8 pages, Latex, 8 figures, based on the talk given at the Eighth Rochester Conference on Coherence and Quantum Optics (June 13-16, 2001). To appear in the proceedings of CQO8 (Plenum, 2002)
Semiclassical catastrophes in the dynamics of a quantum rotor (molecule) driven by a strong time-varying field are considered. We show that for strong enough fields, a sharp peak in the rotor angular distribution can be achieved via time-domain focusing phenomenon, followed by the formation of angular rainbows and glory-like angular structures. Several scenarios leading to the enhanced angular squeezing are proposed that use specially designed and optimized sequences of pulses. The predicted effects can be observed in many processes, ranging from molecular alignment (orientation) by laser fields to heavy-ion collisions, and the squeezing of cold atoms in a pulsed optical lattice.
We introduce a new scheme for controlling the sense of molecular rotation. By varying the polarization and the delay between two ultrashort laser pulses, we induce unidirectional molecular rotation, thereby forcing the molecules to rotate clockwise/counterclockwise under field-free conditions. We show that unidirectionally rotating molecules are confined to the plane defined by the two polarization vectors of the pulses, which leads to a permanent anisotropy in the molecular angular distribution. The latter may be useful for controlling collisional cross-sections and optical and kinetic proces…
An isotropic medium, having magnetic sublevels, when subjected to a magnetic field or an electromagnetic field can induce anisotropy in the medium; and as a result the plane of polarization of the probe field can rotate. Therefore the rotation due to the magnetic field alone, can be {\em controlled efficiently} with use of a coherent field. We show, using a control field, significant enhancement of the magneto-optical rotation and demonstrate the possibility of realizing {\em magneto-optical switch}.
We report on the possibility of controlling quantum random walks with a step-dependent coin. The coin is characterized by a (single) rotation angle. Considering different rotation angles, one can find diverse probability distributions for this walk including: complete localization, Gaussian and asymmetric likes. In addition, we explore the entropy of walk in two contexts; for probability density distributions over position space and walker's internal degrees of freedom space (coin space). We show that entropy of position space can decrease for a step-dependent coin with the step-number, quite …
Statistical properties of outgoing light pulses are studies after they have been stored in a medium of atoms in the tripod configuration. A generalized Hong-Ou-Mandel interference, storing of squeezed states and homodyne signal analysis are discussed in the context of their dependence on the parameters of the control fields used for light storage and release.
In the framework of the nonlinear $Λ$-model we investigate propagation of a slow-light soliton in atomic vapors and Bose-Einstein condensates. The velocity of the slow-light soliton is controlled by a time-dependent background field created by a controlling laser. For a fairly arbitrary time dependence of the field we find the dynamics of the slow-light soliton inside the medium. We provide an analytical description for the nonlinear dependence of the velocity of the signal on the controlling field. If the background field is turned off at some moment of time, the signal stops. We find the loc…
We present the experimental control of Non-Markovian dynamics of open quantum systems simulated with photonic entities. The polarization of light is used as the system, whereas the surrounding environment is represented by light's spatial structure. The control of the dynamics is achieved by the engineering of the environment via spatial interference. Using the behavior of the trace distance, we are able to identify each dynamics and characterize the position of maximum revival of information.
We consider deflection of polarizable molecules by inhomogeneous optical fields, and analyze the role of molecular orientation and rotation in the scattering process. It is shown that molecular rotation induces spectacular rainbow-like features in the distribution of the scattering angle. Moreover, by preshaping molecular angular distribution with the help of short and strong femtosecond laser pulses, one may efficiently control the scattering process, manipulate the average deflection angle and its distribution, and reduce substantially the angular dispersion of the deflected molecules. We pr…
Photonic topological insulator plates violate Lorentz reciprocity which leads to a directionality of surface-guided modes. This in-plane directionality can be imprinted via an applied magnetic field. On the basis of macroscopic quantum electrodynamics in nonreciprocal media, we show that two photonic topological insulator surfaces are subject to a tuneable, magnetic-field dependent Casimir torque. Due to the directionality, this torque exhibits a unique $2π$ periodicity, in contradistinction to the Casimir torques encountered for reciprocal uniaxial birefringent media or corrugated surfaces wh…
We demonstrate coherent control of both the rotational and hyperfine state of ultracold, chemically stable $^{87}$Rb$^{133}$Cs molecules with external microwave fields. We create a sample of ~2000 molecules in the lowest hyperfine level of the rovibronic ground state N = 0. We measure the transition frequencies to 8 different hyperfine levels of the N = 1 state at two magnetic fields ~23 G apart. We determine accurate values of rotational and hyperfine coupling constants that agree well with previous calculations. We observe Rabi oscillations on each transition, allowing complete population tr…
We experimentally demonstrate that a single-photon detector ID210 commercially available from ID Quantique is vulnerable to blinding and can be fully controlled by bright illumination. In quantum key distribution, this vulnerability can be exploited by an eavesdropper to perform a faked-state attack giving her full knowledge of the key without being noticed. We consider the attack on standard BB84 protocol and a subcarrier-wave scheme, and outline a possible countermeasure.
We have shown that quantum interference in a driven quasi-degenerate two-level atomic system can be controlled by an externally applied magnetic field. We demonstrate that the mechanism of optical control is based on quantum interference, which allows one to implement both electromagnetically induced transparency and electromagnetically induced absorption in one atomic system. Dispersion of such the medium allows one to control group velocity of propagation of light pulses be ultra-slow or superluminal via applied magnetic field.
The Doppler effect of moving atoms can create irreversibility of light. We show that the laser field in electromagnetic induced transparency (EIT) scheme with atomic motion can control the directional propagation of two counter-propagating probe fields in atomic gas cell. The quantum coherence effect serves as an optical transistor. Interference of the two output fields from the cell shows useful feature for determining the mean atomic velocity and can be useful as quantum velocimeter. We also find that the sign of the dispersive phase in EIT has a unique property, which helps to explain certa…
Recently, it was predicted theoretically and verified experimentally that a pair of delayed and cross-polarized short laser pulses can create molecular ensembles with a well defined sense of rotation (clockwise or counterclockwise). Here we provide a comparative study of the classical and quantum aspects of the underlying mechanism for linear molecules and for symmetric tops, like benzene molecules, that were used for the first experimental demonstration of the effect. Very good quantitative agreement is found between the classical description of the process and the rigorous quantum mechanical…
It is shown that, through a super-radiant Rayleigh scattering, a strong far off-resonant pump laser applied to a Bose-Einstein condensates(BEC) can induce a non-demolition coupling of the many-mode quantized vacuum field to the BEC. This effective interaction will force the total system of the BEC plus the light field to evolve from a factorized initial state to an ideal entangled state and thus result in the quantum decoherence in the BEC. Since the effective coupling coefficients are mainly determined by the Rabi frequency of the pump laser, the quantum decoherence process can be controlled …
It is a long standing question whether or not one can change the nature of spontaneous emission by a free electron through shaping the electron wavefunction. On one hand, shaping the electron wavefunction changes the respective charge and current densities of the electron. On the other hand, spontaneous emission of an electron is an incoherent process and can often be insensitive to the shape of the electron wavefunction. In this work, we arrive at an affirmative answer examining Bremsstrahlung radiation by free electron superposition states. We find that the radiation can be markedly differen…
Quantum coherent control of slow light for all-optical switching is investigated in a multi-level system of solids for an understanding of self-induced ultraslow light. In an optical population shelving system of a rare-earth doped solid, dynamics of the slow light are presented by using a third optical field controlling shelved atom population. Unlike two-photon coherence-based delayed all-optical switching utilizing electromagnetically induced transparency, the present method relies on one-photon coherence controlling shelved atom population.
Sagnac interferometers with massive particles promise unique advantages in achieving high precision measurements of rotation rates over their optical counterparts. Recent proposals and experiments are exploring non-ballistic Sagnac interferometers where trapped atoms are transported along a closed path. This is achieved by using superpositions of internal quantum states and their control with state-dependent potentials. We address emergent questions regarding the dynamical behavior of Bose-Einstein condensates in such an interferometer and its impact on rotation sensitivity. We investigate com…
Single photon detectors based on passively-quenched avalanche photodiodes can be temporarily blinded by relatively bright light, of intensity less than a nanowatt. I describe a bright-light regime suitable for attacking a quantum key distribution system containing such detectors. In this regime, all single photon detectors in the receiver Bob are uniformly blinded by continuous illumination coming from the eavesdropper Eve. When Eve needs a certain detector in Bob to produce a click, she modifies polarization (or other parameter used to encode quantum states) of the light she sends to Bob such…
We employ heterodyne interferometry to investigate the effect of a single organic molecule on the phase of a propagating laser beam. We report on the first phase-contrast images of individual molecules and demonstrate a single-molecule electro-optical phase switch by applying a voltage to the microelectrodes embedded in the sample. Our results may find applications in single-molecule holography, fast optical coherent signal processing, and single-emitter quantum operations.
By engineering atomic geometries composed of nearly 1000 atomic segments embedded in micro-resonators we observe Bragg resonances induced by the atomic lattice at the telecommunication wavelength. The geometrical arrangement of erbium atoms into a lattice inside a silicon nitride microring resonator reduces the scattering loss at a wavelength commensurate with the lattice. We confirm dependency of light emission to the atomic positions and lattice spacing and also observe Fano interference between resonant modes in the system.
Laser control of molecular rotation is an area of active research. A number of recent studies has aimed at expanding the reach of rotational control to extreme, previously inaccessible rotational states, as well as controlling the directionality of molecular rotation. Dense ensembles of molecules undergoing ultrafast uni-directional rotation, known as molecular superrotors, are anticipated to exhibit unique properties, from spatially anisotropic diffusion and vortex formation to the creation of powerful acoustic waves and tuneable THz radiation. Here we describe our recent progress in controll…
This study proposes a pioneering protocol for teleporting an arbitrary single particle state and simultaneously performing a rotation operation on that particle. There are protocols for either only teleporting particles or only remotely controlling quantum particles. If one has to remotely control a teleported quantum, then he/she has to first do the quantum teleportation and then perform the remote control on the teleported quantum. Both operations were done separately on two sets of entanglements. However, this intuitive solution is inefficient because many resources are wasted. Therefore, t…
Quantum steering is a kind of quantum correlations stronger than entanglement but weaker than Bell-nonlocality. In an optomechanical system pumped by squeezed light and driven in the red sideband, we study-under thermal effects-stationary Gaussian steering and its asymmetry of two mechanical modes. In the resolved sideband regime using experimentally feasible parameters, we show that Gaussian steering can be created by quantum fluctuations transfer from the squeezed light to the two mechanical modes. Moreover, one-way steering can be observed by controlling the squeezing degree or the environm…
Interactions in a spin-polarized ultracold Fermi gas are governed by $p$-wave collisions and can be characterized by the $p$-wave scattering volume. Control of these collisions by Feshbach resonances is hampered by huge inelastic losses. Here, we suggest non-resonant light control of $p$-wave collisions, exploiting the anisotropic coupling of non-resonant light to the polarizability of the atoms. The $p$-wave scattering volume can be controlled by strong non-resonant light, in close analogy to the $s$-wave scattering length. For collision partners that are tightly trapped, the non-resonant lig…
We report on experimental observation of electromagnetically induced transparency and slow-light (vg ~ c/607) in atomic sodium vapor, as a potential medium for a recently proposed experiment on slow-light enhanced relative rotation sensing [11]. We have performed an interferometric measurement of the index variation associated with a two-photon resonance to estimate the dispersion characteristics of the medium that is relevant to the slow-light based rotation sensing scheme. We also show that the presence of counter-propagating pump beams in an optical Sagnac loop produces a backward optical p…
We investigate theoretically the interaction of polar molecules with optical lattices and microwave fields. We demonstrate the existence of frequency windows in the optical domain where the complex internal structure of the molecule does not influence the trapping potential of the lattice. In such frequency windows the Franck-Condon factors are so small that near-resonant interaction of vibrational levels of the molecule with the lattice fields have a negligible contribution to the polarizability and light-induced decoherences are kept to a minimum. In addition, we show that microwave fields c…
We theoretically study specific schemes for performing a fundamental two-qubit quantum gate via controlled atomic collisions by switching microscopic potentials. In particular we calculate the fidelity of a gate operation for a configuration where a potential barrier between two atoms is instantaneously removed and restored after a certain time. Possible implementations could be based on microtraps created by magnetic and electric fields, or potentials induced by laser light.
We describe a non-Abelian Berry phase in polarisation optics, suggested by an analogy due to Nityananda between boosts in special relativity and the effect of elliptic dichroism on polarised light. The analogy permits a simple optical realization of the non-Abelian gauge field describing Thomas rotation. We also show how Thomas rotation can be understood geometrically on the Poincaré sphere in terms of the Pancharatnam phase.
We investigate propagation of a slow-light soliton in atomic vapors and Bose-Einstein condensates described by the nonlinear Lambda-model. We show that the group velocity of the soliton monotonically decreases with the intensity of the controlling laser field, which decays exponentially after the laser is switched off. The shock wave of the vanishing controlling field overtakes the slow soliton and stops it, while the optical information is recorded in the medium in the form of spatially localized polarization. We find an explicit exact solution describing the whole process within the slowly v…
Quantum circuit model is the most popular paradigm for implementing complex quantum computation. Based on Cartan decomposition, we show that $2(N-1)$ generalized controlled-$X$ (GCX) gates, $6$ single-qubit rotations about the $y$- and $z$-axes, and $N+5$ single-partite $y$- and $z$-rotation-types which are defined in this paper are sufficient to simulate a controlled-unitary gate $\mathcal{U}_{cu(2\otimes N)}$ with $A$ controlling on $\mathbb{C}^2\otimes \mathbb{C}^N$. In the scenario of the unitary gate $\mathcal{U}_{cd(M\otimes N)}$ with $M\geq3$ that is locally equivalent to a diagonal uni…
A pair of atoms interacts with non-resonant light via its anisotropic polarizability. This effect can be used to tune the scattering properties of the atoms. Although the light-atom interaction varies with interatomic separation as $1/R^{3}$, the effective s-wave potential decreases more rapidly, as $1/R^{4}$ such that the field-dressed scattering length can be determined without any formal difficulty. The scattering dynamics are essentially governed by the long-range part of the interatomic interaction and can thus be accurately described by an asymptotic model [Crubellier et al., New J. Phys…
In the framework of optical quantum computing and communications, a major objective consists in building receiving nodes that implement conditional operations on incoming photons, using the interaction with a single stationary qubit. In particular, the quest for scalable nodes motivated the development of cavity-enhanced spin-photon interfaces with solid-state emitters. An important challenge remains, however, to produce a stable, controllable, spin-dependant photon state, in a deterministic way. Here we use a pillar-based high-Q cavity, embedding a singly-charged semiconductor quantum dot, to…
We show that detuned optical pulse trains with a modest spectral width can polarize nuclear spins in InAs quantum dots. The pulse bandwidth is large enough to excite a coherent superposition of both electron spin eigenstates in these negatively charged dots but narrow enough to give partial spectral selectivity between the eigenstates. The coherent precession of electron spin states and periodic excitation focuses the nuclear spin distribution, producing a discrete set of precession modes. The spectral selectivity generates a net nuclear polarization, through a mechanism that relies on optical…
Massless particles, including photons, are not governed by particle conservation law during their typical interaction with matter even at low energies, and thus have no chemical potential. However, in driven systems, near equilibrium dynamics can lead to equilibration of photons with a finite number, describable using an effective chemical potential [M. Hafezi et al., Phys. Rev. B 92, 174305 (2015)]. Here we build upon this general concept with an implementation appropriate for a photon-based quantum simulator. We consider how laser cooling of a well-isolated mechanical mode can provide an eff…
Controlling the topological properties of quantum matter is a major goal of condensed matter physics. A major effort in this direction has been devoted to using classical light in the form of Floquet drives to manipulate and induce states with non-trivial topology. A different route can be achieved with cavity photons. Here we consider a prototypical model for topological phase transition, the one-dimensional Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model, coupled to a single mode cavity. We show that quantum light can affect the topological properties of the system, including the finite-length energy spect…
We control using bright light an actively-quenched avalanche single-photon detector. Actively-quenched detectors are commonly used for quantum key distribution (QKD) in the visible and near-infrared range. This study shows that these detectors are controllable by the same attack used to hack passively-quenched and gated detectors. This demonstrates the generality of our attack and its possible applicability to eavsdropping the full secret key of all QKD systems using avalanche photodiodes (APDs). Moreover, the commercial detector model we tested (PerkinElmer SPCM-AQR) exhibits two new blinding…
By applying a circularly polarized and slightly blue-detuned microwave field with respect to the first excited rotational state of a dipolar molecule, one can engineer a long-range, shallow potential well in the entrance channel of the two colliding partners. As the applied microwave ac-field is increased, the long-range well becomes deeper and can support a certain numbers of bound states, which in turn bring the value of the molecule-molecule scattering length from a large negative value to a large positive one. We adopt an adimensional approach where the molecules are described by a rescale…
Scalable, local control over gate operations is an outstanding challenge in the field of quantum computing and programmable quantum simulation with Rydberg atom arrays. One approach is to use a global field to excite atoms to the Rydberg state, and tune individual atoms in and out of resonance via local light shifts. In this work, we point out that photon scattering errors from light shifts can be significantly reduced if the light shift is applied to the Rydberg state instead of the ground state, which can be realized in Rydberg states of alkaline earth atoms using optical transitions in the …
Ultracold molecules trapped in optical tweezers show great promise for the implementation of quantum technologies and precision measurements. We study a prototypical scenario where two interacting polar molecules placed in separate traps are controlled using an external electric field. This, for instance, enables a quantum computing scheme in which the rotational structure is used to encode the qubit states. We estimate the typical operation timescales needed for state engineering to be in the range of few microseconds. We further underline the important role of the spatial structure of the tw…
Controlling the quantum field statistics of confined light is a long-standing goal in integrated photonics. We show that by coupling molecular vibrations with a confined mid-infrared cavity vacuum, the photocount and quadrature field statistics of the cavity field can be reversibly manipulated over sub-picosecond timescales. The mechanism involves changing the cavity resonance frequency through a modulation of the dielectric response of the cavity materials using femtosecond UV pulses. For a single anharmonic molecular vibration in an infrared cavity under ultrastrong coupling conditions, the …
Dephasing processes significantly impact the performance of deterministic single-photon sources. Dephasing broadens the spectral line and suppresses the indistinguishability of the emitted photons, which is undesirable for many applications, primarily for quantum computing. We consider a light emitted by a two-level system with a pulsed incoherent pump in the presence of the spectral filter. The spectral filter allows control of the second-order autocorrelation function, indistinguishability, and quantum yield. We show that narrow spectral filters can increase the indistinguishability of the e…
Induced coherence in parametric down-conversion between two coherently pumped nonlinear crystals that share a common idler mode can be used as an imaging technique. Based on the interference between the two signal modes of the crystals, an image can be reconstructed. By obtaining an expression for the interference pattern that is valid in both the low- and the high-gain regimes of parametric down-conversion, we show how the coherence of the light emitted by the two crystals can be controlled. With our comprehensive analysis we provide deeper insight into recent discussions about the applicatio…
The rotational dynamics of particles subject to external illumination is found to produce light amplification and inelastic scattering at high rotation velocities. Light emission at frequencies shifted with respect to the incident light by twice the rotation frequency dominates over elastic scattering within a wide range of light and rotation frequencies. Remarkably, net amplification of the incident light is produced in this classical linear system via stimulated emission. Large optically-induced acceleration rates are predicted in vacuum accompanied by moderate heating of the particle, thus …
