The one-way quantum work deficit, a measure of quantum correlation, exhibits the regions with the bimodal behavior of post-measurement entropy versus the measurement angle θ ε (0, π/2). Under certain conditions this can lead to the finite jumps Δν> 0 of optimal measurement angle ν from the endpoint 0 or π/2 to the interior minimum and vice versa. In turn, such sudden jumps lead to the fractures, i.e., non-analytical points on the dependencies of quantum correlation upon the state parameters. We examine a possibility to experimentally observe these phenomena on an example of three-component mixture consisting of one pair of Bell-diagonal states and a basis state orthogonal to the Bell ones. Observation of named effects, beyond their intrinsic interest, could demonstrate the experimental ability in controlling and manipulating the quantum states.
The one-way quantum work deficit, a measure of quantum correlation, exhibits the regions with the bimodal behavior of post-measurement entropy versus the measurement angle θ ε (0, π/2). Under certain conditions this can lead to the finite jumps Δν> 0 of optimal measurement angle ν from the endpoint 0 or π/2 to the interior minimum and vice versa. In turn, such sudden jumps lead to the fractures, i.e., non-analytical points on the dependencies of quantum correlation upon the state parameters. We examine a possibility to experimentally observe these phenomena on an example of three-component mixture consisting of one pair of Bell-diagonal states and a basis state orthogonal to the Bell ones. Observation of named effects, beyond their intrinsic interest, could demonstrate the experimental ability in controlling and manipulating the quantum states.
Abstract Sudden changes of quantum correlations in the Bell-diagonal states are well-known effects. They occur when the set of optimal parameters that determine the quantum correlation consists of isolated points and optimal parameters during the evolution of the system jump from one such point to another (e.g., the optimal measurement angle of the quantum discord changes discontinuously from zero to π /2 or vice versa). However, when considering more general X quantum states, we found that quantum discord and one-way quantum work deficit can experience sudden changes of other kinds. Namely, the optimal measurement angle may suddenly start to shift continuously from its stationary value 0 or π /2 to an intermediate optimal measurement angle ϑ ∈ (0, π /2). This leads to a new behavior of quantum correlations, which is mathematically described by the Landau phenomenological theory of second-order phase transitions. In addition, for the one-way quantum work deficit, we found cases where the optimal measurement angle jumps from zero to a nonzero step less than π /2, and then continuously changes its value. This behavior of quantum correlation is similar to a first-order phase transition in Landau’s theory. Dependencies of quantum discord and one-way quantum work deficit near the boundaries, which separate regions with state-dependent (variable) and state-independent (stationary, constant) optimal measurement angles, are examined in detail on an example of the XXZ spin model in an external field at thermal equilibrium.
It is shown that in some regions of X-state space the measurement-dependent one-way quantum deficit \Delta as a function of measurement angle \theta\in[0,\pi/2] exhibits a bimodal behavior inside the open interval (0,\pi/2), i.e., it has two interior extrema: one minimum and one maximum. Moreover, cases are found when the interior minimum of such a bimodal function \Delta(\theta) is less than that one at the endpoint with \theta=0 or \theta=\pi/2. This refutes the result of Ye et al. [Int. J. Theor. Phys. {\bf 55}, 2237 (2016)] which was intended for obtaining the one-way quantum deficit of general two-qubit X states.
The spin-1/2 XXZ chain in a uniform magnetic field at thermal equilibrium is considered. For this model, we give phase diagrams for the one-way quantum work deficit (thermal discord). The diagrams can contain regions with both stationary and variable (state-dependent) angles of optimal measurement. We also established a relationship between the behavior of optimal measurement angles near the boundaries separated different regions and Landau’s theory of phase transitions of the second and first kind. Namely, when crossing the boundary from a region with a stationary optimal measurement angle (0 or π/2) to the region with a variable angle of optimal measurement (0 < ϑ < π/2), quantum discord and one-way quantum work deficit experience a sudden change (“catastrophe”) in their behavior. The sudden change is accompanied by a splitting of the minimum characterizing stationary point of quantum correlation into two minima (i.e., bifurcation of the initial single minimum occurs). Such phenomena are analogous to phase transitions described within the Landau theory, or, more generally, by the mathematical formalism of catastrophe theory.
Correlations in quantum systems exhibit a rich phenomenology under the effect of various sources of noise. We investigate theoretically and experimentally the dynamics of quantum correlations and their classical counterparts in two nuclear magnetic resonance setups, as measured by geometric quantifiers based on trace norm. We consider two-qubit systems prepared in Bell diagonal states, and perform the experiments in real decohering environments resulting from Markovian local noise which preserves the Bell diagonal form of the states. We then report the first observation of environment-induced double sudden transitions in the geometric quantum correlations, a genuinely nonclassical effect not observable in classical correlations. The evolution of classical correlations in our physical implementation reveals in turn the finite-time relaxation to a pointer basis under nondissipative decoherence, which we characterize geometrically in full analogy with predictions based on entropic measures.
Measurements are usually introduced as probes of quantum systems, but they can also act as a powerful, intrinsically nonunitary control knob for manipulating quantum states. This thesis develops the theory, experimental realization, and detection of measurement-altered quantum criticality in one-dimension: the phenomenon where local measurements on critical wave functions reshape universal long-distance correlations, entanglement, and other scaling behaviors. We show that measurements generate defect or boundary perturbations in the underlying conformal field theory, producing new measurement-induced fixed points and new universal observables that are often invisible to the pristine theory. In transverse-field Ising chains, we design measurement-altered criticality protocols in which correlated ancillas are entangled with the critical system and then projectively measured. This setting shows that measurement basis, entangling gate, measurement outcome, and ancilla correlations can qualitatively change correlations in the system and induce outcome-dependent order-parameter condensation. We also develop nonstandard probes --- including higher moments and symmetry-resolved averages --- that retain nontrivial signatures of the post-measurement ensemble. These ideas are then connected to quantum information by studying imperfect teleportation of critical many-body wavefunctions. Teleportation errors can be reinterpreted as effective weak measurements acting on an otherwise faithfully teleported critical state. This perspective yields a classification of protocols in which imperfections either preserve universal correlations and entanglement scaling, continuously deform them, or destroy long-range entanglement while leaving altered power-law correlations behind. Measurement-altered criticality therefore becomes not only a fundamental phenomenon, but also a tool for understanding and optimizing noisy quantum-information protocols. We also broaden the framework to measurement-induced boundary physics. In a gapless parent of the one-dimensional cluster state, a single round of measurements can generate boundary conformal field theories with distinct universal properties. Rotating the measurement basis drives transitions between these boundary fixed points, producing measurement-induced boundary transitions that have no analogue in the descendant gapped cluster state. Extensions to tricritical Ising and three-state Potts criticality show that such transitions arise generally in 1+1D conformal field theories. Finally, the thesis addresses experimental access. We propose practical protocols for observing measurement-altered criticality in Rydberg atom arrays tuned to Ising and tricritical-Ising transitions, where projective measurements of selected atoms can controllably modify critical correlations with experimentally favorable post-selection probabilities. We also develop a post-selection-free framework for extracting nonlinear observables from raw measurement records using statistical learning. By recasting higher moments of conditioned observables as supervised learning objectives, the method replaces exponentially costly sector-by-sector postselection with regression whose sample complexity is controlled by decoder capacity. In critical Ising chains, linear, logistic, and convolutional decoders recover measurement-altered scaling and correlations from simulated unpostselected data. Together, these results establish measurements as a practical and universal route to engineering, diagnosing, and exploiting new forms of quantum critical behavior.
We demonstrate a hierarchy of various classes of quantum correlations on experimentally prepared two-qubit Werner-like states with controllable white noise. Werner states, which are white-noise-affected Bell states, are prototypal examples for studying such a hierarchy as a function of the amount of white noise. We experimentally generate Werner states and their generalizations, i.e., partially entangled pure states affected by white noise. These states enable us to study the hierarchy of the following classes of correlations: separability, entanglement, steering in three- and two-measurement scenarios, and Bell nonlocality. We show that the generalized Werner states (GWSs) reveal fundamentally different aspects of the hierarchy compared to the Werner states. In particular, we find five different parameter regimes of the GWSs, including those steerable in a two-measurement scenario but not violating Bell inequalities. This regime cannot be observed for the usual Werner states. Moreover, we find threshold curves separating different regimes of the quantum correlations and find the optimal states which allow for the largest amount of white noise which does not destroy their specific quantum correlations (e.g., unsteerable entanglement). Thus, we could identify the optimal Bell-nondiagonal GWSs which are, for this specific meaning, more robust against the white noise compared to the Bell-diagonal GWSs (i.e., Werner states).