Quantum Optics: Taming the Quantum

Marvellous Onuma-Kalu, Kae Nemoto, William J. Munro +1 more

An interferometric experiment is described that characterizes an optical cat state in a cavity mode. Our method describes how to measure the amplitude and phase of the different coherent states that make up the cat states. We show that using a recently proposed quantum nondemolition measurement technique, we can circumvent the problem of decoherence inherent in measurement involving superposition of coherent states.

N. Bloembergen

Stefan Tappertzhofen, Jack Alexander-Webber

Thomas W. Grimm, David Prieto, Mick van Vliet

Effective field theories consistent with quantum gravity obey surprising finiteness constraints, appearing in several distinct but interconnected forms. In this work we develop a framework that unifies these observations by proposing that the defining data of such theories, as well as the landscape of effective field theories that are valid at least up to a fixed cutoff, admit descriptions with a uniform bound on complexity. To make this precise, we use tame geometry and work in sharply o-minimal structures, in which tame sets and functions come with two integer parameters that quantify their information content; we call this pair their tame complexity. Our Finite Complexity Conjectures are supported by controlled examples in which an infinite Wilsonian expansion nevertheless admits an equivalent finite-complexity description, typically through hidden rigidity conditions such as differential or recursion relations. We further assemble evidence from string compactifications, highlighting the constraining role of moduli space geometry and the importance of dualities. This perspective also yields mathematically well-defined notions of counting and volume measures on the space of effective theories, formulated in terms of effective field theory domains and coverings, whose finiteness is naturally enforced by the conjectures.

Paul Skrzypczyk

Abstract Auxiliary quantum systems which can be borrowed to help facilitate thermodynamic processes but must be returned almost undisturbed—i.e. catalysts—are very powerful objects in quantum thermodynamics. In fact, they appear almost too powerful, since they allow for any state transformation to be carried out while being disturbed by an arbitrarily small amount. In their recent paper Ng et al (2015 New J. Phys. 17 085004 ) show how to tame catalysts in quantum thermodynamics by placing additional physical constraints on them, in terms of dimension and energy.

Miguel Orszag