and the environment with resonance. Next I investigate ultracold atoms in harmonically confined optical lattices. They exhibit a `wedding cake structure' of alternating Mott shells with different number of bosons per site. In regions between the Mott shells, a superfluid phase emerges at low temperatures which at higher temperatures becomes a normal Bose liquid. Using finite-temperature quantum field theoretic techniques, I find analytically the properties of the superfluid, Bose liquid, and Mott insulating regions. This includes the finite temperature order parameter equation for the superfluid phase, excitation spectrum, Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition temperature and vortex-antivortex pair formation (in the two dimensional case), finite temperature compressibility and density - density correlation function. I also study interacting mixtures of ultracold bosonic and fermionic atoms in harmonically confined optical lattices. For a suitable choice of parameters I find emergence of superfluid and Fermi liquid (non-insulating) regions out of Bose-Mott and Fermi-band insulators, due to finite boson and fermion hopping. I also propose a possible experiment for the detection of superfluid and Fermi liquid shells through the use of Gauss-Laguerre and Gaussian beams followed by Bragg spectroscopy. Another area I explore is ultracold heteronuclear molecules such as KRb, RbCs and NaCs. I obtain the finite and zero-temperature phase diagram of bosons interacting via short range repulsive interactions and long-ranged isotropic dipolar interactions in two-dimensions. I build an analytical model for such systems that describes a first order quantum phase transition at zero temperature from a triangular crystalline phase (analogous to Wigner crystal phase of electrons) to superfluid phase. At finite temperature the crystalline phase melts, due to topological defects, to a hexatic phase where translational order is destroyed but hexagonal orientational order is preserved. Further temperature increase leads to the melting of the hexatic phase into a normal dipolar Bose liquid.
We study decoherence effects in qubits coupled to environments that exhibit resonant frequencies in their spectral function. We model the coupling of the qubit to its environment via the Caldeira-Leggett formulation of quantum dissipation/coherence, and study the simplest example of decoherence effects in circuits with resonances such as a dc superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) phase qubit in the presence of an isolation circuit. Using the dc SQUID phase qubit as an example, we obtain two quite general results. First, when the frequency of the qubit is at least two times larger than the resonance frequency of the environmental spectral density (the isolation circuit in the case of a dc SQUID phase qubit), we find that the decoherence time of the qubit is a few orders of magnitude larger than that of the typical Ohmic regime, where the frequency of the qubit is much smaller than the resonance frequency of the spectral density. Second, we show that, when the qubit frequency is nearly the same as the resonant frequency of the environmental spectral density, an oscillatory non-Markovian decay emerges, as the qubit and its environment self-generate Rabi oscillations of characteristic time scales shorter than the decoherence time.
This thesis concerns ultracold two-dimensional atomic gases and the associated novel superfluid phases in an optical lattice subjected to staggered rotations. In the first part, we study the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition in a two-dimensional Bose gas. Motivated by recent experiments on the cold gas in the BKT regime, we employ a modified Popov theory and a renormalization group theory to describe the system. The two-dimensional renormalization group flow equations display unique features, which we interpret as precursors of the BKT physics. We further calculate higher correlation functions close to the BKT transition, which can serve as observables for detecting effects beyond mean-field. Finally, we obtain the density profile under the conditions of the experiment performed in the group of Dalibard in Paris, France. In the second part of the thesis, we study a recent experimental proposal of a time-dependent optical lattice with staggered rotations. We show that in the tight-binding regime, the system can be effectively described by a (Bose-)Hubbard model subjected to an artificial staggered magnetic field. The staggered magnetic field (flux) in the lattice leads to conical points in the band structure which possesses distinct minima for different strength, and can give rise to Dirac-like dispersions. For bosons, we show that besides the homogenous superfluid phase, a staggered-vortex superfluid phase is stabilized for large flux values. We show that the staggered flux renormalizes the phase boundary and find a multi-critical point separating the two superfluid phases and the Mott insulating phase. Finally, the full phase diagram of the generalized Bose-Hubbard model at zero temperature is determined. We then generalize the model for a mixture of ultracold bosons and spin-1/2 fermions. By using the Bogoliubov theory for the bosonic sector, we show that the bosonic superfluid mediates attractive interactions between fermions up to the nearest-neighbor site. The resulting model is an extended Hubbard model in the presence of a staggered magnetic field, where the on-site and the nearest-neighbor attractive interactions can be tuned independently. We then employ the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory for superconductivity, by considering an on-site pairing order parameter competing with a nearest-neighbor resonating-valence-bond order parameter. Due to conical points in the energy band, the system possesses quantum critical property and the resulting phase diagram displays features which are strikingly similar to that of high-critical-temperature superconductors or heavy-fermion superconductors.
We study decoherence effects in qubits coupled to environments that exhibit resonant frequencies in their spectral function. We model the coupling of the qubit to its environment via the Caldeira-Leggett formulation of quantum dissipation/coherence, and study the simplest example of decoherence effects in circuits with resonances such as a dc SQUID phase qubit in the presence of an isolation circuit, which is designed to enhance the coherence time. We emphasize that the spectral density of the environment is strongly dependent on the circuit design, and can be engineered to produce longer decoherence times. We begin with a general discussion of superconducting qubits such as the flux qubit, the Cooper pair box and the phase qubit and show that in these kinds of systems appropriate circuit design can greatly modify the spectral density of the environment and lead to enhancement of decoherence times. In the particular case of the phase qubit, for instance, we show that when the frequency of the qubit is at least two times larger than the resonance frequency of the environmental spectral density, the decoherence time of the qubit is a few orders of magnitude larger than that of the typical ohmic regime, where the frequency of the qubit is much smaller than the resonance frequency of the spectral density. In addition, we demonstrate that the environment does not only affect the decoherence time, but also the frequency of the transition itself, which is shifted from its environment-free value. Second, we show that when the qubit frequency is nearly the same as the resonant frequency of the environmental spectral density, an oscillatory non-Markovian decay emerges, as the qubit and its environment self-generate Rabi oscillations of characteristic time scales shorter than the decoherence time.
In this thesis, we discuss ultracold quantum gases both in continuum and optical lattices. For the continuum Fermi gases in BCS-BEC crossover, we present an effective field theory study on the recently discovered puzzling damping phenomena on the BCS side of the crossover. We find that in contrast to the previous proposed pair-breaking mechanism of damping, the damping process is due to the interaction between superfluid phonons and thermally excited fermionic quasi particles. Results from our effective field theory are compared quantitatively with experiments, showing a good agreement. For the ultracold fermionic atoms in optical lattices, we propose two novel quantum phases. Firstly, we show that a novel superconducting pairing occurs for spin-imbalanced Fermi gases with the spin up and down Fermi levels lying within the px- and s- orbital bands of a quasi-one-dimensional optical lattice. The pairs condense at a finite momentum equal to the sum of the two Fermi momenta of spin up and down fermions, and form a p-orbital condensate. The phase diagram shows that the p-orbital pair condensate occurs in a wide range of fillings. Secondly, we study instabilities of single-species fermionic atoms in the p-orbital bands in two-dimensional square optical lattices. From the nearly-perfect nesting Fermi surfaces, charge density wave and orbital density wave orderings with stripe or checkerboard patterns are found for attractive and repulsive interactions, respectively. The superconducting phase, usually expected of attractively interacting fermions, is strongly suppressed. We also use field theory to analyze the possible liquid crystal phases in our system. For bosons, we study ultracold bosonic atoms loaded in a one-dimensional optical lattice of two-fold p-orbital degeneracy at each site, and find an anti-ferro-orbital, a homogeneous px Mott insulator phase and two kinds of superfluid phases distinguished by the orbital ordering.
Ultracold Bose gases as precise quantum simulators have emerged amongst the leaders in the current race – a second quantum revolution – toward the promise of unfathomable sensitivity, scope, and speed of a new era of technology. The only path leading to these advancements is through many-body descriptions, especially in regimes where interatomic interactions render many approximations incompatible with the physics. The research in this dissertation unlocks a piece of this mystery through investigations of many-body quantum tunneling of ultracold bosons in optical lattices. A key mechanism to characterizing the dynamics, matrix product state simulations equip the many-body toolbox with efficient optimization of large Hilbert spaces together with correlation and entropy measures that help clarify when semiclassical or mean-field approximations fail. In this thesis we obtain the following results. Macroscopic quantum tunneling escape of a Bose-Einstein condensate – comprised of tens of thousands of 87Rb atoms – from a single well, as portrayed through both experiment and theory, highlights non-exponential decay in the number of atoms trapped behind the barrier. Additionally, explicit symmetry breaking of a biperiodic optical lattice ring trap to a uniform one illustrates a critical symmetry-breaking strength at which the system transitions from a state of remembering to a state of forgetting its initial symmetry state; this symmetry memory indicates a new form of quantum dynamics that requires the quantum advantage for scaling up particle number and lattice sites. Extensive characterization of dynamical regimes in a bosonic Josephson junction – underlaid by an optical lattice as described by the Bose-Hubbard model – reveal substantial deviation of many body dynamics from the mean field or semiclassical predictions underlying the usual operating regime of Josephson junctions. Initial state population and phase yield insight into dynamic tunneling regimes of a quasi one-dimensional double well potential, through the Z2 spontaneous symmetry-breaking phase transition from Josephson oscillations to macroscopic self-trapping. We demonstrate that with increasing repulsive interaction strength, the U(1) superfluid-Mott insulator phase transition induces localized dynamics in the number density, such as particle-hole and soliton formation. Moreover, g^(2) correlations unveil a new dynamic regime – the Fock flashlight. The new field of atomtronics – or atomic circuits – has emerged with many studies of weakly-interacting condensates. In contrast, and building on our work on many-body effects in the double wells underlying Josephson junctions, we present a proof-of-principle of a Mott-insulating atomtronic switch that requires strongly-interacting bosons. Through transient analysis, we reveal that hole conductance can be modulated via tuning interaction strength through a critical value, thus propelling the state to the next ``wedding cake'' layer of the Mott insulating structure. This critical interaction strength is a…
We describe weakly interacting atomic or molecular bosons trapped in harmonically confined optical lattices, which exhibit a wedding cake structure consisting of insulating (Mott) shells. We show that superfluid regions emerge between Mott shells as a result of fluctuations due to finite hopping and find that the order parameter equation in the superfluid regions is not of the standard Gross-Pitaevskii type except near the insulator-to-superfluid boundaries. We obtain the excitation spectra in the Mott and superfluid regions, and we show that the superfluid shells possess low-energy sound modes with spatially dependent sound velocity described by a local index of refraction directly related to the local superfluid density. Furthermore, we discuss the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition and vortex-antivortex pairs in thin (wide) superfluid shells (rings) limited by three- (two-) dimensional Mott regions. Last, we propose an experiment to detect superfluid shells using Laguerre-Gaussian beams and Bragg spectroscopy.