Maciej Lewenstein

The classical Kramers-Henneberger transformation connects, via a series of unitary transformations, the dynamics of a quantum particle of mass $m$ located in a trap at position $α(t)$, with the dynamics of a charge $e$ moving in an electric field $e{\cal{E}}(t)=-m\ddotα(t)$ within the dipole approximation. In this paper, we extend the classical Kramers-Henneberger transformation to the quantum electrodynamic and quantum optical realm, by explicitly treating the trap location quantum mechanically, thus taking into account the quantum fluctuations of the time-dependent displacement force. Compared to the classical case, we show that quantum electrodynamic corrections appear, and we propose an optomechanical realization for the quantized position of the trap to show that such corrections can manifest in state-of-the-art experiments. These results open the path to novel quantum simulation of quantum electrodynamics and quantum optics of attoscience and ultrafast physics by using ultracold trapped atoms and ions.

We consider the dynamics in the one-dimensional quantum Ising model in which each spin coherently interacts with its phononic mode. The model is motivated by quantum simulators based on Rydberg atoms in tweezers or trapped ions. The configuration of two domain walls simulates the particle-antiparticle connecting string. We concentrate on the effect the local vibrations have on the dynamics of this initial state. Our study supplements recent investigations of string breaking, traditionally studied within quantum chromodynamics (QCD), to quantum many-body systems. Two regimes are identified depending on the strength of the coupling with local vibrations. For weak coupling, the string breaking is slowed down as compared to the dynamics in an isolated Ising string. The strong coupling leads to complicated dynamics in which the domain wall character of excitation is dissolved among many coupled states.

Gauge-field configurations with nontrivial topology have profound consequences for the physics of Abelian and non-Abelian gauge theories. Over time, arguments have been gathering for the existence of gauge-field configurations with fractional topological charge, called fractons. Ground-state properties of gauge theories can drastically change in presence of fractons in the path integral. However, understanding the origin of such fractons is usually restricted to semiclassical argumentation. Here, we show that fractons persist in strongly correlated many-body systems, using the multiflavor Schwinger model of quantum electrodynamics as a paradigm example. Through detailed numerical tensor-network analysis, we find strong fracton signatures even in highly discretized lattice models, at sizes that are implementable on already existing quantum-simulation devices. Our work sheds light on how the nontrivial topology of gauge theories persists in challenging nonperturbative regimes, and it shows a path forward to probing it in tabletop experiments.

Resource-efficient quantum state tomography is one of the key ingredients of future quantum technologies. In this work, we propose a new tomography protocol combining standard quantum state reconstruction methods with an attention-based neural network architecture. We show how the proposed protocol is able to improve the averaged fidelity reconstruction over linear inversion and maximum-likelihood estimation in the finite-statistics regime, reducing at least by an order of magnitude the amount of necessary training data. We demonstrate the potential use of our protocol in physically relevant scenarios, in particular, to certify metrological resources in the form of many-body entanglement generated during the spin squeezing protocols. This could be implemented with the current quantum simulator platforms, such as trapped ions, and ultra-cold atoms in optical lattices.

Recently it has been demonstrated that an ensemble of trapped ions may serve as a quantum annealer for the number-partitioning problem [Nature Comm. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms11524]. This hard computational problem may be addressed employing a tunable spin glass architecture. Following the proposal of the trapped ions annealer, we study here its robustness against thermal effects, that is, we investigate the role played by thermal phonons. For the efficient description of the system, we use a semiclassical approach, and benchmark it against the exact quantum evolution. The aim is to understand better and characterize how the quantum device approaches a solution of, an otherwise, difficult to solve NP-hard problem.

The most typical ingredient of topologically protected quantum states are magnetic fluxes. In a system of spins, complex-valued interaction parameters give rise to a flux, if their phases do not add up to zero along a closed loop. Here we apply periodic driving, a powerful tool for quantum engineering, to a trapped-ion quantum simulator in order to generate such spin-spin interactions. We consider a simple driving scheme, consisting of a repeated series of locally quenched fields, and demonstrate the feasibility of this approach by studying the dynamics of a small system. An emblematic hallmark of the flux, accessible in experiments, is the appearance of chiral spin currents. Strikingly, we find that in parameter regimes where, in the absence of fluxes, phonon excitations dramatically reduce the fidelity of the spin model simulation, the spin dynamics remains widely unaffected by the phonons when fluxes are present.

We present a route towards the quantum simulation of exotic quantum magnetism in ion traps by exploiting dual relations between different spin models. Our strategy allows one to start from Hamiltonians that can be realized with current technology, while properties of an exotic dual model are inferred from measurements of non-local, string-order-like, operators. The latter can be achieved from fluorescence, or from certain spectroscopic measurements, both of which can be combined with finite-size scaling by controlling the number of ions in the dual quantum simulator. We apply this concept to propose quantum simulators of frustrated quantum magnets, and Ising models with multi-spin interactions. We test the validity of the idea by showing numerically that the predictions of an ideal dual quantum simulator are not qualitatively modified by relevant perturbations that occur naturally in the trapped-ion scenario.

Exploiting quantum properties to outperform classical ways of information-processing is an outstanding goal of modern physics. A promising route is quantum simulation, which aims at implementing relevant and computationally hard problems in controllable quantum systems. Here we demonstrate that in a trapped ion setup, with present day technology, it is possible to realize a spin model of the Mattis type that exhibits spin glass phases. Remarkably, our method produces the glassy behavior without the need for any disorder potential, just by controlling the detuning of the spin-phonon coupling. Applying a transverse field, the system can be used to benchmark quantum annealing strategies which aim at reaching the ground state of the spin glass starting from the paramagnetic phase. In the vicinity of a phonon resonance, the problem maps onto number partitioning, and instances which are difficult to address classically can be implemented.

Engineering topological quantum order has become a major field of physics. Many advances have been made by synthesizing gauge fields in cold atomic systems. Here, we carry over these developments to other platforms which are extremely well suited for quantum engineering, namely trapped ions and nano-trapped atoms. Since these systems are typically one-dimensional, the action of artificial magnetic fields has so far received little attention. However, exploiting the long-range nature of interactions, loops with non-vanishing magnetic fluxes become possible even in one-dimensional settings. This gives rise to intriguing phenomena, such as fractal energy spectra, flat bands with localized edge states, and topological many-body states. We elaborate on a simple scheme for generating the required artificial fluxes by periodically driving an XY spin chain. Concrete estimates demonstrating the experimental feasibility for trapped ions and atoms in waveguides are given.

Quantum-optical techniques allow for generating controllable spin-spin interactions between ions, making trapped ions an ideal quantum simulator of Heisenberg chains. A single parameter, the detuning of the Raman coupling, allows to switch between ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic chains, and to modify the range of the interactions. On the antiferromagnetic side, the system can be tuned from an extreme long-range limit, in which any pair of ions interacts with almost equal strength, to interactions with a $1/r^3$ decay. By exact diagonalization, we study how a system of up to 20 ions behaves upon tuning the interactions. We find that it undergoes a transition from a dimerized state with extremely short-ranged correlations towards a state with quasi long-range order, that is, algebraically decaying correlations. On the ferromagnetic side of the system, we demonstrate the feasibility of witnessing non-locality of quantum correlations.

A scheme to generate long-range spin-spin interactions between three-level ions in a chain is presented, providing a feasible experimental route to the rich physics of well-known $SU_3$ models. In particular, we demonstrate different signatures of quantum chaos which can be controlled and observed in experiments with trapped ions.

We use a quantum Monte Carlo method to investigate various classes of 2D spin models with long-range interactions at low temperatures. In particular, we study a dipolar XXZ model with U(1) symmetry that appears as a hard-core boson limit of an extended Hubbard model describing polarized dipolar atoms or molecules in an optical lattice. Tunneling, in such a model, is short-range, whereas density-density couplings decay with distance following a cubic power law. We investigate also an XXZ model with long-range couplings of all three spin components - such a model describes a system of ultracold ions in a lattice of microtraps. We describe an approximate phase diagram for such systems at zero and at finite temperature, and compare their properties. In particular, we compare the extent of crystalline, super?uid, and supersolid phases. Our predictions apply directly to current experiments with mesoscopic numbers of polar molecules and trapped ions.

Systems with long-range interactions show a variety of intriguing properties: they typically accommodate many meta-stable states, they can give rise to spontaneous formation of supersolids, and they can lead to counterintuitive thermodynamic behavior. However, the increased complexity that comes with long-range interactions strongly hinders theoretical studies. This makes a quantum simulator for long-range models highly desirable. Here, we show that a chain of trapped ions can be used to quantum simulate a one-dimensional model of hard-core bosons with dipolar off-site interaction and tunneling, equivalent to a dipolar XXZ spin-1/2 chain. We explore the rich phase diagram of this model in detail, employing perturbative mean-field theory, exact diagonalization, and quasiexact numerical techniques (density-matrix renormalization group and infinite time evolving block decimation). We find that the complete devil's staircase -- an infinite sequence of crystal states existing at vanishing tunneling -- spreads to a succession of lobes similar to the Mott-lobes found in Bose--Hubbard models. Investigating the melting of these crystal states at increased tunneling, we do not find (contrary to similar two-dimensional models) clear indications of supersolid behavior in the region around the melting transition. However, we find that inside the insulating lobes there are quasi-long range (algebraic) correlations, opposed to models with nearest-neighbor tunneling which show exponential decay of correlations.

We consider experimentally feasible chains of trapped ions with pseudo-spin 1/2, and find models that can potentially be used to implement error-resistant quantum computation. Similar in spirit to classical neural networks, the error-resistance of the system is achieved by encoding the qubits distributed over the whole system. We therefore call our system a ''quantum neural network'', and present a ''quantum neural network model of quantum computation''. Qubits are encoded in a few quasi-degenerated low energy levels of the whole system, separated by a large gap from the excited states, and large energy barriers between themselves. We investigate protocols for implementing a universal set of quantum logic gates in the system, by adiabatic passage of a few low-lying energy levels of the whole system. Naturally appearing and potentially dangerous distributed noise in the system leaves the fidelity of the computation virtually unchanged, if it is not too strong. The computation is also naturally resilient to local perturbations of the spins.

We demonstrate the possibility of realizing a neural network in a chain of trapped ions with induced long range interactions. Such models permit one to store information distributed over the whole system. The storage capacity of such network, which depends on the phonon spectrum of the system, can be controlled by changing the external trapping potential. We analyze the implementation of error resistant universal quantum information processing in such systems.

We report our research on disordered complex systems using cold gases and trapped ions, and address the possibility of using complex systems for quantum information processing. Two simple paradigmatic models of disordered complex systems are revisited here. The first one corresponds to a short range disordered Ising Hamiltonian (spin glasses), which can be implemented with a Bose-Fermi (Bose-Bose) mixture in a disordered optical lattice. The second model we address here is a long range disordered Hamiltonian, characteristic of neural networks (Hopfield model), which can be implemented in a chain of trapped ions with appropriately designed interactions.

We investigate quantum information processing and manipulations in disordered systems of ultracold atoms and trapped ions. First, we demonstrate generation of entanglement and local realization of quantum gates in a quantum spin glass system. Entanglement in such systems attains significantly high values, after quenched averaging, and has a stable positive value for arbitrary times. Complex systems with long range interactions, such as ion chains or dipolar atomic gases, can be modeled by neural network Hamiltonians. In such systems, we find the characteristic time of persistence of quenched averaged entanglement, and also find the time of its revival.