We investigate the feasibility of carrying out quantum walks with cold atoms in a double optical lattice. Monte Carlo simulations of time-of-flight (TOF) detection and absorption imaging were carried out, focusing on a specific experimental implementation. These indicate that absorption imaging would be best suited for detection of quantum walks. With typical experimental parameters a few hundred quantum walk steps will be needed for an unambiguous detection of the quantum walk signature. We show that in special cases, few-step quantum walks can also be detected in our system if one measures the relative population of the atoms in their internal states rather than their displacement in space, that is, measurements are made in the space of the coin operator rather than in that of the displacement operator.
We investigate the feasibility of carrying out quantum walks with cold atoms in a double optical lattice. Monte Carlo simulations of time-of-flight (TOF) detection and absorption imaging were carried out, focusing on a specific experimental implementation. These indicate that absorption imaging would be best suited for detection of quantum walks. With typical experimental parameters a few hundred quantum walk steps will be needed for an unambiguous detection of the quantum walk signature. We show that in special cases, few-step quantum walks can also be detected in our system if one measures the relative population of the atoms in their internal states rather than their displacement in space, that is, measurements are made in the space of the coin operator rather than in that of the displacement operator.
We investigate a system of two atoms in an optical lattice, performing a quantum walk by state-dependent shift operations and a coin operation acting on the internal states. The atoms interact, e.g., by cold collisions, whenever they are in the same potential well of the lattice. Under such conditions they typically develop a bound state, so that the two atoms effectively perform a quantum walk together, rarely moving further from each other than a few lattice sites. The theoretical analysis is based on a theory of quantum walks with a point defect, applied to the difference variable. We also discuss the feasibility of an experimental realization in existing quantum walk experiments.
We propose a different implementation of discrete-time quantum walks for a neutral atom in an array of optical microtraps or an optical lattice. We analyze a one-dimensional walk in position space, with the coin, the additional qubit degree of freedom that controls the displacement of the quantum walker, implemented as a spatially delocalized qubit, i.e., the coin is also encoded in position space. We analyze the dependence of the quantum walk on temperature and experimental imperfections such as shaking in the trap positions. Finally, combining a spatially delocalized qubit and a hyperfine qubit, we also give a scheme to realize a quantum walk on a two-dimensional square lattice with the possibility of implementing different coin operators.
This thesis presents work toward a quantum simulator with cold atoms. Characteristic and defining subsystems of the experimental setup are presented. Among them there are: the self-made viewports for ultra-high vacuum using indium seals, work on a modular laser system, for laser cooling, with miniaturised optics for the optimization of double path acusto-optic modulator. Work on a computer control to implement past slot is also presented. \nA versatile detection system for absorption imaging was designed and built. This detection system is stable, easy to align and exchange of magnification is simple. As well, a high resolution imaging system was designed, built and tested. This imaging system uses commercial microscope objectives and has been designed to work with four different microscope objective. Magnification of 5x, 10x 20x and 50x are possible. With the maximum magnification of 50x a resolution of 1.74μm for 780nm was achieved. Also a camera control for in-situ absorption imaging was programmed. Calculation of number of atoms and temperature were implemented in the program, as well as a defringing algorithm. \nA new method for temperature calculation for atoms held in a magnetic quadrupole trap was developed and tested, giving similar calculation of temperature as the commonly known time of flight (TOF) method. It is shown that this new method gives better results than the common TOF method for short time of flight. \nCharacterization of atom losses and heating in the production of a Bose-Einstein condensate were performed.
Cold-atom experiments in optical lattices offer a versatile platform to realize various topological quantum phases. A key challenge in those experiments is to unambiguously probe the topological order. We propose a method to directly measure the characteristic topological invariants (order) based on the time-of-flight imaging of cold atoms. The method is generally applicable to detection of topological band insulators in one, two, or three dimensions characterized by integer topological invariants. Using detection of the Chern number for the two-dimensional anomalous quantum Hall states and the Chern-Simons term for the three-dimensional chiral topological insulators as examples, we show that the proposed detection method is practical, and robust to typical experimental imperfections such as limited imaging resolution, inhomogeneous trapping potential, and disorder in the system.
The field of quantum computation and quantum simulation has been recently driven to a new rising edge by the experimental realization of quantum walks in various setups, highlighting that different physical systems can be adapted for the implementation of these models. In particular, optical systems have shown their full potential, allowing the experimental demonstration of two-dimensional quantum walks for the first time [1, 2], even if several further progresses will sur ely be obtained also in the other physical scenarios that have been already exploited for the one-dimensional case [3, 4]. From the theoretical point of view, the interest in twodimensional quantum walks has been boosted by the fact that, differently from the one-dimensional version, highe rdimensional schemes (i.e., walkers moving on structures with dimension larger than one) can be exploited for the efficient implementation of quantum search algorithms [5]. In particular, the Grover walk has been intensively studied due to its localization feature [6]. It has been proved that the non localized case of the Grover walk can be simulated by a walk where the requirement of a higher dimensionality of the coin space is substituted with the alternance of the directions i n which the walker can move [7]. In the quest for more feasible quantum walk models, an important step forward is presented in this paper: a strong localization-like effect can be indeed obtained in the modified version of the alternate quantum walk presented here, reducing the gap with the standard two-dimensional version. This result could pave the way for adapting this scheme to the realization of quantum algorithms, providing a clear advantage in terms of experimental resources. After a short introduct ion on the quantum walk studied here, we characterize it in terms of its relevant parameters and show that a proper choice can guarantee a non-negligible probability of finding the walke r at the origin even for large times. We then hint at a qualitative relation between the ability of the system to localize and th e behavior of coherences established in the state of the parti cles performing a two-particle equivalent scheme of the walk, which in turns provides information on the way correlations are set up between them. We discuss the robustness of this model to imperfections and its possible experimental realization with the current state-of-the-art settings in linear o ptics and cold-atom devices. Let us consider a quantum system with two degrees of freedom, and thus described by a vector in the composite Hilbert space H = HW ⊗ HC . The coin space HC is a two-dimensional Hilbert space spanned by {|0i,|1i} and the walker space HW is an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space spanned by {|x,yi}, with x and y assuming all possible integer values. We take as a basis of this space H the set {|x,y,ci}, with |x,y,ci= |x,yiW ⊗ |ciC ; x and y could denote, for instance, the position of a particle ( walker) along the x and y directions, respectively, while |ciC is an internal twolevel degree of freedom. From now on, we consider|0,0iW as the initial state of our walker, and |+yiC = (|0iC+i|1iC)/ √ 2 as the coin one. The evolution of the system is given by a sequence of conditional shift, coin operations, and phase gates. The effec t of the two different conditional shift operations
We present an approach using quantum walks (QWs) to redistribute ultracold atoms in an optical lattice. Different density profiles of atoms can be obtained by exploiting the controllable properties of QWs, such as the variance and the probability distribution in position space using quantum coin parameters and engineered noise. The QW evolves the density profile of atoms in a superposition of position space, resulting in a quadratic speedup of the process of quantum phase transition. We also discuss implementation in presently available setups of ultracold atoms in optical lattices.