State representations summarize our knowledge about a system. When unobservable quantities are introduced the state representation is typically no longer unique. However, this non-uniqueness does not affect subsequent inferences based on any observable data. We demonstrate that the inference-free subspace may be extracted whenever the quantity's unobservability is guaranteed by a global conservation law. This result can generalize even without such a guarantee. In particular, we examine the coherent-state representation of a laser where the absolute phase of the electromagnetic field is believed to be unobservable. We show that experimental coherent states may be separated from the inference-free subspaces induced by this unobservable phase. These physical states may then be approximated by coherent states in a relative-phase Hilbert space.
We consider a finite-time quantum Otto heat engine that consists of two isochoric (thermal-contact) process, where the system is alternatively coupled to a hot squeezed and a cold thermal reservoir, and two unitary driven strokes, where the system is isolated from these two baths and its von Neumann entropy keeps constant. Both quantum inner friction and coherence are generated along the driven stroke and coherence cannot be fully erased after the finite-time hot isochore. Using full counting statistics, we present the probability distribution functions of heat injection and total work per cyc…
Certain quantum states are well-known to be particularly fragile in the presence of decoherence, as illustrated by Schrodinger's famous gedanken cat experiment. It has been better appreciated more recently that quantum states can be characterized in a hierarchy of quantum quantities such entanglement, quantum correlations, and quantum coherence. It has been conjectured that each of these quantities have various degrees of fragility in the presence of decoherence. Here we experimentally confirm this conjecture by preparing tripartite photonic states and subjecting them to controlled amounts of …
We develop a theoretical framework for the analysis of the quantum coherence of light emitted by two independent single-photon sources in an arbitrary environment. The theory provides design rules for the control of the degree of quantum coherence, in terms of classical quantities widely used in nanophotonics. As an important example, we derive generalized conditions to generate superradiant and subradiant states of the emitters, and demonstrate the ability of a structured environment to induce long-range quantum coherence. These results should have broad applications in quantum nanophotonics,…
We consider two co-moving atoms on a stationary trajectory and develop a formalism to characterize the properties of such atoms. We give a criterion under which quantum coherence (QC) is frozen to a nonzero value and show that the frozen condition (FC) is not so sensitive to the initial condition of state. We introduce the concept super- and subradiant spontaneous excitation rates which plays an equivalent role as conventional collective emission rates in the evolution of quantum coherence. We also give the general relationship between the quantities characterizing properties of atoms in therm…
In this study, we model a harmonic oscillator that enters an interferometer partially coupled to a thermal bath of oscillatory fields by employing a Brownian-type Lindblad master equation. More specifically, we investigate the dynamics and the variations of the thermodynamic quantities of the system at different temperatures. We recognize that although the system can remain coherent during its interaction with the thermal bath in the low-temperature limit, the system's entropy production violates the Clausius inequality. Furthermore, we argue that the system's coherence is the source of this v…
Coherence and correlation are key features of the quantum system. Quantifying these quantities are astounding task in the framework of resource theory of quantum information processing. In this article, we identify an affinity-based metric to quantify closeness between two states. Using this metric, we introduce a valid quantum coherence measure. It is shown that the affinity based coherence measure is bounded by that based on fidelity and trace distance. Further, we propose a bipartite quantum correlation measure based on the affinity metric. The connection between the quantum correlation of …
Small solid state qubits, most prominently single spins in solids, can be remarkable sensors for various physical quantities ranging from magnetic fields to temperature. They package the performance of their bulk semiconductor counterparts into a nanoscale device, sometimes as small as a single atom. This review is a minimalist introduction into this concept. It gives a brief summary of quantum coherence, Ramsey spectroscopy and a derivation of the "standard quantum limit" of the sensitivity that a single-qubit sensor can reach. It goes on to discuss the surprising improvement that dynamical d…
The conservation of physical quantities under coordinate transformations, known as gauge invariance, has been the foundation of theoretical frameworks in both quantum and classical theory. The finding of gauge-invariant quantities has enabled the geometric and topological interpretations of quantum phenomena with the Berry phase, or the separation of quark and gluon contributions in quantum chromodynamics. Here, with an example of quantum geometric quantities-Berry connection, phase, and curvature-we extract a new gauge-invariant quantity by applying a "weak value picture". By employing differ…
A parameterization of the density operator, a coherence vector representation, which uses a basis of orthogonal, traceless, Hermitian matrices is discussed. Using this parameterization we find the region of permissible vectors which represent a density operator. The inequalities which specify the region are shown to involve the Casimir invariants of the group. In particular cases, this allows the determination of degeneracies in the spectrum of the operator. The identification of the Casimir invariants also provides a method of constructing quantities which are invariant under {\it local} unit…
Perturbative approach to the first law of quantum thermodynamics
Universidade Federal Fluminense（弗鲁米嫩塞联邦大学）；SENAI CIMATEC（塞纳伊西马特克中心）；EMBRAPII CIMATEC Competence Center in Quantum Technologies（量子技术能力中心（EMBRAPII CIMATEC））；Universidade Federal do Oeste da Bahia（巴伊亚西部联邦大学）
We characterize the distillation of quantum coherence in the one-shot setting, that is, the conversion of general quantum states into maximally coherent states under different classes of quantum operations. We show that the maximally incoherent operations (MIO) and the dephasing-covariant incoherent operations (DIO) have the same power in the task of one-shot coherence distillation. We establish that the one-shot distillable coherence under MIO and DIO is efficiently computable with a semidefinite program, which we show to correspond to a quantum hypothesis testing problem. Further, we introdu…
We analyze a basis-independent definition of quantum coherence. The maximally mixed state is used as the reference state, which allows for a way of defining coherence that is invariant under arbitrary unitary transformations. The basis-independent approach is applied to finding the distri- bution of the coherence within a multipartite system, where the contributions due to correlations between the subsystems and within each subsystem are isolated. The use of the square root of the Jensen-Shannon divergence allows for inequality relations to be derived between these quantities, giving a geometr…
Quantum coherence is a key element in topical research on quantum resource theories and a primary facilitator for design and implementation of quantum technologies. However, the resourcefulness of quantum coherence is severely restricted by environmental noise, which is indicated by the loss of information in a quantum system, measured in terms of its purity. In this work, we derive the limits imposed by the mixedness of a quantum system on the amount of quantum coherence that it can possess. We obtain an analytical trade-off between the two quantities that upperbound the maximum quantum coher…
We formulate the Frobenius-norm-based measures for quantum coherence and asymmetry respectively. In contrast to the resource theory of coherence and asymmetry, we construct a natural measure of quantum coherence inspired from optical coherence theory while the group theoretical approach is employed to quantify the asymmetry of quantum states. Besides their simple structures and explicit physical meanings, we observe that these quantities are intimately related to the purity (or linear entropy) of the corresponding quantum states. Remarkably, we demonstrate that the proposed coherence quantifie…
Quantum coherence is an essential resource for quantum information processing and various quantitative measures of it have been introduced. However, the interconnections between these measures are not yet understood properly. Here, using a large set of randomly prepared $X$ states and analytically obtained expressions of various measures of coherence (e.g., relative entropy of coherence, $l1$ norm of coherence, coherence via skew information, and first-order coherence), it is established that these measures of quantum coherence cannot be used to perform ordering of a set of quantum states base…
Recent studies have pointed out the intrinsic dependence of figures of merit of thermodynamic relevance -- such as work, heat and entropy production -- on the amount of quantum coherences that is made available to a system. However, whether coherences hinder or enhance the value taken by such quantifiers of thermodynamic performance is yet to be ascertained. We show that, when considering entropy production generated in a process taking a finite-size bipartite quantum system out of equilibrium through local non-unitary channels, no general monotonicity relationship exists between the entropy p…
Quantum coherence is the most fundamental of all quantum quantifiers, underlying other well-known quantities such as entanglement, quantum discord, and Bell correlations. It can be distributed in a multipartite system in various ways -- for example, in a bipartite system it can exist within subsystems (local coherence) or collectively between the subsystems (global coherence) and exhibits a trade-off relation. In quantum systems with more than two subsystems, there are more trade-off relations, due to the various decomposition ways of the coherence. In this paper, we experimentally verify thes…
A major signature of quantum mechanics beyond classical physics is coherence, the existence of superposition states. The recently developed resource theory of quantum coherence allows the formalisation of incoherent operations -- those operations which cannot create coherence. We identify the set of operations which additionally do not use coherence. These are such that coherence cannot be exploited by a classical observer, who measures incoherent properties of the system, to go beyond classical dynamics. We give a physical interpretation in terms of interferometry and prove a dilation theorem…
The recent developments of electron quantum optics in quantum Hall edge channels have given us new ways to probe the behavior of electrons in quantum conductors. It has brought new quantities called electronic coherences under the spotlight. In this paper, we explore the relations between electron quantum optics and signal processing through a global review of the various methods for accessing single- and two-electron coherences in electron quantum optics. We interpret electron quantum optics interference experiments as analog signal processing converting quantum signals into experimentally ob…
We discuss the dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well trap subject to phase noise and particle loss. The phase coherence of a weakly-interacting condensate as well as the response to an external driving show a pronounced stochastic resonance effect: Both quantities become maximal for a finite value of the dissipation rate matching the intrinsic time scales of the system. Even stronger effects are observed when dissipation acts in concurrence with strong inter-particle interactions, restoring the purity of the condensate almost completely and increasing the phase coherence sign…
Variance is a ubiquitous quantity in quantum information theory. Given a basis, we consider the averaged variances of a fixed diagonal observable in a pure state under all possible permutations on the components of the pure state and call it the symmetrized variance. Moreover we work out the analytical expression of the symmetrized variance and find that such expression is in the factorized form where two factors separately depends on the diagonal observable and quantum state. By shifting the factor corresponding to the diagonal observable, we introduce the notion named the standard symmetrize…
A comparative study of pairwise quantum coherence, quantum and classical correlations is addressed for non-nearest spin pairs of the 1D Heisenberg spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ XX chain. Following the Jordan-Wigner mapping, we diagonalise the hamiltonian of the chain and we check this procedure numerically as well. Using the "Pauli basis expansion" formalism we get the pairwise quantities studied in this work at any distance. We then, show the role of quantum correlations in revealing quantum phase transitions, the robustness of quantum discord to the temperature and the dominance of quantum correlations…
In the presence of conservation laws, superpositions of eigenstates of the corresponding conserved quantities cannot be generated by quantum dynamics. Thus, any such coherence represents a potentially valuable resource of asymmetry, which can be used, for example, to enhance the precision of quantum metrology or to enable state transitions in quantum thermodynamics. Here we ask if such superpositions, already present in a reference system, can be broadcast to other systems, thereby distributing asymmetry indefinitely at the expense of creating correlations. We prove a no-go theorem showing tha…
We study the properties of bi-squeezed tripartite Gaussian states created by two spontaneous parametric down-conversion processes that share a common idler. We give a complete description of the quantum correlations across of all partitions, as well as of the genuine multipartite entanglement, obtaining analytical expressions for most of the quantities of interest. We find that the state contains genuine tripartite entanglement, in addition to the bipartite entanglement among the modes that are directly squeezed. We also investigate the effect of homodyne detection of the photons in the common…
Out-of-time-order correlations (OTOCs) characterize the scrambling, or delocalization, of quantum information over all the degrees of freedom of a system and thus have been proposed as a proxy for chaos in quantum systems. Recent experimental progress in measuring OTOCs calls for a more thorough understanding of how these quantities characterize complex quantum systems, most importantly in terms of the buildup of entanglement. Although a connection between OTOCs and entanglement entropy has been derived, the latter only quantifies entanglement in pure systems and is hard to access experimental…
Nowadays, geometric tools are being used to treat a huge class of problems of quantum information science. By understanding the interplay between the geometry of the state space and information-theoretic quantities, it is possible to obtain less trivial and more robust physical constraints on quantum systems. In this sense, here we establish a geometric lower bound for the Wigner-Yanase skew information (WYSI), a well-known information theoretic quantity recently recognized as a proper quantum coherence measure. Starting from a mixed state evolving under unitary dynamics, while WYSI is a const…
Unitary-accessible coherence-erasure distance: Exact qubit solution and a tight qutrit bound
Changchun University of Technology（长春工业大学）；Yanbian University（延边大学）；Capital Normal University（首都师范大学）；Max-Planck-Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences（马克斯·普朗克科学促进部数理研究所）
A controversy that has arisen many times over in disparate contexts is whether quantum coherences between eigenstates of certain quantities are fact or fiction. We present a pedagogical introduction to the debate in the form of a hypothetical dialogue between proponents from each of the two camps: a factist and a fictionist. A resolution of the debate can be achieved, we argue, by recognizing that quantum states do not only contain information about the intrinsic properties of a system but about its extrinsic properties as well, that is, about its relation to other systems external to it. Spec…
Machine learning-aided direct estimation of coherence and entanglement for unknown states
Jimei University（集美大学）；Hunan Normal University（湖南师范大学）；Shaanxi Normal University（陕西师范大学）；Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学）；Shanghai Seres Information Technology Co., Ltd（上海思必驰信息科技有限公司）；Southern University of Science and Technology（南方科技大学）；Capital Normal University（首都师范大学）；Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences（马克斯·普朗克科学促进学会数学研究所）
Progress on the study of synchronisation in quantum systems has been largely driven by specific examples which resulted in several examples of frequency entrainment as well as mutual synchronisation. Here we study quantum synchronisation by utilising Liouville space perturbation theory. We begin by clarifying the role of centers, symmetries and oscillating coherences in the context of quantum synchronisation. We then analyse the eigenspectrum of the Liouville superoperator generating the dynamics of the quantum system and determine the conditions under which synchronisation arises. We apply ou…
In a standard interferometry experiment, one measures the phase difference between two paths by recombining the two wave packets on a beam-splitter. However, it has been recently recognized that the phase can also be estimated via local measurements, by using an ancillary particle in a known superposition state. In this work, we further analyse these protocols for different types of particles (bosons or fermions, charged or uncharged), with a particular emphasis on the subtleties that arise when the phase is due to the coupling to an abelian gauge field. In that case, we show that the measurab…
For a system strongly coupled to a heat bath, the quantum coherence of the system and the heat bath plays an important role in the system dynamics. This is particularly true in the case of non-Markovian noise. We rigorously investigate the influence of system-bath coherence by deriving the reduced hierarchal equations of motion (HEOM), not only in real time, but also in imaginary time, which represents an inverse temperature. It is shown that the HEOM in real time obtained when we include the system-bath coherence of the initial thermal equilibrium state possess the same form as those obtained…
When a quantum state undergoes a quantum channel, the state will be inevitably influenced. In general, the fidelity of the state is reduced, so is the entanglement if the sub- systems go through the channel. However, the influence on the coherence of the state is quite different. Here we present some state-independent quantities to describe to what degree the fidelity, the entanglement and the coherence of the state are influenced. As applications, we consider some quantum channels on a qubit and find that the infidelity ability monotonically depends on the decay rate, but in usual the decoher…
If we reduce coherence in a given quantum system, the result is an increase in entropy. Does this necessarily convert this quantum system into a classical system? The answer to this question is No. The decrease of coherence means more uncertainty. This does not seem to make the system closer to classical system where there are no uncertainties. We examine the problem using two coupled harmonic oscillators where we make observations on one of them while the other oscillator is assumed to be unobservable or to be in Feynman's rest of the universe. Our ignorance about the rest of the universe cau…
The dynamics of relative entropy and $l_{1}$-norm of coherence, as well as, the Wigner-Yanase-skew and quantum Fisher information are studied for a time-dependent coupled XY spin chain in presence of a time-dependent transverse magnetic field. Independent of the initial state of the system and while the relative entropy of coherence, $l_{1}$-norm of coherence, and quantum Fisher information are incapable, surprisingly, the dynamic Wigner-Yanase-skew information can truly spotlight the equilibrium critical point. We also observe that when the system is quenched to the critical point, these quan…
Mixtures of coherent states are commonly regarded as classical. Here we show that there is a quantum advantage in discriminating between coherent states in a mixture, implying the presence of quantum properties in the mixture, which are however not captured by commonly used non-classicality measures. We identify a set of desired properties for any non-classicality measure that aims to capture these quantum features, and define the discord potential CD, which we show to satisfy all those properties. We compare the discord potential with recently proposed coherence monotones, and prove that the …
We present methods for evaluating the rate of change in quantities during quantum evolution due to coupling to the environment (dissipation hereafter). The protocol is based on repeating a given quantum circuit (or quantum operation) twice, thrice, and so on, and measuring an expectation value after each number of repetitions. We start by applying this method for measuring the rate of purity changes in quantum circuits. This provides direct information on the quality of the circuit. Furthermore, the presented scheme enables to distill the dissipative contribution in the changes of quantities s…
For an electron spin in coupling with an interacting spin chain via hyperfine-type interaction, we investigate the dynamical evolutions of the pairwise entanglement of the spin chain and a correlation function joined the electron spin with a pair of chain spins in correspondence to the electron spin coherence evolution. Both quantities manifest a periodic and a decaying evolution. The entanglement of the spin bath is significant in distinguishing the zero-coherence status exhibited in periodic and decoherence evolutions of the electron spin. The periodical concurrence evolution of the spin bat…
Quantum anomalies are violations of classical scaling symmetries caused by quantum fluctuations. Although they appear prominently in quantum field theory to regularize divergent physical quantities, their influence on experimental observables is difficult to discern. Here, we discovered a striking manifestation of a quantum anomaly in the momentum-space dynamics of a 2D Fermi superfluid of ultracold atoms. We measured the position and pair momentum distribution of the superfluid during a breathing mode cycle for different interaction strengths across the BEC-BCS crossover. Whereas the system e…
