Abstract This book gathers the lecture notes of courses given at the 2011 Les Houches Summer School in Theoretical Physics, Session XCVI. What is a quantum machine? Can we say that lasers and transistors are quantum machines? After all, physicists advertise these devices as the two main spin-offs of the understanding of quantum physics. However, while quantum mechanics must be used to predict the wavelength of a laser and the operation voltage of a transistor, it does not intervene at the level of the signals processed by these systems. Signals involve macroscopic collective variables such as voltages and currents in a circuit or the amplitude of the oscillating electric field in an electromagnetic cavity resonator. In a true quantum machine, the signal collective variables, which both inform the outside on the state of the machine and receive controlling instructions, must themselves be treated as quantum operators, just like the position of the electron in a hydrogen atom.Quantum superconducting circuits, quantum dots, and quantum nanomechanical resonators satisfy the definition of quantum machines. These mesoscopic systems exhibit a few collective dynamical variables, whose fluctuations are well within the quantum regime and whose measurement is essentially limited in precision by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Other engineered quantum systems based on natural, rather than artificial, degrees of freedom can also qualify as quantum machines: trapped ions, single Rydberg atoms in superconducting cavities, and lattices of ultracold atoms. This book provides the basic knowledge needed to understand and investigate the physics of these novel systems.
Abstract This book gathers the lecture notes of courses given at the 2011 Les Houches Summer School in Theoretical Physics, Session XCVI. What is a quantum machine? Can we say that lasers and transistors are quantum machines? After all, physicists advertise these devices as the two main spin-offs of the understanding of quantum physics. However, while quantum mechanics must be used to predict the wavelength of a laser and the operation voltage of a transistor, it does not intervene at the level of the signals processed by these systems. Signals involve macroscopic collective variables such as voltages and currents in a circuit or the amplitude of the oscillating electric field in an electromagnetic cavity resonator. In a true quantum machine, the signal collective variables, which both inform the outside on the state of the machine and receive controlling instructions, must themselves be treated as quantum operators, just like the position of the electron in a hydrogen atom.Quantum superconducting circuits, quantum dots, and quantum nanomechanical resonators satisfy the definition of quantum machines. These mesoscopic systems exhibit a few collective dynamical variables, whose fluctuations are well within the quantum regime and whose measurement is essentially limited in precision by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Other engineered quantum systems based on natural, rather than artificial, degrees of freedom can also qualify as quantum machines: trapped ions, single Rydberg atoms in superconducting cavities, and lattices of ultracold atoms. This book provides the basic knowledge needed to understand and investigate the physics of these novel systems.
Superconducting circuits, photonic cavities, and tiny mechanical oscillators are versatile systems in which quantum dynamics can be observed and controlled. These various technologies can be combined, and the resulting “circuits” are often referred to as nano-electromechanical or optomechanical systems. In the context of quantum physics, such devices are referred to as “mesoscopic” because they contain a large number of atoms. This terminology distinguishes them from the “microscopic” systems of atom-optics, such as single ions [364] and atoms [545, 233, 26], and the spins of individual nuclei [412]. Nano-engineered systems provide an especially powerful arena for exploring quantum measurement and control because of their potential to realize complex circuits. In this chapter we explain how to treat these systems and describe in detail a common method used to measure them. Superconducting circuits The electrical circuits that we describe in this chapter are quite different from those that use normal conductors, such as copper wire at room temperature. Normal conductors are subject to strong dissipation and decoherence from the environment. As a result the dynamical degrees of freedom of the circuits, the currents and voltages, behave as classical variables. In superconducting circuits, the resistance, and thus the dissipation, is so small that the currents and voltages behave as quantum mechanical degrees of freedom. Of course, the current in a wire is actually composed of many elementary particles that each obey quantum mechanics. Why then should the current act like a single quantum degree of freedom? A mechanical analogy is useful here. Recall that even though a macroscopic pendulum is composed of many particles, when one talks about the motion of the pendulum one means the motion of the center-of-mass of its constituent particles. Since the center of mass is merely a linear combination of the coordinates of each particle, it is itself a valid quantum mechanical coordinate with a conjugate momentum. In a similar way the total current in a superconducting wire is a collective degree of freedom that obeys quantum mechanics.
A quantum computer is an information processing machine, much like an ordinary classical computer, but its function is based on quantum mechanical principles. To be able to construct such a machine would be a fantastic accomplishment---to have total control over a quantum system is a dream for both physicists and science-fiction enthusiasts. The basic information unit in a quantum computer is the quantum bit, or qubit for short. A quantum computer consists of many coupled qubits. To get a single qubit to work properly, would be a major step towards building this machine. Here we study two different qubit ideas. The central element in both setups is the superconducting tunnel junction---the Josephson junction. By connecting the Josephson junctions to standard electronics in a clever way, a qubit can be realised. With these constructions it is in principle very easy to manipulate and read out the quantum probabilities, by varying voltages and currents in time. However, this ease of manipulation has a cost: strong interactions with uncontrolled degrees of freedom of the environment transfer information from the qubit. For superconducting qubits this decoherence is typically very fast. There are ways to deal with the decoherence. One way is to tune the circuit parameters so that the decoherence becomes minimal. Another way is to engineer the qubits so fast so that the effect of decoherence becomes small. In this thesis, we will apply both these strategies. Specifically, the measurement speed of the second qubit we study, turns out to be very sensitive to the topology of the phase space of the detector variables.
This accessible and self-contained text presents the essential theoretical techniques developed to describe quantum processes, alongside a detailed review of the devices and experimental methods required in quantum measurement. Ideal for advanced undergraduate and graduate students seeking to extend their knowledge of the physics underlying quantum technologies, the book develops a thorough understanding of quantum measurement theory, quantum processes and the evolution of quantum states. A wide range of basic quantum systems are discussed, including atoms, ions, photons, and more complex macroscopic quantum devices such as opto-mechanical systems and superconducting circuits. Quantum phenomena are also covered in detail, from entanglement and quantum jumps, to quantum fluctuations in optical systems. Numerous problems at the end of each chapter problems enable the reader to consolidate key theoretical concepts and to develop their understanding of the most widely-used experimental techniques.
In these notes, based on lectures given as part of the Les Houches summer school on Quantum Optics and Nanophotonics in August, 2013, I have tried to give a brief survey of some important approaches and modern tendencies in quantum measurement. I wish it to be clear from the outset that I shy explicitly away from the "quantum measurement problem," and that the present treatment aims to elucidate the theory and practice of various ways in which measurements can, in light of quantum mechanics, be carried out; and various formalisms for describing them. While the treatment is by necessity largely theoretical, the emphasis is meant to be on an experimental "perspective" on measurement -- that is, to place the priority on the possibility of gaining information through some process, and then attempting to model that process mathematically and consider its ramifications, rather than stressing a particular mathematical definition as the {\it sine qua non} of measurement. The textbook definition of measurement as being a particular set of mathematical operations carried out on particular sorts of operators has been so well drilled into us that many have the unfortunate tendency of saying "that experiment can't be described by projections onto the eigenstates of a Hermitian operator, so it is not really a measurement," when of course any practitioner of an experimental science such as physics should instead say "that experiment allowed us to measure something, and if the standard theory of measurement does not describe it, the standard theory of measurement is incomplete." Idealisations are important, but when the real world breaks the approximations made in the theory, it is the theory which must be fixed, and not the real world.
This century has seen the development of technologies for manipulating and controlling matter and light at the level of individual photons and atoms, a realm in which physics is fully quantum-mechanical. The dominant experimental technology is the laser, and the theoretical paradigm is quantum optics. The Quantum World of Ultra-Cold Atoms and Light is a trilogy, which presents the quantum optics way of thinking and its applications to quantum devices. This book The Physics of Quantum-Optical Devices provides a comprehensive treatment of theoretical quantum optics. It covers applications to the optical manipulation of the quantum states of atoms, laser cooling, continuous measurement, quantum computers and quantum processors, superconducting systems and quantum networks. The subject is consistently formulated in terms of quantum stochastic techniques, and a systematic and thorough development of these techniques is a central part of the book. There is also a compact overview of the ideas of quantum information theory. The main aim of the book is to present the theoretical techniques necessary for the understanding of quantum optical devices, with special attention to those devices used in quantum information processing and quantum simulation. Although these techniques were developed originally for the optical regime, they are also applicable to electromagnetic radiation from the microwave realm to the ultra-violet, and for atomic systems, Josephson junction systems, quantum dots and nano-mechanical systems.
Preface FOUNDATIONS OF QUANTUM INFORMATICS Spins: The Stern-Gerlach experiment and spin filter EPR, Bell's inequalities, and hidden variables The Landauer principle QUANTUM COMPUTATION AND QUANTUM SYSTEMS Turing machines and binary logic gates Quantum mechanical systems Hilbert spaces Complex finite dimensional Hilbert Spaces Quantum Turing machines Universality of elementary quantum gates Quantum algorithms Quantum adder and multiplier Quantum error correction codes Lasers: a heuristic introduction Quantum computing devices and requirements TWO-LEVEL ATOMS AND CAVITY QED Two-level atoms Quantization of the electromagnetic field Cavity QED Cavity QED for the quantum phase gate Quantum eraser Quantum disentanglement eraser IMPERFECT QUANTUM OPERATIONS Fidelity Density matrices Time evolution of density matrices Examples of master equations Fidelity calculations ION TRAPS Introduction Ion qubits Summary of ion preparation Coherence Quantum gates Large scale confined-ion quantum computer Trap architecture and performance Teleportation of coherent information Experimental DFS logic gates Quantum error correction by ion traps Summary of ion quantum computation QUANTUM LOGIC USING COLD, CONFINED ATOMS Introduction Atom trapping and detection Atom interactions with external fields Atom trapping Qubits and gates Controlled two-qubit gates Coherence properties of atom gates Assessment QUANTUM DOTS QUANTUM COMPUTING GATES Introduction Electrons in quantum dots microcavity Coupled electron spins Biexciton in a single quantum dot Conclusions LINEAR OPTICS COMPUTERS Classical electrodynamics - Classical computers Quantum electrodynamics - Quantum computers Teleportation Summary and outlook SUPERCONDUCTING QUANTUM COMPUTING DEVICES Introduction Superconductivity More on Cooper pairs and Josephson junctions Superconducting circuits: classical Superconducting circuits: quantum Quantum gates Measurement NMR QUANTUM COMPUTING Nuclear magnetic resonance Basic technology with NMR Solid state NMR Shor's algorithm and its experimental realization Quantum algorithm for lattice-gas systems Conclusion Appendix A: The Fock-Darwin States Appendix B: Evaluation of the exchange energy Appendix C: Transformation of quantum states: SU(2) and SO(3) Appendix D: The Homeomorphism from SU(2) to SO(3)