Based on an observation that the basic mode of a common microwave waveguide is a solution to the Klein-Gordon equation, quantum mechanics is modeled as the wave-function propagated inside a waveguide. The guide width is determined by the rest-energy and the potential energy. Moreover, a geometrical optics model of the propagation illustrates how the width as a function of distance determines the velocity and accelerations of the particle. The model entails the disappearance of action-at-a-distance problem, and that interactions are conveyed via the potential, i.e. by photons.
A classical optics waveguide structure is proposed to simulate resonances of short range one-dimensional potentials in quantum mechanics. The analogy is based on the well known resemblance between the guided and radiation modes of a waveguide with the bound and scattering states of a quantum well. As resonances are scattering states that spend some time in the zone of influence of the scatterer, we associate them with the leaky modes of a waveguide, the latter characterized by suffering attenuation in the direction of propagation but increasing exponentially in the transverse directions. The r…
We study an analogue of the equations describing TE and TM modes in a planar waveguide with an arbitrary continuous dependence of the electric permittivity and magnetic permeability on coordinates with the stationary Schrödinger equation. The effective potential energies involved in the Schrödinger equation for TE and TM modes are found. In general, the effective potential energies for TE and TM modes are different but in the limit of a weak dependence of the permittivity and permeability on coordinates they coincide. In the case when the product of a position-dependent permittivity and permea…
An analogy is explored between a setup of three atomic traps coupled via tunneling and an internal atomic three-level system interacting with two laser fields. Within this scenario we describe a STIRAP like process which allows to move an atom between the ground states of two trapping potentials and analyze its robustness. This analogy is extended to other robust and coherent transport schemes and to systems of more than a single atom. Finally it is applied to manipulate external degrees of freedom of atomic wave packets propagating in waveguides.
All the previous studies on photonic tunneling are just based on a simple and directly analogy with a one-dimensional quantum-mechanical tunneling, without taking into account the horizontal structure of electromagnetic waves along the waveguide, such that they are oversimplified and incomplete. Here we present a more serious deliberation on photonic tunneling through cut-off waveguides, and obtain a strictly theoretical model with some new results.
In the paper, we show that there exists a close analogy between the behavior of de Broglie matter waves and that of electromagnetic waves inside a hollow waveguide, such that the guided photons can be treated as free massive particles subject to a relativistic quantum-mechanical equation. Inspired by the effective rest mass of guided photons and the zitterbewegung phenomenon of the Dirac electron, at variance with the well-known Higgs mechanism we present some different heuristic ideas on the origin of mass.
We analyze the single-photon transport in a single-mode waveguide coupled to a whispering-gallery-type resonator interacting with a two-level atom. The single-photon transport properties such as the transmission and reflection amplitudes, as well as the resonator and the atom responses, are solved exactly via a real-space approach. The treatment includes the inter-mode backscattering between the two degenerate whispering gallery modes of the resonator, and the dissipations of the resonator and the atom. We also show that a generalized critical coupling condition, that the single-photon transmi…
We review here some conventional as well as less conventional aspects of the time-independent and time-dependent Hamilton-Jacobi (HJ) theory and of its connections with Quantum Mechanics. Less conventional aspects involve the HJ theory on the tangent bundle of a configuration manifold, the quantum HJ theory, HJ problems for general differential operators and the HJ problem for Lie groups.
We experimentally investigate the suitability of a multi-path waveguide interferometer with mechanical shutters for performing a test for hypercomplex quantum mechanics. Probing the interferometer with coherent light we systematically analyse the influence of experimental imperfections that could lead to a false-positive test result. In particular, we analyse the effects of detector nonlinearity, input-power and phase fluctuations on different timescales, closed-state transmissivity of shutters and crosstalk between different interferometer paths. In our experiment, a seemingly small shutter t…
We present a direct mapping between the quantum optomechanical problem of the atoms harmonically trapped in the vicinity of a chiral waveguide and a generalized quantum Rabi model and discuss the analogy between the self-organization of atomic chains in photonic structures and Dicke-like quantum phase transitions in the ultrastrong coupling regime. We extend the class of the superradiant phase transitions for the systems possessing $\mathbb{Z}_3$ rather than parity $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry and demonstrate the emergence of the multicomponent Schrodinger cat ground states in these systems.
We study phase contributions of wave functions that occur in the evolution of Gaussian surface gravity water wave packets with nonzero initial momenta propagating in the presence and absence of an effective external linear potential. Our approach takes advantage of the fact that in contrast to matter waves, water waves allow us to measure both their amplitudes and phases.
In this paper, we propose an effective model including a macroscopic Hamiltonian to describe the interactions between a two-level atom and scattered light in a 1-D dielectric waveguide. The proposed formalism allows us to incorporate the effect of changing optical media inside the continuum while demonstrating a non-classical derivation of Fresnel Law. We obtain the transport characteristics of the two-level system, explore its high-Q bandreject filter property and discuss the implications of radiative and non-radiative dissipation. In addition, we apply our formalism to a modified Fabry-Pérot…
The ability to create, manipulate and detect non-classical states of light has been key for many recent achievements in quantum physics and for developing quantum technologies. Achieving the same level of control over phonons, the quanta of vibrations, could have a similar impact, in particular on the fields of quantum sensing and quantum information processing. Here we present a crucial step towards this level of control and realize a single-mode waveguide for individual phonons in a suspended silicon micro-structure. We use a cavity-waveguide architecture, where the cavity is used as a sourc…
We analyze the dynamics of single photon transport in a single-mode waveguide coupled to a micro-optical resonator using a fully quantum mechanical model. We examine the propagation of a single-photon Gaussian packet through the system under various coupling conditions. We review the theory of single photon transport phenomena as applied to the system and we develop a discussion on the numerical technique we used to solve for dynamical behavior of the quantized field. To demonstrate our method and to establish robust single photon results, we study the process of adiabatically lowering or rais…
Some interpretations of quantum mechanics use notions of possible states and possible trajectories. I investigate how this modal approach correlates with several metaphysical conceptions of a transition from potential to actual existence. The comparison is based on a discussion in contemporary analytical metaphysics of modality. I also consider an analogy between Leibniz's theory of the possibilities striving towards existence, wave mechanics of Schrodinger, and Feynman path integral.
Dirac's Poisson-bracket-to-commutator analogy for the transition from classical to quantum mechanics assures that for many systems, the classical and quantum systems share the same algebraic structure. The quantum side of the analogy (involving operators on Hilbert space with commutators scaled by Planck's constant $\hbar$) not only gives the algebraic structure but also dictates the average values of physical quantities in the quantum ground state. On the other hand, the Poisson brackets of nonrelativistic mechanics, which give only the classical canonical transformations, do not give any val…
We propose a novel ultrafast electronic switching device based on dual-graphene electron waveguides, in analogy to the optical dual-channel waveguide device. The design utilizes the principle of coherent quantum mechanical tunneling of Rabi oscillations between the two graphene electron waveguides. Based on a modified coupled mode theory, we construct a theoretical model to analyse the device characteristics, and predict that the swtiching speed is faster than 1 ps. Due to the long mean free path of electrons in graphene at room temperature, the proposed design avoids the limitation of low tem…
Non-zero curvature in a waveguide leads to the appearance of an attractive quantum potential which crucially affects the dynamics in matter-wave circuits. Using methods of supersymmetric quantum mechanics, pairs of bent waveguides are found whose geometry-induced potentials share the same scattering properties. As a result, reflectionless waveguides, dual to the straight waveguide, are identified. Strictly isospectral waveguides are also found by modulating the depth of the trapping potential. Numerical simulations are used to demonstrate the efficiency of these approaches in tailoring and con…
Observations of thermally driven transverse vibration of a photonic crystal waveguide (PCW) are reported. The PCW consists of two parallel nanobeams with a 240 nm vacuum gap between the beams. Models are developed and validated for the transduction of beam motion to phase and amplitude modulation of a weak optical probe propagating in a guided mode (GM) of the PCW for probe frequencies far from and near to the dielectric band edge. Since our PCW has been designed for near-field atom trapping, this research provides a foundation for evaluating possible deleterious effects of thermal motion on o…
We investigate chiral emission and the single-photon scattering of spinning cavities coupled to a meandering waveguide at multiple coupling points. It is shown that nonreciprocal photon transmissions occur in the cavities-waveguide system, which stems from interference effects among different coupling points, and frequency shifts induced by the Sagnac effect. The nonlocal interference is akin to the mechanism in giant atoms. In the single-cavity setup, by optimizing the spinning velocity and number of coupling points, the chiral factor can approach 1, and the chiral direction can be freely swi…
Using Fermat's least optical path principle the family of ray-trajectories through a special but common type of a gradient refractive index lens, n(r)=n_0+Δn R/r, is solved analytically. The solution, i.e. the ray-equation r(phi), is shown to be closely related to the famous Rutherford scattering and therefore termed photonic Rutherford scattering. It is shown that not only do these classical limits correspond, but also the wave-mechanical pictures coincide: The time-independent Schrödingier equation and the inhomogeneous Helmholz equation permit the same mapping between massive particle scatt…
Once considered essential to the explanation of electromagnetic phenomena, the ether was eventually discarded after the advent of special relativity. The lack of empirical signature of realist interpretative schemes of quantum mechanics, like Bohmian trajectories, has led some to conclude that, just like the ether, they can be dispensed with, replaced by the corresponding emergence of the concept of information. Although devices like Bohmian trajectories and the ether do present important analogies, I argue that there is also a crucial difference, related to distinct explanatory functions of q…
Similarities between the non-deterministic nature of quantum theory and the unpredictable patterns of human cognition and decision making have been observed and commented on many times since the invention of Quantum Mechanics in the first part of the 20th century. Niels Bohr himself took note of the parallels.[3] In fact, an entire field of study, Quantum Cognition, has been borne from the study of this analogy. [3] However, many of the attempts to model human behavior with quantum mechanics conflate the identity of a particle with its own wavefunction, which is incorrect and invalidates the a…
Actual realisations of EPR experiments do {\em not} demonstrate non-locality. A model is presented that should enable non-specialists as well as specialists to understand how easy it is to find realistic explanations for the observations. The model also suggests new areas where realistic (``hidden-variable'') models can give valid predictions whilst quantum mechanics fails. It offers straightforward explanations for some anomalies that Aspect was unable to account for, providing perhaps the first experimental evidence that a hidden-variable theory can be {\em superior} to quantum mechanics. Th…
We investigate the quantum mechanics of a single particle constrained to move along an arbitrary smooth reference curve by a confinement that is allowed to vary along the waveguide. The Schrödinger equation is evaluated in the adapted coordinate frame and a transverse mode decomposition is performed, taking into account both curvature and torsion effects and the possibility of a cross-section potential that changes along the curve in an arbitrary way. We discuss the adiabatic structure of the problem, and examine nonadiabatic couplings that arise due to the curved geometry, the varying transve…
It is well known that the statistics of closed classical systems evolves according to the Liouville theorem. Here we study the dynamics of the marginal statistics of classical systems coupled to external degrees of freedom, by developing a time-local equation of motion using Green's functions and a series expansion method. We also compare this equation of motion with its supposed quantum counterpart, namely the quantum master equation, which we hope could shed some light on quantum-classical analogy (QCA) from the perspective of "open system dynamics". We notice an apparent exception to QCA in…
If a quantum mechanical particle is scattered by a potential well, the wave function of the particle can propagate with negative phase time. Due to the analogy of the Schrödinger and the Helmholtz equation this phenomenon is expected to be observable for electromagnetic wave propagation. Experimental data of electromagnetic wells realized by wave guides filled with different dielectrics confirm this conjecture now.
Quantum parallelism implies a spread of information over the space in contradistinction to the classical mechanical situation where the information is "centered" on a fixed trajectory of a classical particle. This means that a quantum state becomes specified by more indefinite data. The above spread resembles, without being an exact analogy, a transfer of energy to smaller and smaller scales observed in the hydrodynamical turbulence. There, in spite of the presence of dissipation (in a form of kinematic viscosity), energy is still conserved. The analogy with the information spread in classical…
We explore the hydrodynamic analogues of quantum wave-particle duality in the context of a bouncing droplet system which we model in such a way as to promote comparisons to the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation of quantum mechanics. Through numerical means we obtain single-slit diffraction and double-slit interference patterns that strongly resemble those reported in experiment and that reflect a striking resemblance to quantum diffraction and interference on a phenomenological level. We, however, identify evident differences from quantum mechanics which arise from the governing equations at the …
We report on the experimental realization of a photonic system that simulates the one-dimensional two-particle Hubbard model. This analogy is realized by means of two-dimensional arrays of coupled optical waveguides, fabricated using femtosecond laser inscription. By tuning the analogous "interaction strength", we reach the strongly-interacting regime of the Hubbard Hamiltonian, and demonstrate the suppression of standard tunneling for individual "particles". In this regime, the formation of bound states is identified through the direct observation of pair tunneling. We then demonstrate the co…
We investigated some influences of unconventional physics, such Lorentz-symmetry violation, for quantum mechanical systems. In this context, we calculated a important contribution for Standard Model Extension. In the non-relativistic limit, we obtained a analogy of the Landau levels and the quantum Hall conductivity related to this contribution for low energy systems.
Nano-mechanical oscillators as well as Rydberg-atomic waveguides hosted on micro-fabricated chip surfaces hold promise to become pillars of future quantum technologies. In a hybrid platform with both, we show that beams of Rydberg atoms in waveguides can quantum-coherently interrogate and manipulate nanomechanical elements, allowing full quantum state tomography. Central to the tomography are quantum non-demolition measurements using the Rydberg atoms as probes. Quantum coherent displacement of the oscillator is also made possible, by driving the atoms with external fields while they interact …
We discuss Bohmian paths of the two-level atoms moving in a waveguide through an external resonance-producing field, perpendicular to the waveguide, and localized in a region of finite diameter. The time spent by a particle in a potential region is not well-defined in the standard quantum mechanics, but it is well-defined in the Bohmian mechanics. Bohm's theory is used for calculating the average time spent by a transmitted particle inside the field region and the arrival-time distributions at the edges of the field region. Using the Runge-Kutta method for the integration of the guidance law, …
Quantum-statistical effects occur during the propagation of electromagnetic (EM) waves inside the dielectric media or metamaterials, which include a large class of nanophotonic and plasmonic waveguides with dissipation and noise. Exploiting the formal analogy between the Schrodinger equation and the Maxwell equations for dielectric linear media, we rigorously derive the effective Hamiltonian operator which describes such propagation. This operator turns out to be essentially non-Hermitian in general, and pseudo-Hermitian in some special cases. Using the density operator approach for general no…
Tunneling photons pose no challenge to Bohmian mechanics
Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale and School of Physical Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China(合肥微尺度物质科学国家研究中心和物理科学学院,中国科学技术大学);Shanghai Research Center for Quantum Science and CAS Center for Excellence in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China(上海量子科学研究中心和中国科学院量子信息重点实验室,中国科学技术大学);Hefei National Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China(合肥国家实验室,中国科学技术大学)
Dissipation is generally thought to affect the quantum nature of the system in an adverse manner, however we show that dissipatively coupled nano systems can be prepared in states which beat the standard quantum limit of the mechanical motion. We show that the reactive coupling between the waveguide and the microdisk resonator can generate the squeezing of the waveguide by injecting a quantum field and laser into the resonator through the waveguide. The waveguide can show about 70--75% of maximal squeezing for temperature about 1--10 mK. The maximum squeezing can be achieved with incident pump…
A hypothetical formulation of quantum mechanics is presented so as to reconcile it with macro-realism. On the analogy drawn from thermodynamics, an objective description of wave packet reduction is postulated, in which a characteristic energy scale and a time scale are introduced to separate the quantum and classical conceptions.
Currently, some approaches to the associated Legendre functions based on different factorization methods are known. However, they have not allowed identifying new properties that permit to improve our knowledge of any physical system. In this letter, we show that the set of all the associated Legendre functions can be understood in analogy to the state space of the free electromagnetic field. Thanks to this correspondence we hope that any system, classical or quantum, described by such set of functions can be physically understood by using this analogy. We illustrate our results showing that t…
Elements of a "deeper level" explanation of the deBroglie-Bohm (dBB) version of quantum mechanics are presented. Our explanation is based on an analogy of quantum wave-particle duality with bouncing droplets in an oscillating medium, the latter being identified as the vacuum's zero-point field. A hydrodynamic analogy of a similar type has recently come under criticism by Richardson et al., because despite striking similarities at a phenomenological level the governing equations related to the force on the particle are evidently different for the hydrodynamic and the quantum descriptions, respe…
In this article, we show that in the level of quantum mechanics, a photon position operator with commuting components can be obtained in a more natural way; in the level of quantum field theory, the photon position operator corresponds to the center of the photon number. It is most interesting for us to show that, a photon inside a waveguide can be localized in the same sense that a massive particle can be localized in free space, and just as that it is impossible to localize a massive particle with a greater precision than its Compton wavelength, one can also arrival at a similar conclusion: …
We propose and analyze a hybrid device by integrating a microscale diamond beam with a single built-in nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center spin to a superconducting coplanar waveguide (CPW) cavity. We find that under an ac electric field the quantized motion of the diamond beam can strongly couple to the single cavity photons via dielectric interaction. Together with the strong spin-motion interaction via a large magnetic field gradient, it provides a hybrid quantum device where the dia- mond resonator can strongly couple both to the single microwave cavity photons and to the single NV center spin. T…
We develop a rigorous theoretical framework for interaction-induced phenomena in the waveguide quantum electrodynamics (QED) driven by mechanical oscillations of the qubits. Specifically, we predict that the simplest set-up of two qubits, harmonically trapped over an optical waveguide, enables the ultrastrong coupling regime of the quantum optomechanical interaction. Moreover, the combination of the inherent open nature of the system and the strong optomechanical coupling leads to emerging parity-time (\PT) symmetry, quite unexpected for a purely quantum system without artificially engineered …
In this paper, we provide a rigorous quantum mechanical derivation for the coherent photon transport characteristics of a two-level atom coupled to a waveguide without linearizing the coupling coefficient between the light and the atom. We propose a novel single frequency sampling method utilizing a UV-cutoff that allows us to treat the singularities in real space scattering potential despite the non-convergence property. We also study the conditions under which the linearization of the coupling coefficient is an accurate assumption and find the resulting spontaneous emission and transport cha…
We point out a formal analogy between the Dirac equation in Majorana form and the discrete-velocity version of the Boltzmann kinetic equation. By a systematic analysis based on the theory of operator splitting, this analogy is shown to turn into a concrete and efficient computational method, providing a unified treatment of relativistic and non-relativistic quantum mechanics. This might have potentially far-reaching implications for both classical and quantum computing, because it shows that, by splitting time along the three spatial directions, quantum information (Dirac-Majorana wavefunction…
Following a strong analogy with two-dimensional physics, the three-body pseudo-potential in one dimension is derived. The Born approximation is then considered in the context of ultracold atoms in a linear harmonic waveguide. In the vicinity of the dimer threshold a direct connection is made between the zero-range potential and the dimensional reduction of the three-body Schr{ö}dinger equation.
Quantum correlations between distant particles remain enigmatic since the birth of quantum mechanics. Here we predict a novel kind of bound quantum state in the simplest one-dimensional setup of two interacting particles in a box. Paradoxically, two entangled particles become localized at the opposite edges of the box even though their interactions at large distance should seemingly play no role. Such states could be realized in the waveguide quantum electrodynamics platform, where an array of superconducting qubits or cold atoms is coupled to a waveguide. We demonstrate how long-range wavegui…
Quantum engineering using photonic structures offer new capabilities for atom-photon interactions for quantum optics and atomic physics, which could eventually lead to integrated quantum devices. Despite the rapid progress in the variety of structures, coherent excitation of the motional states of atoms in a photonic waveguide using guided modes has yet to be demonstrated. Here, we use the waveguide mode of a hollow-core photonic crystal fibre to manipulate the mechanical Fock states of single atoms in a harmonic potential inside the fibre. We create a large array of Schrödinger cat states, a …
The quantum hydrodynamic analogy (QHA), equivalent to the Schrödinger equation, is investigated and extended to the stochastic case. The investigation shows that in addition to reproducing the standard quantum mechanics the QHA model is able to generally describe the quantum stochastic dynamics leading to the dissipative Schrödinger equation given by Kostin [55] as a particular case. The inspection shows that the QHA is well suited for the treatment of problems where local noise (spatially distributed one) is introduced. In this case the analysis shows that the bi-univocal correspondence betwe…
Some ideas from quantum theory are just beginning to percolate back to classical probability theory. For example, there is a widely used and successful theory of "chemical reaction networks", which describes the interactions of molecules in a stochastic rather than quantum way. Computer science and population biology use the same ideas under a different name: "stochastic Petri nets". But if we look at these theories from the perspective of quantum theory, they turn out to involve creation and annihilation operators, coherent states and other well-known ideas - but in a context where probabilit…
We construct a non-Grassmann spinning-particle model which, by analogy with quantum mechanics, does not admit the notion of a trajectory within the position space. The pseudo-classical character of the model allows us to avoid the inconsistencies arising in the quantum-mechanical interpretation of a one-particle sector of the Dirac equation.
We demonstrate that a tensor product structure and optical analogy of quantum entanglement can be obtained by introducing pseudorandom phase sequences into classical fields with two orthogonal modes. Using the classical analogy, we discuss efficient simulation of several typical quantum states, including product state, Bell states, GHZ state, and W state. By performing quadrature demodulation scheme, we propose a sequence permutation mechanism to simulate certain quantum states and a generalized gate array model to simulate quantum algorithm, such as Shor's algorithm and Grover's algorithm. Th…